Make Money Online With Commission Junction - 5 Easy Steps

Commission Junction is a popular affiliate program super store with hundreds and thousands of companies listing their products for promotions. Commission Junction which some people simply call it CJ is a great place to visit if you want to market products that are tangible as compared to ClickBank which are digital products like eBooks and software. You can still make great commissions by selling physical products.

Depending what type of niche market you're going in, sometimes you have tangible products that fit right in, so it's good to know where to find these products. For instance, you might have a fitness website and you are writing content on fitness machines. Usually a good idea to capitalize on this content is to integrate AdSense or simply recommending a fitness guide at the bottom of your article. But after finishing your content, why not adding a few recommended fitness equipment and machines that can give a nice body workout. This is how you can take advantage on other aspects of affiliate marketing targeting tangible products meaning more income sources. With CJ, finding tangible products is easy. Here are 5 easy steps to get started with CJ and make money online:

(1) Joining Commission Junction

First step is to go to cj.com. Get an account with them and get approved. You need to apply for a Commission Junction publisher account.

(2) Getting Company Affiliate Approval

Once approved, go to your account. Click on "Get Links". You will see different Advertiser Categories. Browse those that are related to your site. You can also do a direct search targeting "Advertisers", "Links", "Products". Since you're first getting started, it's easier to search by keywords related to your site. For example, if your site is about BBQ, select "Products" from the drop down menu and type keywords like "bbq", "bbq equipment", "bbq tools". Once you get the results, click on the product name and click "Join Program" at the bottom where you see "Relationship Status". You need to join the company's program first before being able to promote its products. After getting approved and the "Relationship Status" set to active, you can now promote. It's important to check out the commission rate that seems more profitable for you. Usually commissions for tangible products can range in the 3-15%. It's lesser than digital products because there are higher costs involved like shipping and other costs as well.

(3) Setting Affiliate Link

After being accepted in the program, that company's website will now be listed in the drop down menu on the main page at the bottom under "My Advertisers" just after you login to CJ. When you click on "Go", you can always browse through that company's products and get links. You can search by "Product" keywords, "All(Except Products)" and more. Setting affiliate links in CJ is easy. When you click on a particular product name, look for the "Product Destination" link and right click on it and Copy Link Location. Paste it somewhere in a text file. Now, click on "Get HTML" at the bottom. You will see a link in <a href=> starting from "http" to "?url=". There can be several of them in different boxes but just select one. Highlight from the "http" to "?url=" and copy that link and paste it in the earlier text file. Now cut and paste that earlier "Product Destination" link just after "?url=". You now have your affiliate link for that product. Same procedure can be repeated for other products.

(4) Selling Commission Junction Products

Once you get your affiliate links set up, time to start promoting them and make money online. A good way to sell tangible products is to write informative content and reviews on your site about the products themselves or writing an article about a topic related to these products then recommend these products after. For instance, say you are selling barbecue equipment, you might want to write content on how to make nice barbecue marinades and recipes, then in the end, recommend some quality barbecue equipment. People reading articles on barbecue recipes might be interested to buy a barbecue set. Another example is say you are giving tips about your exercise routine and your protein intake from supplements, you can recommend some protein supplements at the end. You can use some product images along with your promotion text and affiliate links. To check if you made any sales, just login to your CJ account where you can see stats about commission earned, sales, clicks, balance, payment status and you can also run reports.

(5) Getting Some Search Engine Traffic

Driving targeted traffic to your product pages is crucial if you want to make money. Doing some search engine optimization for your pages is a good step forward. Optimizing the titles with some keyword phrases even obscure ones can generate some little targeted traffic which can result in sales. Along with great original content, your pages will get value from the search engines. And getting valuable inbound links to your site is key to boost your link popularity and give your pages link strength.

If you don't have several income sources for your affiliate marketing, it's time to diversify and CJ can be a great add-on to your website's income streams. Diversifying is always a good strategy because relying on only one program to make money online or putting all your eggs in one basket like we say is risky. Good luck.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jean Lam is a self-taught internet marketer and has been making a living online since 2004. He is the author of the popular eBook "Top Search Engine Ranking Secrets in Google Revealed" which has helped many businesses get more traffic and sales from the search engines and other traffic generation methods. Click here to pick up your own copy