{"id":5889,"date":"2026-08-28T18:51:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enactsoft.com\/resources\/?post_type=docs&p=5889"},"modified":"2026-08-26T17:10:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:40:04","password":"","slug":"cj-affiliate-integration","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/www.enactsoft.com\/resources\/cj-affiliate-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Commission Junction (CJ) Integration Guide: API, PIDs and Publisher Approval"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Commission<\/figure>\n\n\n

Commission Junction, now simply “CJ”, is one of the oldest affiliate networks still running, and one of the least forgiving if you get the identifiers wrong. A commission junction integration lives or dies on four small pieces of data: PID, AID, CID and SID. Get those wrong and every commission that comes back through CJ’s API is untraceable, you’ll see revenue land in your CJ dashboard with no way to credit the user who earned it. This guide walks through what it actually takes to connect CJ to cashback website infrastructure: the two generations of API CJ runs, how CJ’s data model maps onto a wallet, what happens when a sale gets reversed, and how to test the whole pipeline before you trust it with real user balances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is CJ Integration?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A commission junction integration connects a cashback or coupon platform’s publisher account to CJ’s network, so joined advertisers, tracking links, and commission data sync automatically into your own systems. If you’re weighing CJ against other networks, our overview of how affiliate networks fit into a commission junction affiliate marketing sales funnel<\/a> covers the broader picture. CJ authenticates with a Bearer Personal Access Token rather than OAuth, and splits its API into a modern GraphQL layer and a legacy REST layer, most real integrations end up touching both, because the GraphQL side covers transactions and products while some publisher-side lookups still only exist on REST.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CJ, formerly Commission Junction and later CJ Affiliate, is one of the oldest and largest affiliate networks, founded in 1998 and now owned by Publicis Groupe<\/a>. It rebranded from “CJ Affiliate” to simply “CJ<\/a>” in recent years, but the underlying network, account structure, and APIs are unchanged. CJ is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, with additional offices across the US, UK, Germany, France, and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Awin, CJ does not require a network-level compliance review before you can generate a publisher account. Signup is free and near-instant. The approval work happens per advertiser<\/strong>: each brand you want to promote reviews your site independently, either through automated screening or manual review, and can take anywhere from a day to several weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Does the CJ Affiliate API Cover?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

CJ uses Personal Access Tokens rather than an OAuth flow, which makes authentication simpler than Awin’s or Rakuten’s. There’s no refresh cycle to build, since a PAT stays valid until you revoke it. That simplicity comes with a tradeoff: because the token doesn’t expire on its own, a leaked PAT stays usable indefinitely, so treat it with the same care you’d give a database password, not a short-lived session credential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personal Access Tokens<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

CJ moved away from developer keys some years ago in favor of Personal Access Tokens (PATs). A PAT is generated in the CJ Developer Portal<\/a> (developers.cj.com) under Authentication \u2192 Personal Access Tokens, and is used as a Bearer token on every API call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CJ Commission Detail API and Two Generations of Endpoints<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You’ll likely need both generations for a complete integration:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Modern GraphQL APIs, the CJ Commission Detail API (single POST endpoint at commissions.api.cj.com\/query) returns transaction and commission data. The Product Search API (at ads.api.cj.com) returns product and catalogue data.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Legacy REST APIs, Link Search, Advertiser Lookup, and Publisher-side endpoints that predate the GraphQL migration and are still supported for existing integrations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    WORTH KNOWING BEFORE YOU BUILD<\/strong>
    The CJ Commission Detail API does not return click-level statistics, only conversions and commissions. If you need EPC or click-through data for internal reporting, you have to import CJ’s Performance Reports manually, since the API doesn’t expose them. Several third-party integration tools confirm this limitation independently.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n