Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I am an affiliate, alas not a very succesful one.
I use Adwords to promote trainings, books, computers and many more. The ads I pay for appear on your website. People click my ads and you get paid for it. If the customer buys stuff, I get paid too.
The customer probably has no idea the affiliate is in between him and the product. If it wasn't for my ad, this person wouldn't have bought this product. Sounds like selling real stuff to me.
Now in many affiliate niches competition is very stiff. Cause all affiliates are bidding on the same range of keywords, the prices of these keywords are high. For some of my ads I really need to set my PPC at $ 0,50 to get relevant keywords activated. Google usually charges me less, but for many keywords I pay $ 0.20 to $ 0.30. Now if my $ 0.30 per click is not good enough for you, you ain't nothin' but a spoiled brat!
But thats not the kind of affiliate I mean.
You I probably wouldnt ban. But if I come across a contentless page covered in ads for the same sites or products (eg the big "shopping" com etc) then I dont want them! They are simply another huge layer of money sucking contentless middlemen. They eat the advertisers budgets up. I would rather they keep their few cents, and the advertisers can use adwords and pay me more than a few cents directly.
Hush my mouth! Say it isn't so!
You I probably wouldnt ban.
Probably is like maybe yes, maybe no. ;)
I got asked to edit an ebook on my niche topic a while ago. I did this thinking we could sell it via my website, but it didn't work out well. I understand that some affilliates have had reasonable success selling the book by promoting it through adwords.
The reason they aren't banned is that they *do* have a real product to sell (indirectly) and I don't feel the ads are detrimental to my site.
I personally think that whilst blocking MFA's is often a good move if you do it sensibly, this whole debate is in danger of becoming too polarised. There are shades of grey, and we should accept that fact.
Are you saying that some AdSense publishers are behaving like a blind mob by discounting valid advertising along with the so-called MFA ads?
Sorry to say so, but I'd agree here.
because they don't make you money?
If that is the case then I understand but it would also seem that if you eliminate from the pool long enough there will be no pool and you will make less and less money. Your users will see the same ads over and pver and you could have all the traffic in the world and nothing will convert.
because you believe that it is your place to enforce rules that G doesn't?
then you're crazy
let it be understood, AdSense is about making money from people advertising with google and google pays you to further their reach. If they let them into adwords then why do you care?
show the ads, let people click on them, get paid, let G care about who they do, and don't, let in.
This does not refer to direct competitors that need to be blocked, though I think people are over zealous about that as well.
aff sites convert and they convert for the person with adsense and for Google as much as for the merchant they are selling for.
>> blind mob
good analogy martini
<added>I meant to quote this originally
I personally think that whilst blocking MFA's is often a good move if you do it sensibly, this whole debate is in danger of becoming too polarised. There are shades of grey, and we should accept that fact.
very, very well said
"Because you are another layer taking money! That end seller could advertise directly with adwords and there is no need for you!"
This is where I completely disagree with you!
The end seller sees a large market potential for his product but doesn't have enough funds to advertise it, or doesn't want to take the risk of spending to much money on advertising. So he hires affiliates to fund advertising campaigns and lower the risk. In return, the affiliate gets commission. So affiliates are not just another laying taking money, they are selling products that otherwise wouldn't have been sold.
If a bank gives you a loan to start a business, they charge you interest. They are not just another layer taking money; without the bank your business wouldn't exist!
To be honest I don't understand the whole thing, why kick ads out at all?
Regular reading of this forum documents this very well.
Simply because MFA's do not make you more money than real advertisers. They pay minimum price per click, and zap your smartpricing status into the toilet. Blocking them reinstates your site's credibility and increases your fortunes as real advertisers pay, MFA's don't. Quite simple - sorry if it's confusing for you.
The problem is that Google's algorithms do not work as intended. I can't believe that Google would intend to place a scraper MFA ad on a site where historically real ads from real advertisers have worked brilliantly. However, it's exactly what they do. There isn't an argument over this - it's fact.
Would someone like to explain to me why an MFA advertising "We've found the top 3 sites for (insert keyword here)" is going to pay me more than an ad from a real advertiser trying to sell real products / services to my niche?
You can't? Quelle suprise.
When Google fix the MFA problem, these threads will dissapear.
several WW-members have stated that they block all ads of affiliates. The idea behind this is that they don't sell "real products" because they are just the middleman, and that their clicks are worth next to nothing
guys who say so have no idea what they are talking about. affiliate is just the sales guy or company. they care about sales not the entire operation and make money of it.
same as these lazy Adsense webmasters who display ads of google and get commission from google. they also to not care about operation. we can say they are affiliates of google.
funny, huh?
>> Regular reading of this forum
yes, I do and the meandering logic that is often used in regards to what to ban and what not to is tenuous at best.
MFA is a broad stroke term such as spam, used for anything that anyone doesn't like.
The term could appropriately be applied to any site that has the use of adsense in mind as a revenue stream when a site is created regardless of the value if the site.
