An interesting question was posed at the opening session at CJU today. In talking about "optimizing their program" one of the merchants asked what they should do with Publishers (CJ speak for Affiliate) who are driving A LOT of traffic, but only a small portion of the traffic is converting into sales. Their issue is that although they are making money with this publisher, it is driving down their CJ Network EPC rankings.

I guess my feelings from a top affiliate / publisher perspective here is that EPC is only one indicator of a merchant's performance in the CJU interface. I think a company should focus on profitability first and foremost. If the publisher is driving profit, then it's profitable business.

If your in a very competitive category and you think EPC is going to make the difference of top affiliates marketing you or not marketing you, then perhaps you should consider 2 programs in CJ, one for high EPC publishers and one for low, but profitable EPC publishers.

If you focus on running a profitable business, the rest should take care of itself.