Digital Musings

Written on September 20, 2007 – 9:04 pm | by DM |

Recently I received a note in my Adsense account that I have now qualify to show Google referrals 2.0. First of all we must know what the referrals ads are all about. They are PPA (Pay Per Action) Ads in which a publisher/webmaster gets paid after the website visitor has clicked on the Ad and actually signed up for the product or the service. So, What is the difference between the previous Google Referrals and Google referrals 2.0. According to Google it’s :

Expanded product inventory: While many of you have had success referring one of our google products, some of you weren’t able to find a product that fit the context of your site. Google Referrals 2.0 offers products from thousands of AdWords advertisers, so you can find the right ads for your sites.

There are various ways to look at this.I have observed that the PPA ads generate a lot of clicks , however the conversion rate is quite poor. I have experimented with the different referrals as well and most of the conversions are only for the Google Products. Here the question arises, whether a Webmaster should give up valuable PPC (Pay Per Click) Ad space for a PPA Ad? The opinion is quite varied as, some websites that have a specific Niche have been more successful in targeting specific products and get a better click and conversion rate, whereas some other websites, which have varied topics, rarely find PPA ads to be effective. One needs to experiment with the PPA Ads and see if they are working for him, or just wasting his valuable Ad space.

Now the bright side is,Google Referral 2.0, is like a simplified, less regulated Commission Junction, No 3 pages of can and can’t do lists for each advertiser, just the standard Adsense rules.The most successful referrals Ads have been those of the Google pack. So, is it that Google is doing something right that other advertisers aren’t? Or is it that those ads are clicked and converted just by the name Google, or the Google pack has got a utility, and is useful for everyone? These questions need to answered before anyone actually starts displaying Google Referrals 2.0 on their Websites.

Summing up the Pros and Cons.

Pros:
1) Google referrals are excellent if you have selected products that relate to your niche, Visitors would like to know more and check those ads, increasing the conversion rate.

2)It provides publishers with a certain amount of freedom and , advertisers don’t add in extra conditions, just the standard Google TOS.

Cons:
1)If the Ads in your niche aren’t available, it would leave a big hole in your web page if you have placed it in a prominent location.

2)No, specific rules have guidelines have been set for the advertisers, and sometime when clicked on these ads, a person is taken to an irrelevant page, like about us or contact us and conversion to click ratio is adversely affected.(This is something that happened on another blog, No, I dont click on my own Ads, Google is too smart, and I have only one IP Address )

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