I also expect to see a huge ripple effect for PPC affiliates as the ad volume will go down and the prices probably increase as only the top affiliate bid will be shown.
typo edited
[edited by: ThomasB at 5:56 pm (utc) on Jan. 5, 2005]
It is rather disappointing that Google seems to want to go down this road of “affiliates will ride in the back of the bus only”
I don't think that is really a very accurate analogy. I suspect that actually they would rather see affiliates get run over by the bus. ;-)
I havn't tried affiliate marketing but if you do a google search, you will see there are about 10^121 results about it so you can immagine that the supply far exceeds the demand.
The only ones who make money off adwords are those who sell ebooks on how to make money with adwords.
Wait im gonna get 20 replies from people saying
'I have had great results ummum I make 20000 an hour and 200000000000 a year with my affiliate ads 1!1!11'
simply passing the prospect along to the merchant
And why is that inherently wrong?
I've yet to see a justification for why that's such a bad thing.
Users have made me successful for some reason.
Perhaps because I get them where they want to go quickly without their having to read additional verbiage and search for another link.
less patient2all lately
if the ad prices drop the ROI goes up and some people will be willing to bid more. it is a somewhat self regulating system I think?
However, once they put that product on the shelf, and set a price for it they generally can’t refuse to sell it to select people.
Yeah right. Never heard of the right to refuse service?
Walk into any vegas casino. If they don;t like your play, they can simply tell you to leave and refuse you service. Why should google be any different?
They have the right to refuse service to anyone they please.
In Google Adwords, click through rate also comes into the ranking equation in terms of position, as does max.
I havn't tried affiliate marketing
Wow...then you must be an authority on the subject.
The only ones who make money off adwords are those who sell ebooks on how to make money with adwords.
By all means, everyone please listen to this....I'm sure my affiliates would welcome the drop in competition.
Wait im gonna get 20 replies from people saying'I have had great results ummum I make 20000 an hour and 200000000000 a year with my affiliate ads 1!1!11'
Nope. But I do make a little over $6 for every $1 I spend. The trick is, you actually have to LEARN how to properly build an adwords campaign.
You're right in the assumption that the majority of affiliates fail in their marketing efforts. However, I think you can apply that to the majority of the population as well....there is a reason why 5% of the US population makes 95% of the income.
A good way for affiliates to start is by writing landing pages that "presell" (to use steve_b's term) instead of simply passing the prospect along to the merchant.
Which is where they wanted to go to in the first place because I have already pre sold them. This simply creates an extra step for the searcher to find what they want.
Making grandma jump through hoops is all this is doing.
The only ones who make money off adwords are those who sell ebooks on how to make money with adwords.
Not quite. You will find people on this board who make 5 figures monthly doing this who have never even read an AdWords book.
The books are more or less a Ponzi scheme, but what do they have to do with this change?
Like anything else, if you want to succeed it takes a lot of work and some luck. Buying Dreamweaver will not make you a great web developer if you don't put the time in to learn to be a great web developer. Buying a book on AdWords won't make you any money if you don't pay your dues and put the necessary time in.
[edited by: skibum at 4:57 pm (utc) on Jan. 6, 2005]
If the rules ARE as rumored then affiliates will just need to send AdWords traffic to a landing page on their own site before it goes to the merchant. Actually if you take the time to do some nice pre-sell on your landing page and add some testimonials, it could end up improving your conversion rates even though it will create another click for the user. Although I realize it will be a lot of extra work, I'm just trying to think on the bright side.
We aren't making any recommendations to all of our affiliates until we see how the actual rules from Google play out. As soon as they are published our team will all jump on a conference call and strategize. Until then it's sit on the edge of our seats time.
Linda
Yeah right. Never heard of the right to refuse service?Walk into any vegas casino. If they don;t like your play, they can simply tell you to leave and refuse you service. Why should google be any different?
They have the right to refuse service to anyone they please.
Casinos are an entirely different matter because they are a heavily regulated industry. Have you ever gone into a store (dressed appropriately), picked an item off the shelf (that was for sale) and they refused to sell it to you because they didn't like your look?
[edited by: kingfish at 5:25 pm (utc) on Jan. 6, 2005]
patient2all
While I don't generally think the McDonalds analogy is particulary valid, I don't even think it being applied correctly even if it is. Assuming a restuarant analogy is appropriate, thier are multitudes of restaurants with dress codes. If you don't meet the dress code, you are generally allowed to be served. I think Google editorial guidelines (no excessive punctuation, the requirement to put Aff. in an affiliate ad, no excess capitalization, etc) can be thought of as Google's "dress code". These editorial guidelines are in place to maintain a certain appearance of the website, not because they won't generate click throughs or revenues for Google.
