It’s been a long time since we released our first Free WordPress Plugin, wpCJ Testimonials.

Today, we have released our second one wpCJ Chimp. What this plugin does, is to subscribe your new blog users to your MailChimp list automatically.

You just need to copy the MailChimp sign-up code and it will add those MailChimp fields to your WordPress sign-up form.

We hope you find it useful! Let us know what do you think about it.

Visit the plugin page

Whenever you are trying to locate an advertiser to promote, this is the module to use. You will be able to search the best merchants for your niche.

The advertisers can be filtered by keywords, category, language, creative size and/or creative type.

Thus, the results can be sorted by their last week EPC, their last three months EPC, their rank in the Commission Junction Network or simply by name.

You can specify mandatory keywords, negative keyword or optional keywords:

• Mandatory Keywords: These are keywords that MUST be present in the advertiser name or description. They are represented in the Keyword field by a prefixed plus sign. Ie.- +Sports
• Negative Keywords: These are keywords that filter out advertisers that contains that keyword in their names or description. They are represented by a prefixed minus sign. Ie.- -Betting
• Optional Keywords: These are keywords that may or may bot be present in the name or description of the advertisers. These keywords does not need any prefix.  Ie.- Extreme

So searching for Extreme +Sports -Betting will bring any advertising promoting Sports giving relevance to those considered Extreme and will exclude any advertiser that promotes betting:

As you can see, the Search Results shows a list of advertiser that meet your criteria. It shows:

• Advertiser Name, Advertiser ID and your Affiliation Status with that Advertiser.
• Their Seven-Day EPC, Three-Months EPC and Network Rank with their respective trends (you must be logged into CJ.com in order to see their trends).
• Their commission squemes.
• Their Main Category and the creatives that the advertiser promotes.

The EPC is the most important metric to evaluate a given advertiser. EPC stands for Earnings Per Click, which means the amount of money that an advertiser is generating by every hundred clicks that their creatives get.

If you hover your mouse pointer over any advertiser, wpCJ will show you a couple of links that will take you to the Products and Links Modules to see the creatives of that advertisers for the selected keywords. You can see those links as “shortcuts” to their creatives.

Once you have determined the advertisers you want to promote, you must join their programs (clicking on their names takes you to their profiles at CJ.com so you can join them right away). If you already joined, write down their Advertisers ID and use them in the Products and Links modules.

We are very pleased to announce the release of our first email campaign… after one year of operations!

I hope it worths the delay. By the way, we want to thanks the guys behind MailChimp. They managed to make the whole process a piece of cake!

If you want to check our first campaign, please visit its online version here… but I would recommend you to join our newsletter so you don’t miss the next one!

MailChimp Regards,

Will

As you can see, a zone has three basic components:

• A template that defines how it looks.
• A set of Products or Links (or Ad Units) and
• A certain location in your site that directs wpCJ to actually show the Ad Units.

In this guide, we will try to explain each component by answering some questions about them.

Let’s begin.

How can I create and mantain a Zone in wpCJ?

There’s an option in the wpCJ Module called “Zones”. By accessing it you will be able to create, modify and delete  zones. Once you click on it, you will be presented this page:

As you can see, there are several fields that can be entered. Three of them are mandatories: Name, Zone Type and Template. Let’s explain every field in detail:

• Zone Name: Every zone must have an unique name. It is advisable, however, that it shares the same name of its template or something similar.
• Zone Type: Every zone can be a Product Zone or a Link Zone. It defines the type of Ad Units that it can contains and show.
• Zone Template: A zone must know how to show the Ad Units it contains. It is defined by the Template that is assigned to that zone.
• CSS Class: Technically, a zone is a HTML DIV tag. If you want to customize the way this DIV looks and behave, set its class and define it in the CSS files of your WordPres theme.
• Surrounding HTML – Precode: If you need further customization to the way a zone looks or behave, you can specify the code that should be added BEFORE the Canvas Code of the template being showed.
• Surrounding HTML – Postcode: In the same vein, if you need to add a certain code AFTER the Canvas Code was showed, put it here.

Once you have entered these parameters, click on “Submit” and it will be saved making the new zone to appear in the “Current Zone” list at the bottom of the page:

Also, if you hover your mouse pointer over any zone, it will present you additional options:

• Promote it: It presents you the necessary code to promote the zone.
• Clear it: It will empty the zone of ant products or links it might contains.
• Delete it: It will permanently delete the zone from your wpCj installation.

How can I populate a Zone in wpCJ?

This question will be answered in the Product and Link guides.

How can I promote a Zone in wpCJ?

A Zone can be promoted in any post or page of your WordPress blog.

Also, it is possible to promote it directly in your WordPress theme files.