>> is going to pay me more than an ad from a real advertiser trying to sell real products / services to my niche?
all depends on what they are getting/doing with the traffic and how it converts from there
>> When Google fix the MFA problem, these threads will dissapear.
hehe, good luck with that. It's on their list right after "clean the spam out of our index"
at any rate aff sites aren't MFA sites and they are the ones putting the bids in there that matter, not every one but most of the ones I have ever seen. I also still say that when you (david_uk) wrote "if you do it sensibly" is the key.
Well, if they buy their traffic with Adwords, they have to compete at the same keyword market as advertisers who sell "real products". If they want their ads to be displayed in a good position, they have to pay just as much as anybody else.
Unless they convert very well, so they get a smart-pricing discount. But judging from many opinions on this forum, MFAīs convert very poor, so MFA-advertisers should in theory have to pay much more for their keywords, and thus, they might make very well paying clicks for publishers!
Some advertisers who sell "real products" might bid low CPC when their products have a low price (books, dvdīs, etc). I would prefer to make $ 0,10 from an MFA click over $ 0,05 from a "real advertiser". I don't care where the money comes from.
But smart-pricing will catch you! Will it?
How do we know that? I am amazed the debate about blocking ads is so much based on assumptions.
But in fact, we know nothing for sure.
We don't know what ads are clicked on our sites.
We don't know what ads make us what money.
We don't know what ads convert and what ads don't
We don't know how these unknown conversions will influence our smart-pricing rating.
Since we don't know Jack, why should I block any ad at all?
Thanks!
:)
[edited by: martinibuster at 10:38 pm (utc) on April 2, 2006]
The end seller sees a large market potential for his product but doesn't have enough funds to advertise it, or doesn't want to take the risk of spending to much money on advertising. So he hires affiliates to fund advertising campaigns and lower the risk. In return, the affiliate gets commission. So affiliates are not just another laying taking money, they are selling products that otherwise wouldn't have been sold.
Aff sites are promoting products for the actual merchant and being paid by the merchant to do so. There is nothing more wrong with that than the many salespeople who work on commission in stores we go to.
They have to pay you almost nothing for their business model to succeed.
Same with fake search sites, mfa, mf every other ad network, and all aff pages. They are not the ORIGINAL site selling a product or service. They are just taking some of the advertisers money. Off the back of the REAL publishers pages.
Adsense really should have a minimum click, or really check out the advertiser properly! NO ADS!
Otherwise its short term gain (4 google!)and long term ad blindness for average users, no advertiser wanting to opt into the content network, and less bid competition, as well as long term credibility!
Every genuine publisher loses...
Is the WWW at all analogous to the real world? Many think so. Are WalMart, K-Mart, Target, etc. originals? Do they have the right to advertise for a product? Would "Joe the x-tra small retailer" have the right to advertise the same merchandise as these large retailers?
I don't think MFA's add anything to the web. And I don't like wading through them to find adequate websites when I'm searching for something. And there's a lot more to dislike about MFA's but to include affiliate websites with this group to be banned from AdSense though seems to be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, no?
>> They are not the ORIGINAL site selling a product or service
either is your site, if it has AdSense on it, you are a Google affiliate, therefore worthless based on your definition
My sites are travel related, and I am seeing actually two groups of affiliate ads:
1) Legitimate ("honest") resellers of a product, using a good, usable web site, potentially with additional original information. These sites are affiliates just for the reservation part. These sites are usually OK with me.
2) Spammy affiliates, flooding Adsense with just keywords and links directly to the affiliate sites. Unusable crap that can hardly be differentiated from MFAs. One Canadian company has about 20,000 sites dealing with different topics, from cars to pharma, from loans to travel. You get the idea. I block these as they do not add any value to the eco system.
And then there are those sites which are #2 sites that come cleverly disguised as #1 sites. Here is where it gets tricky. When stops a site being useful? Right now, I treat such sites as #1 sites because people might like their interface better than that of a competitor.
At the end of the day, I still suspect that #2 sites do not pay very well (disguised or not). My fear is that once Google has decided to stop MFA business, we will see even more smart Affiliates popping up. But we will deal with this then.
based on what? affs pay good money, this a fact, I know from personal experience as well as the experience of many others.
based on what? affs pay good money, this a fact
Oh, it's just an assumption. Because Google does not provide ANY valuable information to me, I have to do some analysis on my own based on assumptions.
Let's have a look at their behaviour:
- Run a service that does not add anything to the user experience. The products/services are exchangable, just reselling stuff that could have been offered by the manufacturer directly (100% "me-too"). Assumption: affiliate partner thinks volume instead of quality.
- Use Adwords in a spammy way by selecting keywords that cater from "Hotels in Arkansas" to "Flights to Zimbabwe", again they do not really care, because they can't add anything to the user experience. Assumption: site owner thinks volume instead of quality.
- Unable to create a long-lasting impression (let alone a brand), because they do not add anything. They just take the standard product and sell it to the visitors. Thus hopes for return visitors must be low. Assumption: site owner does not care about his "customers" (who aren't his anyway).
- Living off the arbitrage between "kickback from my affiliate partner" and "buying clicks for little money". This is the only part where they can actively influence the cash generation, and they cannot influence the kickback. Guess where they will put their focus on? Assumption: he will focus on bringing down traffic acquisition cost.
