Wayfair Affiliate Program Review

Joining the Wayfair Affiliate Program is as quick and easy as filling out a short online form and waiting to verify your site URL.

Maintaining affiliate links to Wayfair products is as speedy and intuitive as expected, assuming you know a little HTML and have a website and social media presence.

The partnership includes working with an intermediary, a well-known network named CJ Affiliate, but is a collaboration with Wayfair a lucrative proposition?

In 2020, the Wayfair affiliate program is definitely worth it; although the commission is only up to 7% of sales, the average order is approximately $235 (£181.61). If furniture and decor excite you, with over 20 million active customers and growing, collaboration can be extremely rewarding.

With the knowledge that as an affiliate of Wayfair, you will work with a third-party network organization, this article digs deeper into who CJ Affiliate is and how they operate.

For the partnership to be successful, various factors are discussed along with the advantages and disadvantages of affiliation, starting with Wayfair as a company defined.

What Is Wayfair?

In order to understand why Wayfair offers such a lucrative affiliate program, it’s important to remember that it is one of the company’s marketing strategies.

It helps to appreciate the organization’s business model and how it is structured for emphasis on marketing.

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Wayfair is an E-commerce furniture and home goods retailer with over 18 million items online, across all five brands.

Additional Marketing Tactics

Known for a generous refund and return policy to the consumers’ delight and the investors’ detriment because it cuts into the bottom line. Although Ikea, West Elm, and Pottery Barn are competitors in the online world, Wayfair differentiates itself as being largely an online retailer.

In contrast, others maintain a much more extensive physical store presence.

The consumer derives comfort from knowing an item that was ordered online can be returned just as easily as if it were bought at a physical store.
Wayfair’s Augmented Reality (AR) shopping app won the 2020 Webby award in the Apps, Mobile, and Voice Shopping category.

By developing a 3D room design app, it is using the cell phone camera to bridge the space between the customer’s imagination and reality and, in this way, alleviating consumers’ fear of buying a piece of furniture online, cornering more of the home furnishing market.

Wayfair History

Wayfair was founded in 2002 by Steve Conine and Niraj Shah in Steve’s spare bedroom, with an intent to change how consumers look at shopping for their homes.

After consolidating hundreds of standalone sites that they had amassed, in 2011, the founders committed to a designation of specialized sites with the following purposes.

AllModern, moderately priced, mid-century modern pieces.
Birch Lane, a low priced marketplace with a classic and traditional home furnishings scheme.
Joss & Main, trendy feel, moderately priced, with new and evolving designs frequently added.
Perigold, a huge selection of luxe, unique, and bold top-tier home goods.
Wayfair, massive selection with a low cost, budget-conscious pricing strategy.

CNBC posted a 15-minute video about why it has been a boon for Wayfair, an online furniture and home accessories store in the current economy.

It’s a great time to be in the home furnishings market.

As of the end of the second quarter of 2020, over 16,200 employees are working for Wayfair, spanning North America and Europe.

Several hundred workers staged a walkout in June of 2019, protesting the selling of beds to a detention center for migrant workers, asking for the order to be canceled.

Management did not comply. In the last quarter of 2019, over a thousand additional employees were hired.

Currently, the founders still run the show. But a third-party organization, CJ Affiliate, an affiliate network, handles the business engagement between the publisher (affiliate) and the advertiser (Wayfair).

CJ Affiliate, Service Provider

The Wayfair Affiliate Program resides within CJ Affiliate, a service provider with a global reach and over 20 years of experience that manages many lucrative advertisers in their network.

Specifically, Lowes, Office Depot, and Priceline, to name a few of the substantial accounts.

Additional new global advertisers are being added consistently, according to the CJ Affiliate website.

Quarter	Year	Number Of Advertisers Added
2	2020	166
1	2020	163
4	2019	146

Moreover, according to the website, CJ Affiliate’s annual payout is a staggering $1.8 billion (£1.4 billion) in commissions to publishers (affiliates) and claims 4.8 million new publisher accounts every year.

CJ Affiliate understands that universal reasons for becoming a publisher are to:

Promote products to make money
Create multiple sources of income
Add value for visitors to your website, blog, email newsletter, or social media accounts.