In order to promote a given zone, open the Zone option of wpCJ, and hover your mouse pointer over the zone in the “Current Zones” list. It will shows a link named “Promote it”. Click on it.

It will open a little panel with the requiered code to promote that zone in a page, a post or your theme files. Copy and paste them accordingly.

Keep in mind that the zone must be populated in order to promote something.

Because of the way our flagship plugin is designed, we could not jeopardize the overall stability of our script by allowing a large number of domains to get connected to Commission Junction at once by only one license.

But today we are happy to announce that our internal testing are over and that we are very proud of the outcome. The core of our script had been redesigned and now we made a better use of the resources. We took advantage of some subtle but important changes that the WordPress team had made to the way their plugins “talks” and behave so if your blog is running on the latest version of WordPress, you are going to feel the difference… although it will still work pretty well in your 2.7+ WordPress blog.

These changes allowed us to launch a more flexible licensing model. From now on, wpCJ has three types of licenses, Basic, Standard and Premium.

Even more, if after you had bought your copy of wpCJ you found yourself short of domains credits, you can buy additional ones! wpCJ grows with you!

Finally we can move ahead and continue doing what we like the most: Adding new features. Stay tuned!

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Once you have installed your copy of wpCJ, activated your license and configured the plugin, you are ready to begin promoting products/links and start earning money with Commission Junction.

There are, however, three requirements that must be fullfilled in order to effectively promote a creative using wpCJ:

• You should have at least one working template.
• You must have at least one populated and well defined zone.
• You must be displaying that zone somewhere in your site.

In this guide I will try to explain the fundamentals of wpCJ Templates.

A wpCJ template is a set of HTML tags that defines the way a certain zone will be shown.

Every template has two parts:

1. An Ad Unit code: This is the code that is used to show ONE and only ONE Ad Unit, no matter if the zone will be displaying several ad units at once. Every ad unit will share the same code… and this is that code. Imagine the classic layout of 2×2 positions of 125×125 pixels each position.Well, each position (or “Ad Unit”) will share the same code, that could be something like this:
   ^?View Code HTML

   1	<img src="imageX.jpg" alt="" width="125" height="125" />

   In this field, you must enter the code that will be shared among the Ad Units.

2. A Canvas code: This is code that will be around the Ad Units.  It must contain the pseudo-tag:
   

   [AD_CANVAS:#]

   
   

   …in order to tell wpCJ where it should insert the Ad Unit Code.Using the same example of the classic layout of 2×2 positions of 125×125 pixels each position, we could specify a canvas code as the following:

   ^?View Code HTML

   1 2	<div style="width: 280px;"> [AD_CANVAS:4]</div>

   As you can see, we have changed the numeral by 4, to tell wpCJ that this pseudo-tag must be replaced by 4 Ad Units.

In the previous example, we used a static representation of an creative, however, it won’t make sense in any scenario so let’s see how we can make wpCJ to deal with the ad aunits.

There is a set of “shortcodes” that can be used in this stage that will be replaced once the template is rendered with products and/or links. Those shortcodes are:

That said, now we can create a meaningful Ad Units code.

For instance, let’s complete the classic layout of 2×2 positions of 125×125 pixels each position:

Ad Unit Code:

1
2
3
4

<div style="overflow: hidden; float: left; height: 126px; width: 126px;">
<a title="[AD_NAME]" href="[AD_URL]">
<img title="[AD_NAME]" src="[AD_URL]" alt="Image of [AD_NAME]" width="[AD_WIDTH]" height="[AD_HEIGHT]" />
</a></div>

Canvas Code:

1
2

<div style="overflow: hidden; height: 280px; width: 280px;">
[AD_CANVAS:4]</div>

However, if you don’t want to deal with any code, you can simply create the most simple template that can be used  which is, however, useful as a full-product template:

Ad Unit Code:

1

[AD_CODE]

Canvas Code:

1

[AD_CANVAS:1]

These are the basics to begin the creation of templates for wpCJ. You are free to use any HTML/Javascript/jQuery code on it.

On thing you must remember: Every template must have an unique name.

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After you have activated your license, the next step is to configure wpCJ.

There are some variables that can be set before using wpCJ. However, all of them have default values so it is not strictly necessary to fill them all at this time. These variables are:

• Default Currency: USD, Euro or Pounds.
• Allow duplicates Ad Units: If you set this to NO, wpCJ will avoids showing the same Ad Unit twice on a page.
• wpCJ Product Search Page: This is the slug of a page that will be shown when a visitor use the wpCJ Search Box. It must contains a wpCJ Result Box shortcode.
• Number of Products to Fetch: Everytime you search the CJ Product Catalog, it will try to fetch this number of products at most.
• Number of Links to Fetch: Everytime you search the CJ Link Catalog, it will try to fetch this number of links at most.

