CJ Announces the 2022 CJ Excellence Awards Winners at CJU22

SANTA BARBARA, CA – September 14, 2022 – CJ announces the winners of the 2022 CJ Excellence Awards.

Now in their 23rd year, the CJ Excellence Awards recognize advertisers, publishers, and agencies for their achievements in affiliate marketing. The winners were recognized last Wednesday evening at an awards ceremony as part of the annual CJU (CJ University) conference, which took place at Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, located in Santa Barbara, CA.

2022 CJ Excellence Awards Winners

Advertiser of the Year – Finance: Bank of America

Regarded as one of the world’s leading financial institutions, Bank of America serves individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management, and other financial and risk management products and services. Bank of America's affiliate program has grown significantly since launching with CJ in 2015; expanding into new lines of businesses, exploring out-of-the-box partnerships, and leveraging CJ data in new ways.

Advertiser of the Year – Network Services: AT&T

AT&T has trusted CJ to drive their affiliate new customer acquisitions since 2006. CJ has returned that trust by delivering continuous growth, regardless of the challenges faced. After seeing significant growth during 2020, AT&T leaned in further with the CJ team by expanding the affiliate focus on existing lines of business, as well as adding new lines of business in “AT&T for Business”. Thanks to a strong AT&T and CJ partnership, significant investment, robust publisher relationships, & proven historical results – the AT&T affiliate program has continued to deliver, driving another year of growth for all key actions.

Advertiser of the Year – Travel: Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform, helps hundreds of millions of people each month become better travelers, from planning to booking to taking a trip. With more than 1 billion reviews, travelers turn to Tripadvisor when booking their hotels or finding great tours and activities. Through an excellent partnership with CJ, Tripadvisor has maintained program growth all while meeting key business goals for the affiliate channel.

Advertiser of the Year – Retail & Overall: Zappos

Zappos’ mission statement and purpose are simple: to live and deliver WOW! And over the last couple of years, through the pandemic, Zappos has proven again and again that they are a vital partner to both CJ and their affiliates. They have continued to push the boundaries of what’s possible during continuously uncertain times with hands-on data-driven approaches that have helped deliver those WOW results!

Publisher of the Year: Affirm

Affirm is a fintech category leader that empowers millions of consumers to pay at their own pace, and gives hundreds of thousands of businesses tools to drive growth. For over a decade, Affirm has been advancing its mission to deliver honest financial products that improve lives by building a new kind of payment network based upon trust, transparency and putting people first. Affirm shows consumers exactly what they will owe up front, and that amount never increases and there are no late charges or hidden fees.

Agency of the Year: Gen3 Marketing

Gen3 Marketing is the largest affiliate management agency in the world and has won CJ’s Agency of the Year Award 8 times. Having acquired OPM Pros, AffiliateManager.com, Optimus PM, and Oak Digital, Gen3 employs over 200 people on 6 continents and expertly manages over 500 affiliate programs across all verticals. Gen3’s partnership with CJ dates back over 15 years and spans hundreds of client successes. Year in and year out, they continue to create exceptional results-driven value for their partners through the power of relationships, strategy, and innovation.

Best Content Strategy: Dealmoon 

When a luxury luggage brand sought to tap into Dealmoon’s Chinese audience, teams shifted to focus on education around product quality and durability to encourage luxury shopping. Appealing new product designs attracted the Dealmoon consumer, and in 2021, the teams executed a successful and exclusive VIP content campaign that sold through the brand’s surplus inventory.

High Commendation: Blue Apron

Best Cross-Channel Strategy: TurboTax

Using CJ’s partnership with Button, TurboTax was able to unlock previously untapped mobile app conversions within the affiliate channel. By meeting customers where they were most likely to convert, TurboTax was able to deepen their partnerships with mobile-focused partners, increase their mobile conversion rate by over 10pts, and grow their total mobile business within the affiliate channel.