According to DigitalCommers360 website‘s research, about half of the orders were purchased on a mobile device, and 70% of total orders in the first quarter of 2020 were repeat users.

Subsequently, it’s crucial to the affiliate to create an outstanding user experience that is scalable to all devices and customizable, which CJ’s progressive technology promises to provide.

A less than stellar user experience is reflected in the affiliate and may cause consumers to click away to another site.

Publisher Program

CJ Affiliate values and nurtures the publisher program, beginning with onboarding new affiliates with interactive help.

The process includes a checklist that itemizes what is required, dashboard training, and an introduction to the client support team, just in case more information is needed after account activation.

Recognizing that all promotional models are unique and require different training, CJ Affiliate onboarding allows for those differences.

For example, social media, browser platforms, and apps all require different development to monetize.

Although many key components for creating a worthwhile, money-making program are similar as listed below:

Put in as much time as you can to invest in your success.
Clearly identify your website or blog purpose to your users.
Create authentic and high-quality content with meaningful links to products and services.
Refresh your site with new content as frequently as needed to entice your users.
Optimize technology to keep the site at peak performance.
Engage in feedback loops to enhance communication.

CJ Affiliate supports proven success strategies and because the success of the publisher goes hand in hand with the advertiser.

Advantages

Their expertise and dedication to publishers and advertisers translated into a reputation for quality and excellence in knowledge and support, which is a big benefit to an individual publisher.

It’s quick and easy to grab links to add to your blog, email newsletter, or social media accounts due to the availability of successfully proven program tools. Use the link tag generator to include your publisher’s unique identifier.

It’s free to sign up for a publisher account. During signup, publishers can view all advertisers on the CJ Affiliates network and choose those that align with your content.

Compensation and requirements can be viewed at that time. Your top-level domain name URL is verified to join. If your website is valid, you will receive a confirmation email within 24 hours.

The perks of joining CJ Affiliates are:

Secure site, solid infrastructure
Personalization and Customization
Content Certification
- Apply for direct access to specific brands that align with your content in Business (office, finance, and money), Home (design and cooking), Lifestyle (travel, health, and sports), Style (fashion and beauty), and Technology (consumer electronics, hardware, and software)
Publisher Support
- Strategy
- Best practices
- Educational newsletters
- CJ University (Digital: Educational sessions, Creative strategies and tactics sessions and Thought leader presentations)
Solid infrastructure and time tested
Global Market
Tracking without cookies as part of CJ Affiliates privacy standards and integration
Visibility to customer shopping metrics and analytics
Deep Link Generator
- Affiliate links are created without logging on to the CJ Affiliate website, which is a great timesaver.

Helpful articles and strategies containing valuable information to expand and improve are available from the easy to navigate CJ Affiliate site.

Due to their expertise and support, it’s an amazing resource to a beginner affiliate marketer as well as a more seasoned professional.

For instance, as a promoter or social influencer, you are required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to disclose your relationship with any endorsed brands.

But Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube each have different locations and methods of complying.

To understand the process, read this article on How to Share Affiliate Links on Social Media on CJ Affiliates website.

Or, view this short, one minute video by Amber Lee, an attorney for the FTC. Either way, as an individual affiliate, knowledge, and counsel is indispensable to your business.

Resources for more effective content and page structure to maximize website appeal are plentiful.

Affiliate Content Secrets, by Stephen Hockman on Amazon, is an excellent and quick read, filled with tons of tips from a veteran marketer making a six-figure income on affiliate marketing.

While not directly related to Wayfair affiliate marketing, the objectives are universal, and it’s beneficial to make an informed decision, especially for the inexperienced marketer.

Still not convinced about the benefits of joining? CJ Affiliate offers an incremental calculator in which you can enter your website metrics (or use test data).

The resulting data is shared to emphasize the value of how an affiliate delivers a greater value than a site that is not affiliated, according to leading statistics.

The pieces of information required to make the calculation are:

Number of site visitors
% rate of conversion
AOV, commonly known as Average Order Value
Number of purchases per consumer

Retaining CJ Affiliate as an intermediary is an expense to Wayfair for doing business. Having a third party organization focus solely on servicing publishers is a calculated business move for Wayfair, and have carefully determined their commission to be sure of reaping a return on their investment. Subsequently, the commission scale is comparable or even slightly higher in some instances than competing sites, which makes it worth considering.

