CJ is a partnership ecosystem where thousands of publishers and brands engage billions of consumers worldwide—and we’re growing bigger every day!
We’re constantly adding advertisers to the CJ network—in 2022 alone we welcomed nearly 700 new advertiser programs. We’re also home to over 167K publishers, most of which have multiple promotional properties or sites.
With all this activity buzzing around the CJ hive, we have a few different tricks up our sleeves to keep everything straight—one of which is a numeric identifier system, the CID, PID, and AID. These numbers help us identify your account and promotional properties, and track transactions.
What are the CID, PID, and AID and what do they do?
Familiarizing yourself with these three numbers will truly give you a better understanding of your account and how our tracking works. Let’s take a deeper look into what each of these ID numbers means.
CID – Think of your CID or Company ID as your account number. This is a unique number that differentiates an advertiser or publisher’s account from other CJ accounts. This number is located in the upper right-hand corner of your CJ account next to your username.
PID – Also known as Promotional Property ID (formerly Website ID), this number is another way for publishers to identify their accounts on a more granular level. For example, let’s say you have multiple websites, a social handle, and a newsletter listed in CJ. Each one of those promotional properties will have a unique PID. To find your PID(s), navigate to the Account > Promotional Properties. Your PID is used in link tracking codes to identify performance at the property level so that CJ can designate which publisher property drove performance and/or transaction data.
AID – The AID is the Ad ID or Link ID. When a publisher generates a link code, the AID is automatically incorporated to identify the affiliate link being used. When an AID is included in the link code with a PID associated with their joined publisher, CJ can then attribute performance and transactions to a particular publisher within an advertiser’s program.
Why These Numbers Matter
Now that you understand the difference between these ID numbers, you’re probably wondering why they’re so important. Here are a couple of reasons why you’ll be glad you’re reading this article:
Streamline Support
Your CID is the easiest way for a CJ associate to identify your account. When calling Client Support, one of the first questions you’re asked is, “Can I please have your account number?” Having your CID readily available will help the agent quickly locate your account.
Understand Tracking
Your PID and AID work together to create the tracking code for your links. The basic components of a tracking link include a CJ tracking domain, a PID, and an AID.
This is how these components come together to form an affiliate link:
http://www.[CJ tracking domain].com/click-[PID]-[AID].
In practice, your tracking link will look something like this:
http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-1234567-222222
The PID and AID are core identification components of a link that allows our system to track your impressions, clicks, and sales. This is also a great way for clients to see their links being traced back to their accounts.