However I do think that if Google wants to strengthen it editorial guidelines to improve the appearance of its website, that simply banning the # of affiliates who can advertise on a keyword is a bit ham handed.
There are quite a few ads on google that are well written and attractive and a lot that are junky. If Google has concluded that the affiliate ads have a higher propensity to be junk, then I think they should just subject them to a higher standard of scrutiny, to make sure they meet the gramatical and relevency guidelines.
If certain advertisers have a track record of putting up junk affiliate ads, Google could also just close that advertisers account.
I am hopeful for everyones sake that if Google makes changes that it will be an elegant rather than ham handed solution.
Regards,
If things go as has been speculated here, they are
not denying service to anyone if you follow their rules. But there are rules,
just like there are rules anywhere. The new rule
would be you need your own landing page and cannot
send the visitor direct to the merchant. I don't
really see a problem with that. Many stores deny
service if you aren't wearing shoes or a shirt. Same
thing, you need to abide by the rules.
All I have seen is speculation; we don’t know where it will stop. I think one person speculated that if you have a landing page your will be ok, and everyone else jumped on the bandwagon and assumed that must be the case.
Nevertheless, you’re still missing the point. If you want to stick with the store analogy it would be like if somebody walked into the store with shoes and a shirt on but, but they said sorry sir we still can’t serve you because you’re gay and we don’t want the straight people in here to think this is a gay hangout. In the U.S. businesses generally aren’t free to make up rules that discriminate against only a certain group of people. The distinction (an important one) that some of you are failing to grasp is that Google’s decision to segregate affiliate placed ads from agency placed ads and ads placed directly by merchants is an arbitrary one.
If you don't meet the dress code, you are generally allowed to be served. I think Google editorial guidelines (no excessive punctuation, the requirement to put Aff. in an affiliate ad, no excess capitalization, etc) can be thought of as Google's "dress code".
See my previous post but I’ll try to explain it again. It would be like a restaurant claming they had a right to refuse to seat African Americans because their dress code requires that all patrons have white skin. The editorial guidelines that apply to all ad words buyers are perfectly fine. The ones I have problem with are the ones that apply only to affiliates like requiring the ‘aff” designation.
See my previous post but I’ll try to explain it again. It would be like a restaurant claming they had a right to refuse to seat African Americans because their dress code requires that all patrons have white skin.
I suggest you adapt to the new reality. Affiliates are parisites and shouldn't have the same value as a REAL company selling a real product. Why should some site with thousands of affiliates be allowed to dominate the search results? That isn't good for google and that isn't good for users.
I heard that only the original merchant is going to be allowed to buy Adwords ads from now on. Affiliates will no longer be allowed. Look for the announcement tomorrow.
Affiliates are parisites
Why don't you go screw yourself is all I can really say to that. Affiliate marketing represents 20-40% of ALL online marketing. Obviously you are not a "real" merchant with a "real" product, becuause you would have a "real" affiliate program.
[edited by: Seattle_SEM at 6:05 pm (utc) on Jan. 6, 2005]
Why should some site with thousands of affiliates be allowed to dominate the search results? That isn't good for google and that isn't good for users.
Why should walmart be able to offer the lowest prices simply because they have figured out how to do it?
The big deal is different treatment for the same activity by creating artificial distinctions to classify people.
Yes, they have a rich history of such behaviour.
In fact their technical model (SERPS, PR...) is based on VIP system.
That was fully confirmed with their Adsense policy, where admitedly, they undervalue (EPC) a click from a non-relevant page (whatever it means).
Discriminating buyers' money legitimately coming from particular "non-relevant" sources (that even have nice steady conversions) is something of unheard before.
Affiliates are parisites..
You're just denying the world's leading economic force, both offline and online: resellers.
They also told me (I am an affiliate) that I have Nothing to worry about today.... and they offered to research it further if I required...
why is everyone so certain this is factual? Did I miss something?
-MEga
"I'm not going to rent movies to you."
Off topic, but worth knowing:
See: CRACKER BARREL
[bankrupt.com...]
Kingfish, just as an aside, a merchant can refuse to serve you. I was in a video rental store once and we were goofing around and I guess the guy running the store had a stick somewhere unpleasant and when we went to check out he said "I'm not going to rent movies to you." So we laughed and left.I have no doubt they did probably on the basis that you were causing a disturbance in the store.
Look what happened to Denny’s when they refused to serve select people. And I am not saying nobody can ever refuse to serve you. What I am saying is that rules regarding who gets served and who doesn’t have to be applied fairly and you can’t single out a certain group of people and deny serving them when they comply with all of the rules of your establishment.
If you went into McDonald's and looked up at the menu and it listed the same sandwich on every menu board, you might...
ahhh, nevermind... the sky is falling, gotta go.