Additionaly, with a paid license you can set:

• Default Advertiser List: If you want your blog to promote the products/links of a certain advertiser, enter a comma-separated list of Advertiser’s ID in this field. This number is easily found using the Advertiser Module of wpCJ, however, you can try to find it by logging into CJ.com, browsing the desired advertiser, and getting it from the resulting URL:
  
  Additionaly, you can specify joined or notjoined. These are special wildchar Advertiser IDs (although, putting notjoined here does not makes much sense, wpCJ won’t prevent you from doing it).
• Number of Advertisers to Fetch: Everytime you search the CJ Advertiser List, it will try to fetch this number of advertisers at most.

To define these settings, follow the next steps:

1. Go to your wpCJ Settings module and click on “Settings”:
   
2. Locate the “Default Values” box and fill it with the settings that you need. You can find the “page slug” by visiting the Page Module of WordPress, quick-editing the desired page and copy&paste it here:
   
3. To set the fetching attributes, locate the “Fetch Settings”. Set these numbers based on your own internet connection. A number between 100 and 300 seems to work to most people.
   
4. Click on submit and the changes will be saved into your database.

Now, the best part: Playing with products and links!

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Once you have your wpCJ plugin installed and activated in your WordPress blog, the next step is to activate your license (if you do not own one you can obtain it here).

The license you received after placing your order of wpCJ must be activated. To do so, follow the next steps:

1. Access the License Manager at wpCJ.com. Your login information should have being emailed to you with your License.
   
2. Once you get logged in, locate the My License module and click on My Licenses:
   
3. It will bring a new page that will list all your licenses and the domains assigned to it. As this is your first time, you will see your license, a blank text field and a button labeled “Add New Row”.  Since your license has a domain quota, this button will remain visible until you reach it. After that, you will still be able to buy additional domain packages or upgrade your license:
   
4. What you should do in this form, is just enter your domain name on any blank text field. Do not include http:// or www. Just the domain name. Click on Assign Domains and that’s all for now. Log you out and go to your blog.
5. Log into your blog and locate the wpCJ module. Click on “Settings”:
   
6. It will bring a new page where you need to enter the details of your license:
   
7. Copy your wpCJ license into the wpCJ License field (exactly as you received it).
8. You must obtain your CJ Developer Key. It is a long text given for free at http://webservices.cj.com/ If you do not have one, this a good time to get it. Go for it, I’ll be waiting for you.
9. Also, you must get the “PID” for your website. It is a sort of “Website ID” given by CJ.COM. You must log into your CJ account, add your domain and CJ will automatically assigns a PID to your domain. Copy it and paste it in its field.
10. Submit your form.
11. Once the page show up again, it will tells you that your license is VALID. We are ready for the fun!
    

There is a known bug: Once you have activated your license. It often says that your license is not valid when it actually is:

To solve it, just click on “Settings” once again and it should tells you that it is valid. If the warning persist, double check the parameters your jujst entered (wpCJ License, Cj Developer Key and PID).

Join the forum discussion on this post

To install wpCJ is pretty much like installing any other WordPress plugin.

By using the WordPress’ build-in installer:

1. Open the WordPress “Plugins” module and click on “Add New”
   
2. It will bring a page where you can search the plugins you want to install. Click on “Upload” in the upper menu:
   
3. Find the wpCJ ZIP file (the one you downloaded) and click on “Install Now”:
   
4. WordPress will try to install the plugin and will let you know the results. If everything is OK you should be able to activate it right away. Do it:
   
5. Now you should have wpCJ installed and activated in your WordPress blog:
   

By Uploading the wpCJ Files to your website :

This method is a little bit different than the one you might be used to.

The main difference is that most plugins do not not require to be uploaded in BINARY. wpCJ does require it.

If you uploaded it in ASCII mode it won’t works so make sure you set your transfer mode to BINARY before uploading the PHP files.

We can’t go into details as every FTP client is different than the others but we can say some general rules:

1. Upload the content of the wpCJ ZIP file to your WordPress’ wp-content/plugins/wpcj/ folder. Create it if needed.
2. Double check that every PHP file was transfered in BINARY mode.
3. Now, open the WordPress “Plugins” module and click on “Installed”:
   
4. Find wpCJ in the plugins list, and click on “Activate”:
   
5. Now you should have wpCJ installed and activated in your WordPress blog:
   

Now you have wpCJ installed in your blog. The next step is to activate your license.

Just use the promo code XMAS in the checkout page and you will get out plugin at half its price!

Hurry up! It is valid until December 24th, 2009!