I just caught Commission Junction red handed this time!

So past week, one of my friends was trying to buy a web hosting plan and I suggested him - given the current price with deals - to go for iPage and he purchased the web hosting through my affiliate link.
Guess what? Been 1 week - and the there's no transaction report from iPage on my CJ panel.

I emailed the representative twice and haven't received any reply although it has been over 5 days now. I also contacted the live support, met a lady who was friendly but couldn't solve the issue. She basically asked for my user info and my friend's username and told me I should be hearing back from the affiliate support soon. Fast forward 2 more days...... Heard nothing so far.

I also emailed the direct affiliate support (unrelated to CJ) about it and they ask the same thing: Please verify your friend's username and stuffs. After I replied to them, I haven't heard anything. (2 days over, and counting)

How are we supposed to trust these affiliate programs at all? What % of conversion rate is normal for a [manually listed] coupon website?
I get about 65% organic traffic from Google. I don't have banner ads on the website in question. I use text links (affiliate links that gets people discounts)... so when users click, they know what they're doing. Moreover most of my visitors visit my site to click on those links. And yet, CJ shows no transactions although I get 20-50 clicks on any given day.

This is so suspicious. I consistently see live visitors pop up on my google analytics map who are looking for coupons and at the end of the day when I see the clicks but no sales reported, I get disheartened. The numbers don't add up.
Should I email CJ about this? What are your experiences?

It's easy to be skeptical when it comes to affiliate programs considering how easy it would be to rip people off, especially when you've now ran into this issue with your friends sale not being tracked through your link.

Unfortunately I don't know too much about CJ, but one thing I can tell you though is.... iPage's affiliate program can be very picky in regards to what they consider as a sale.

iPage is owned by a company named Endurance International Group, which owns around 65 different hosting companies. You can see them listed here on Wikipedia. There are rules in their TOS for what they consider a sale, and if I remember correctly(correct me if I'm wrong), they apply to all the different websites they own.

So for example some of them are that the sale must be made from a unique IP address and a unique credit card. I don't know if your friend previously had a web host or not, but maybe it's possible they did, and maybe it's also possible they used one of their other companies. So your sale would be disqualified if he's using the same IP or Credit Card. I think they validate the name and address to some degree.

But anyways, maybe you could ask him about that just to make sure. But otherwise, maybe you just need to wait a bit longer to hear back from CJ. Also, you could always just sign up directly at iPage to be an affiliate and bypass CJ altogether.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Thanks for your opinion,
My friend is actually new to web hosting. He hasn't had anything to do with websites prior to this one. He has his own internet so we don't even have the same IP. And he used his own credit card for payment.
I had a sale last month...Should have had more this month (increased traffic) but seems like iPage isn't tracking properly or is shaving.

ephman said:

Thanks for your opinion,
My friend is actually new to web hosting. He hasn't had anything to do with websites prior to this one. He has his own internet so we don't even have the same IP. And he used his own credit card for payment.
I had a sale last month...Should have had more this month (increased traffic) but seems like iPage isn't tracking properly or is shaving.

Click to expand...

Yes that is the truth. CJ has weak tracking system. No matter what other say i think CJ should improve their statistics.

CJ is... lacking.
I dislike them greatly.
Yes, I suspect them as well and have run "traps" myself.
I believe you are correct.

On a related note, ShareaSale has an equally weak tracking system.
I have generated mucho traffic, legit and artificial, just to see their system work. My numbers do not match theirs. 30k is not 30. There is a quantitative and qualitative difference there.
I believe they also are thieves.

He probably didn't use your affiliatelink - people think they pay more or loose something when someone else earns on it.
May have been by mistake (closing tab, then revisiting in another tab via direct url) or as mentioned above.
No matter how often he pretends to have used it - don't believe 100%

I had a service years ago with a referral program and it was flawless - its code, if its set - it works. A friend signed up, said he used the reflink provided but guess what? He didn't Since the ref-program was successful with plenty of users signing up via reflink every day for months, the script was not to blame.

Edit:
The only way to really test it, is signing up on your own using your aff-link for someone else (since referring yourself is most probably forbidden) from a different device and IP.

There could be lots of various issues you know.
Nothing regarding "good will"

I have been online since 97 so trust me, i lost so many sales because of bad tracking, cookie problems name it !
But also add to this SHAVING @#$%$#@

Are they doing it ? In fact who's doing it really ? I don't know !
One thing is for sure. I would not send one single surfer to their program anymore
Heck it's MY traffic which i work my ass all day long to generate.
If their system sucks, well that's THEIR problem.

Move on if you are 99.9% sure
2cents

P.S.
Why i think CS'ying ain't really a bad thing.
I mean i showed them the customer FIRST. Give me my cut if he f%$%# buys PERIOD
Tho i don't do it as it's too "hot"
I guess i prefer getting the stick where it belongs hahahahahaha

Thanks for the opinions and the opinion-givers above. Trust me when I say that the sale was a valid sale and it was made through a valid link. I contacted the support and they finally (after 10 days and tons of emails, back and forth) attached that sale to my account. Furthermore, someone from the particular hosting company's support team went so far as to say "we will attach this sale as a one time courtesy sale, but in the future we will not be obliged to do it"..........Common! Man your platform's tracking is rigged: fixing that should be your priority rather than waiting for affiliates to contact you individually with proofs.

TL;DR. The matter has been settled but has raised more real doubts than ever before. As a matter of fact, after I settled the dispute, guess what? There are sales recorded on a daily basis now. Might just be my confirmation bias, but could as well be the case that the advertisers now don't want to shave from my transactions....Because I will raise the issue again if they get caught.

Whatever is bad shouldn't matter...

fact is you reported that you referred your friend, and that
should have been enough to at least put you on the radar
for credit for the sale.

that's why there are support people... to fix things.


edit: just saw they did give you credit, but a one (1) time courtesy...
I'm going to move away from them -- what a rotten attitude to have!

Many people tell me that dude i just purchase the thing from your link. I visit my CJ account and no conversion or anything. Hope someone invent a method where we can track the purchase ourselves.

cj dont track sales sometimes... same issue with me.. but sorted..

Thanks for sharing your story. I find the EPCs on Clickbank often lower than that in Sharesale for the same vendors.

zadaw said:

Thanks for sharing your story. I find the EPCs on Clickbank often lower than that in Sharesale for the same vendors.

Click to expand...

You couldn't find an older story to get your postcount up?
Try harder!

Ugh, I was contemplating coming back to CJ, thanks for this, will be avoiding like a plague.

Its really difficult to say why your sell is not counted. But yes if your friend purchase from any of their partner company then you are not going to get the commission.

I have never used them. interesting though

Had your friend previously visited ipage? maybe they drop a cookie as the original referer or something? maybe he clicked thru on a google ad when searching for it?

Good to see the conflict was resolved but that only proves they're engaging in shenanigans. I guess they put you into their "Do Not Rip Off List". I guess anyone who isn't trapping them and confronting them is automatically listed as a mark to be exploited.

I am not keen on CJ but they do work for some people and I always wonder if it's the affiliate installing the code incorrectly or trying to hide something that is the problem. I'm new to CJ and so far haven't made a dime but it's still very early days and although this is interesting there are people making good money from cj. I hope these incidences are few and not common.