I always make a point not to slam someone when you are having a current bitter experience. In that case, most of the stuff you write becomes too personal.

However, since so long I wanted to slam cj.com and today they gave a chance.

I used to use cj during good ole days of 2003 when there was no alternate. Just CJ, Befree, valueclick, linkshare. Later CJ swallowed Befree and Valueclick.

Fast forward to 2009, cj still lives in 2003 mode. Publishers do not carry any value at all with them.

Before I go into my personal experience, here are a few top reasons why I quit using them. I am no biggie still I used to do a consistant 3-4K a month in 2003-04.
1.    They started charging $10 per month to publisher if your account is not producing any revenue. Haha never heard in web’s history.

2.    Eventually your account will be shut down if you were not using them and then you have to open up a new account with all your approved advertisers gone.

3.    Working with cj, no news is good news. Never will cj call you with their ideas of how can they help you increase your traffic / revenue. They will only call on the slightest suspicion and will put your account on hold.

4.    Affiliate Manager – Cj does not even know if this term exists. There is no personal touch at all.

5.    Campaigns – If you get rejected by any advertiser, there is very little that cj can assist. Compare it with XY7, we talked to our affiliate manager Brandon. They were not having an exact campaign for us, they took the pain to find out the campaign exclusive for us and they are taking pains to even change the graphic etc for the campaign.

6.    Payments – Totally on the mercy of advertiser. They have all rights to extend your payment. Once advertisers review your payment, extend it, then clock it, then lock it, then close it, then whatever it, then you will get in the queue of getting the payment. Then probably you will get payment on day 75-90 of when you generated the payment. Hah if you are spending money on PPC, you are indeed screwed for big time.

7.    Compare with any other affiliate program. The moment you start doing $100 a day, the affiliate manager will start following you. You will get a raise. You can negotiate the rates. You will even get the weekly wires for as little as $1 K a week. I got that while dealing with Azoogle, copeac, cpaempire, xy7, millnic, hydra and a few others. With CJ if you make $1 K a week, get ready for your commission to be extended for another month and then be ready for the dreaded email from their quality people.

8.    After very long time I used CJ in the month of September. Made may be $150-$200 (After stopping the campaign in passive earning though I made like $700 at cj). Obviously in the month of October, commission got extended. Hah now after 75 days of actually generating the revenue I have been asked by CJ to prove from where I generated traffic. Obviously I stopped using that campaign same time when they extended the commission. Got a very good deal from Randy @ Pricelinepartnernetwork. They pay me weekly and currently I am doing over 5K a week with them.
And that is my experience who has been using cj on and off since 2001.

Haha. Oh yes By The Way when they acquired valueclick same thing happened. Valueclick owed me some very little amount, not even worthwhile doing follow up (like $80-$85). So I simply forgot that money and never really followed up with valueclick. After 5 years, two months back started getting some nice emails regarding my past due and was asked to update my profile immediate like within 24 hours. Obviously spare $80 does not byte. Updated the profile and all such, nice email communication – But no money.

Heck I am done with them for good. If they pay me my remaining $700 good else it is not even worthwhile to follow the paper tail with these morons.

Nitin Tripathi