Integrating Commission Junction into Clarisights
Commission Junction (CJ Affiliate) is one of the world's largest affiliate networks. Connecting CJ to Clarisights lets you analyze publisher-level performance, commissions, and transaction-level dimensions side-by-side with your other paid channels and your web / mobile analytics data.
At a glance
| Authentication | CJ Personal Access Token (Bearer) + your CJ Advertiser Account ID |
| Permissions needed | The token's CJ user must be authorized to read commission data for the advertiser ID you're connecting |
| Account discovery | Manual: CJ requires the Advertiser Account ID up front; one Clarisights connector = one CJ advertiser |
| Data freshness | Daily |
| Lookback window | Today and the previous 2 days on each daily refresh; CJ also resurfaces commissions when their state changes (locked, extended, corrected) |
| Backfill on connect | Recent days only; ask your Clarisights account manager for a longer backfill |
| Timezone | UTC (CJ reports event dates in UTC) |
| Currency | Both advertiser-local currency and USD are pulled per commission; converted to your reporting currency by Clarisights |
| Levels supported | Account · Publisher · Commission (transaction) |
| Limited rollout | No |
Prerequisites
An active CJ advertiser account.
A CJ Personal Access Token from the CJ Developer Portal. The token must belong to a user authorized for the advertiser you want to connect.
Your CJ Advertiser Account ID from the CJ Members area.
Steps to Connect
Step 1: Generate a CJ Personal Access Token
Sign in to the CJ Developer Portal and create a Personal Access Token. Copy the full token value.
For more on personal access tokens, see the CJ Developer Portal: Authentication Overview.
Treat your access token like a password. It grants read access to commission data for every advertiser the underlying CJ user is authorized for.
Step 2: Find your Advertiser Account ID
In the CJ Members area, open Account → Account Manager (or any account-settings page) and copy the Advertiser ID. If you have multiple CJ advertisers, you'll connect each one separately.
CJ explains where to find your account number (CID) in its article: CJ's Account Numbers, Explained.
Step 3: Add CJ Affiliate in Clarisights
In Clarisights, open the Integrations page (database icon in the left sidebar), search for CJ Affiliate under Set up new connection, and click + Connect.
Step 4: Enter credentials
In the Connect a CJ Source form, fill in:
Account Id: your CJ Advertiser Account ID
API Token: the Personal Access Token from Step 1
Click Connect Source. Clarisights checks the token by requesting commission data for your account ID.
⚠ "No authorized advertiser ids were specified in the query" → The token's CJ user is not authorized for the Advertiser ID you entered. Ask your CJ admin to grant access, or use a token from a user who already has access.
⚠ 401 Unauthorized → The token is invalid or expired. Re-issue from the Developer Portal and retry.
Verify the connection
Go to Integrations → CJ Affiliate. The connected advertiser should show with its Account ID.
First data appears within about 24 hours, after the next daily refresh.
Quick start: create a new report, add CJ Affiliate as the data source, and add Account · Publisher · Sale Amount · Commission · Transaction.
Data available
Hierarchy
How CJ's native levels map to the standard Clarisights levels:
Native level (CJ) | Clarisights level |
Advertiser | Account |
Publisher | Publisher (the primary spend-bearing level; aggregates sit here. In cross-channel reports the Publisher fills the Campaign slot.) |
Commission | Commission / Transaction (each CJ commission becomes a transaction-level row with order, product, and promotion details) |
Note: CJ does not provide Campaign / Ad Group / Creative / Link-level reporting for commissions. The advertiser's campaign label on each commission is available as the Campaign Name dimension.
Dimensions
Dimension | Level | Description |
Account / Account ID | Account | CJ advertiser name and Advertiser Account ID |
Publisher / Publisher ID | Publisher | CJ publisher name and ID |
utm_campaign | Publisher | Used to match CJ data with your analytics data |
Commission ID | Commission | Unique ID of the commission event |
Order Id | Commission | Advertiser-side order identifier |
Action Name | Commission | CJ action the commission is paid against |
Website | Commission | Publisher website that drove the commission |
Target URL | Commission | The URL behind the click |
Device type | Commission | Device used at the moment of conversion |
Coupon | Commission | Coupon / promo code on the order |
Uncorrected | Commission | true for the original commission row, false for later adjustments / corrections |
New Customer | Commission | CJ's flag indicating new vs. returning customers |
Campaign Name | Commission | The advertiser's campaign label on the commission |
Category Name / Brand Name / Item Type / Item Name | Commission | Product attributes reported on the commission |
Promotion Name / Promotion Type | Commission | Promotion attached to the commission |
Metrics
Metric | Description |
Sale Amount (Local currency) | Sum of all sales in advertiser's local currency |
Sale Amount | Sale amount converted to your Clarisights reporting currency |
Commission (Local currency) | Sum of commissions paid to publishers, in local currency |
Commission | Commission converted to your Clarisights reporting currency |
CJ Fee (Local currency) | CJ network fee, in local currency |
CJ Fee | CJ Fee converted to your Clarisights reporting currency |
Order Discount (Local currency) | Sum of discounts applied to orders, in local currency |
Order Discount | Order discount converted to your Clarisights reporting currency |
Transaction | Net transaction count: +1 for each original commission and -1 for each correction, so adjustments are not double-counted |
Limitations & known constraints
One advertiser per connector: CJ requires the Advertiser ID up front. To onboard multiple CJ advertisers, add one connector per advertiser.
API rate limits: CJ limits how many requests each token can make in a short period. Clarisights waits and retries automatically, so large accounts can take longer to refresh.
No Campaign / Ad Group / Link levels: CJ commission data covers Publisher and Commission only. Use the Campaign Name dimension if you need a campaign breakdown.
No clicks / impressions: only commission and sale data is imported, not pre-conversion traffic.
Adjustments resurface: when a commission's state changes (locked, declined, corrected), CJ returns it again as a correction (Uncorrected = false). This is expected; the Transaction metric nets corrections out to avoid double-counting.
Operating notes
Refresh schedule: daily.
Lookback: today and the previous 2 days on each refresh; CJ resurfaces locked / corrected commissions automatically and Clarisights updates them by commission ID.
Currency conversion: CJ exposes both advertiser-local and USD-denominated values per commission. Clarisights stores the local-currency value and converts to your reporting currency.
Credential rotation: re-issue the Personal Access Token any time and update it in Integrations → CJ Affiliate → Edit Account.
Need help?
When contacting support from the in-app messenger, please include:
The integration name and CJ Advertiser Account ID
The exact error message or screenshot
The step where the issue occurred
When the issue started