In contrast, Amazon’s affiliate commission for furniture is only 3%, which is significantly lower. On the higher end, Target’s affiliate commission is on a sliding scale, 5 to 8% rate depending on the number of orders, but the company’s quantity and range of furniture selection are much smaller. As a Wayfair publisher, your best bet is to immerse yourself in the brand and be authentically engaged in the products. The recommendations must be honest and applicable for the consumer to click thru and choose to buy.

CJ Affiliate has analyzed the market and proven through customer-centric research that more money is spent per order and future sales when consumers interact with a publisher. The reasoning behind these conclusions is that an affiliate channel:

Offers information and personal reviews
Introduces new products and brands
Provides discounts
Creates a forum for feedback and interaction

The result is increased consumer confidence and combines with a rise in credibility, the publisher strategy leads to both new and repeat customers.

A clear monetary win for the publisher and, consequently, time well spent on nurturing the publisher/advertiser relationship.

Another advantage is the thought-provoking strategies for gaining new prospective advertisers CJ Affiliates provides on the website for publishers.

If your goal is to grow your reach, not only can you do that with the millions of items Wayfair offers, but their third party affiliate market servicer is offering an array of additional advertisers. And you are provided with pitch suggestions to forge a relationship with different companies.

If you join the affiliate program and you are a buyer as part of your job, you can supersize your earnings by enrolling in the Wayfair professional program.

All industries are welcome for individuals who work in the trade, for example, contractors, interior designers, realtors, property managers, and many more job titles.

Enroll to obtain valuable insight from your own account manager, buy commercially available products, and earn special discounts.

As a Wayfair Professional, receive free shipping on orders over $35 ( £27.06 GBP), fresh sales every day, and free design services. And joining is free.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages are very few; however, by way of comparison to other programs, it’s important to note how income is generated overall for most affiliate programs. Frequent methods of making money are as follows:

Earn a rate of commission on sales.
Earn per volume of clicks (valuation per 100 clicks).
Length of wait time per sale (cookie duration).

Cookie duration is usually from 1 to 30 days and is sometimes defined as a referral. If the user makes a purchase a few days after clicking on a publisher’s link, the cookie will have tracked the original click-thru, and the credit will go to you, the affiliate.

CJ Affiliate doesn’t use cookies for privacy reasons; therefore, cookie duration is not a way to monetize the user’s visit to your site, resulting in fewer ways to earn a commission. The hope is that the generous rate of commission will make up for the potential earnings lost.

Consequently, publishers earn commissions when they drive sales for their advertisers. That means you must have traffic volume on your site that often converts enough for sales and clicks to earn money through CJ Affiliate. Do you have adequate time to spend driving traffic to your site?

Running a publisher program through CJ requires time, effort, and persistence. The more you invest in working with advertisers, promoting products, and building your audience, the more likely you will be successful with CJ Affiliate.

Although help is plentiful, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Furthermore, the sheer volume of topics and helpful resources can be too much to retain for new-to-marketing individuals.

Thankfully, CJ Affiliates have rendered a thoughtful and relevant website for timely training via videos, podcasts, articles, and client support, providing a wonderful user experience for the publisher.

Most refunds and exchanges are similar, if not more generous, than competitors. Particularly if you return the item within the 30 day time period, there will be no problem.

But you will pay for return shipping, and in rare instances, a restocking fee to the manufacturer. Also, if the item has been assembled or was bought on clearance, it cannot be returned.

Read the entire refund policy on the Wayfair website. As an affiliate, it is an excellent way to build trust with your customer to be transparent about company policies.

Final Thoughts

Not only is the Wayfair affiliate program a great opportunity to make a steady stream of income, but it can also open other doors to additional advertisers.

Since Wayfair has employed a third-party service provider, CJ Affiliate, to run the program, you can reap the rewards of their expertise, support, and infrastructure as an individual affiliate.

A 7% commission for such a fast-growing company like Wayfair is worthwhile on its own but adds the potential of linking to other large companies and leaning on CJ Affiliate as a resource.

Also, signing up for the Wayfair Professional program for free. Altogether, the opportunity only gets better and better.

Wayfair Affiliate Program Review – Is It Worth It?