Shop Codes Top Merchant Leaves CJ
My best performing merchant ever is leaving the Commission Junction network this month.
I started promoting JD Williams from 2nd October 2006. It is no coincidence that my Shop Codes traffic and commissions subsequently grew exponentially from this time.
Promoting the JD Williams brand, which is an umbrella network of approximately 25 mail order catalogue sites, was a masterstroke, with its combination of new customer discounts and free gift promotional codes.
JD Williams split those brands across two affiliate networks, CJ and DGM. They include websites such as Simply Be, Crazy Clearance, VivaLaDiva, Christmas Gifts Direct, Autumn Clearance, PremierMan, House of Bath, Summer Clearance, …
With budget restraints JD Williams have now had to consolidate their affiliate programs down to one network. It’s not been reported which, if any, will transfer over. Assuming DGM will remain their one network.
I found an email I sent just 6 weeks after signing-up, dated 17th November 2006, to the then affiliate manager. It began:
“My promotion of JD Williams this Christmas on both the CJ network and DGM has been very successful this November.
“I have generated £14,800 sales on the CJ network with a further £9,134 on the DGM network, totalling £24,000.”
Now, looking back, that is remarkable. I have to stress all of these sales were from organic SEO traffic and not Pay-Per-Click. I know because my site was appearing as the number one result for key search phrases.
In fact my initial email was to ask if I could brand bid on PPC because I knew if I were to lose that good organic ranking, I’d lose nice commissions overnight. We didn’t follow that up as the sales continued right up to Christmas.
In the first 5 months of promoting JD Williams, I generated £95,000 worth of sales on the CJ network alone. With that I surpassed a JD Williams set target and in early 2007 received a £1,250 cash bonus as a performance incentive.
2007 and this Christmas was just as strong.
JD Williams on CJ, you shall be missed. This will leave a big big hole in my CJ statistics. There are only a couple of merchants exclusively on that network now that are still worth promoting.
I really don’t understand these ‘budget constraint’ type explanations. Whilst network costs do vary, they don’t vary by so much that it’s significantly cheaper on one network than another – afterall, they’re sales led.
Gadget – by operating on one network, you are halving the override costs, paying one network instead of two. Personally, I don’t understand why merchants use multiple networks other than to get more affiliates to join. Perhaps there’s something I’m missing here!
I’ve just seen that DGM have announced this, and that they will be launching the brands that are currently promoted exclusively on CJ on their network around the time that they expire on CJ.
network consolidation to one exclusive network is one hell of a means to cut down on your override costs, nothing else. Whether the network is able to offer you quality service & not lose money on your account when you’re paying the override that everyone has heard is the latest craze is a different question altogether.