April 18, 2006

Jeff Pullen
President and CEO
Commission Junction
530 East Montecito Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Dear Mr. Pullen:

I write regarding our unacceptable experiences with Commission Junction’s payout policies and recklessly false correspondence to our publishers.

Several of our publishers received the following response from CJ representatives regarding their commissions for the month of April:

“Unfortunately, at this point it looks like drjays.com does not have sufficient funds in their account to payout their publishers”

Further investigation showed that, per CJ policy, we needed to have a positive account balance at a vaguely defined time between the 10th or 20th of each month, despite our funding our account three times per month. In the event that our account balance was negative when CJ’s payout script began to run (a time completely unknowable to the advertiser), CJ would withhold all commissions and performance incentives, including commissions/incentives from past months for which money was already paid to CJ. As if this wasn’t enough, not only was CJ falsely telling our publishers that we couldn’t pay, but did so before the payout script even began to run.

CJ’s use and endorsement of such a woefully archaic, simplistic, and dysfunctional payout process severely debilitates the business and interests of advertisers and their publishers. The only possible explanation for such a system is that it allows CJ to hoard funds while deflecting any commission inquiries to the fault of the advertiser. CJ’s insistence that an “Access” account ought be self-maintained is impossible when advertisers are not even apprised of the exact time that funds are required.. Our only available assurance of commission/incentive payout is to ceaselessly deposit funds into our account.

CJ would balk at the suggestion that it payout commissions on its own dime on the promise that we would pay them back at a later date. We too are reviled by the idea that we should constantly pre-pay CJ and remain at the behest of a payout system that has no regard for the interests of advertisers, repeatedly delays commissions to publishers, and tells publishers that its our fault.

In short, I take strong exception to such poor form on CJ’s part and demand proper explanation. “This is our policy” is an unacceptable catch phrase that explains nothing and only betrays CJ’s willingness to stand proud upon the unjustly strained backs of its membership. We will be informing our publishers of our experiences with CJ and the true reasons why they have not properly received their hard-earned commissions.

I eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely,

Casey K. Lee
Marketing Analyst
DrJays.com
Account No. 645361

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The prepayment / commission float methods suit some advertisers but a lot seem to have difficulties being able to work in this way. The problem seems to be at the point of account reconciliation. The Cj system can work on two fronts, for advertisers they can raise an invoice based on a forecast or they can use their credit cards to top up. The first can be problematic as there is no way you can predict if sales are going to suddenly increase, thus the funds run out very quickly. No funds, your program gets deactivated. But at least with this method there is some accountability, the down side is that you do have to keep logging in and checking. The latter is a bit more of an issue as you need to wait for your credit card statement at the end of each month to reconcile accounts.

These measures were implemented for a variety of reasons. If advertisers were to pay after the affiliate based transactions have taken place, the time taken between sending an invoice out and retrieving payment can take months. Prepayment also signals to affiliates that they can promote this advertiser and know they will get paid. Historically some advertisers have absconded on the old traditional invoice method.

I can see things from both sides but I probably would not have sent such a public dressing down, what do you think?

Jess Luthi
AffiliateProgramAdvice
jess@affiliateprogramadvice.com

The Networked Readiness Index from the World Economic Forum looks at various factors such as how much countries are using the web to increase competitiveness. The US regained the top position from Singapore, which is now ranked in second place. Denmark is in third place and the UK has moved up two places from 12th last year to tenth position.

The top 10 list in the Index is as follows: US, Singapore, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Canada, Taiwan, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Augusto Lopez-Claros, director of the Global Competitiveness Network at the World Economic Forum said: “Information and communication technologies presently represent one of the most important drivers in boosting efficiency and productivity in today’s fast changing economy.” (source IMRG)