High Commendation: Veve

Best Innovative Affiliate Strategy: USAA

USAA successfully gained market share in a field where eligibility requirements hinder the ability of the brand to scale. With a traffic increase of 57% and over-indexing on net new customers, USAA used CJ and 3rd party data to create an innovative strategy bringing success to the channel and the brand.

High Commendation: Bank of America

Best Partner Diversification Strategy: Expedia Group

Expedia Group powers global travel for everyone, everywhere – so when consumer spending behavior changed during the pandemic, Expedia Group pivoted their strategies to accommodate changing consumer demands. Diversifying channel investment through tests with Buy Now, Pay Later solutions and travel content drove 70% YoY growth and aided in the brands’ pandemic recovery by surpassing 2019 performance numbers.

High Commendation: JCPenney and Chime

The Global Excellence Award (Tie): Savings United

Savings United & CJ worked incredibly close over the past year, across all departments, to ensure they could grow quickly in a sustainable way. At a global level, they identified smart workflows to ensure global alignment. The results are highly impressive, with over 200% year-over-year transaction growth, doubling the number of sale-active partnerships.

The Global Excellence Award (Tie): Dell

CJ & Dell Global Teams worked collaboratively across 3 continents in over 12 countries to deliver astounding results. No challenge was too big for this team as they continued to deliver growth and gain more share of the pie for the multinational tech company. The entry illustrates excellent use of regional teams with feet on the ground along with best-in-class overarching performance strategy.

Rookie of the Year: PenFed Credit Union

Shortly after their launch with CJ, PenFed grew their new program exponentially. Despite the economic landscape, the teams were able to rapidly grow credit card applications and diversify their partner engagement strategy including migrating direct partnerships to their CJ program. This resulted in outpacing their previous performance in a few short months.

High Commendation: LegalZoom

Social Accountability Award: nate

nate, the unified shopping wallet, launched its first annual “nate True Colors campaign” to celebrate Pride month. Through its creator program, nate worked with 6 content creators in the LGBTQIA+ community to each lead a greater team of 20 creators in representing the 6 colors of the Pride flag. Through curated shopping lists inspired by their team colors, each team raised funds for their selected LGBTQIA+ organization through content shares and engagement on the app, with nate contributing $1 per List follow to those organizations.

High Commendation: FlipGive

Collaboration Award: Capital One Shopping and Priceline.com

Capital One Shopping uses real-time technology to power a personalized online shopping experience, helping their users discover the best value for everyday purchases, including travel bookings. Together in collaboration with Priceline, Capital One Shopping launched a travel price comparison metasearch product that ultimately grew Priceline’s revenue 256% YoY. Priceline’s collaboration with Capital One Shopping enabled product and technical teams to drive the success of this new shopping technology.

High Commendation: Shutterfly and RetailMeNot (ZiffMedia Group)

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About CJ

Founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1998, CJ (formerly Commission Junction), continues to lead the industry as the largest, most trusted name in global performance marketing, specializing in affiliate marketing technology and services. We're the platform of choice for driving profitable growth for over 3,800 global brands around the world across all verticals including retail, travel, finance, and network & home services. Our technology powers a partnership ecosystem where over 167K publishers and brands engage billions of consumers worldwide.

As part of Publicis Groupe, aligned with Publicis Media, we leverage unparalleled data, technology, and strategic expertise to bring a truly customer-centric approach to performance marketing. Our people dare to think big and drive even bigger results. For more information, please visit cj.com.

About CJU (CJ University)

CJU is CJ's annual client conference that brings together 1,000+ performance marketing professionals for a multi-day event filled with networking, compelling content, learning opportunities, and more.

Hosted in the beautiful beachside town of Santa Barbara, California—where CJ first started—CJU is widely regarded as the top event in the affiliate industry. Our clients and teams love the opportunity to network with new and existing partners, learn best practices, and develop forward-thinking strategies for Q4 and beyond. For more information,  visit www.cj.com/cju.