Now compare this to MFAs. See any similarities? I do.
P.S.: One indication that this is pretty close to reality is the fact that many affiliate sites seem to have trouble monetizing the visitors. Thus they put up Adsense ads, actually displaying ads for their competitors. To me a clear sign that something is wrong.
I think your analysis is very interesting, but again, solely based on assumptions (as you admit yourself). Some of them just being wrong in my opinion. Extrapolating these assumptions has led to a weird black-and-white universe in this forum.
It seems the Adsense publishers in this forum only wish to give their visitors a useful Internet experience and all their pages contain nothing else but quality content just to please those eager readers. Sometimes it looks as if the publishers in this forum are 100% philanthropist serving the public needs.
But then why do we start complaining about PSA's?
Why do we go to great length to improve ad placement and colors? And especially, why do we get annoyed when our websites are flooded with affiliate ads that we presume are paying "only" few cents a click?
Because we are all in it for the money.
Both publishers and affiliates.
Publishers want to make money by getting many clicks and high paying clicks, (affiliate) advertisers want to make money by selling stuff and paying little for clicks. Since the motives on both sides are the same, there is no point in bashing affiliates for their wish to monetize.
Mzanzig, now back to your comments:
You describe affiliates as people who
"Run a service that does not add anything to the user experience."
I hear that statement often, but I think it is soft as butter. Who decides on what adds to the user experience? Only the user does. Not publishers.
A user might consider your strictly original quality content website a complete waste of time because
- He is not interested in the subject
- He has read it all before
- He thinks you are just telling nonsense
- He doesn't agree with your statements
- He considers your site boring or poorly written
That same user might end up on my affiliate page just to find what he needs.
"The products/services are exchangable, just reselling stuff that could have been offered by the manufacturer directly (100% "me-too")."
No, it could not have been offered by the manufacturer directly because he doesn't have enough advertising budget. That's why they hire affiliates.
To sell more products than they can sell on their own.
"Assumption: affiliate partner thinks volume instead of quality."
Why shouldn't affiliates be able to think both volume and quality? What's wrong with thinking volume?
Are you telling me you are aiming to get as little clicks as possible?
"Use Adwords in a spammy way by selecting keywords that cater from "Hotels in Arkansas" to "Flights to Zimbabwe""
If I am a travel affiliate that sounds logical to me.
"Unable to create a long-lasting impression (let alone a brand), because they do not add anything."
So that's why you do Adsense, to create long lasting impressions? If that's your personal target, you don't need Adsense at all.
"Thus hopes for return visitors must be low. Assumption: site owner does not care about his "customers" (who aren't his anyway)."
I really don't understand why you think this.
The best thing for an affiliate to happen is return visitors. Because they are out to buy, and they don't cost you expensive clicks. I do everything in my power to get return visitors to my affiliate pages.
"One indication that this is pretty close to reality is the fact that many affiliate sites seem to have trouble monetizing the visitors. Thus they put up Adsense ads, actually displaying ads for their competitors. To me a clear sign that something is wrong."
Especially this one is not much on target. I too have pages where I display both affiliate links and Adsense ads. Know why? Because I just paid you $ 0,50 a click! And if that visitor is not gonna order (for example because he thinks your site was boring and he is done reading when he ends up at my page), I better try to get some of that money back by offering Adsense ads!
Give the affiliate a break!
This is the big issue I have with the anti-mfa crowd is that their assumptions blind them. Even in the face of facts, as in the case of domain parking, where domain parking (direct navigation) provides excellent ROI for advertisers, anti-mfa people still refer to them in negative terms. That is blindness, pure blindness, to the facts, based on assumptions.
If you're going to make assumptions then you might as was well blame declining earnings on UFOs because that's all the validity an assumption possesses.
I think humblebeginnings makes solid arguments for not banning affiliate sites out of hand, and the wise will carefully consider them.
Oh, and I am not a philantropist. I am very much interested to increase my overall revenue, and Adsense has helped me tremendously. In fact, I did a survey last year, and the majority of my users said that they regard the ads as POSITIVE. So, no, there's nothing wrong with advertising or Google Adsense. Au contraire, mon ami!
But then again, with regards to MFAs and Affiliates, I see my assumptions being very correct. I block sites that are stuffed with Affiliate links (my category #2 above), and -voila- I see my EPC rising or becoming much more solid. Others have noted the same. Why's that? (I cannot know for sure, because Google keeps me in the dark on this.)
Also, please note that I do not have problems with "sincere" Affiliates. For example, there is a cool reservation engine, that uses attractive content that is useful to visitors. They have an affiliate program. I see advertisers using an affiliate version of the reservation engine, and often they display their own quality content next to the affiliate engine. What's wrong with this? Nothing. Do I block them? Nope. I actually LIKE such sites.
But when I see a page that consists just of targeted keywords and links (that Canadian company does it like this, for example) - the landing page is not actually helping people to solve their task (e.g. booking a flight or getting further information on a destination). Obviously the advertiser is interested in just a quick turnaround, without many thoughts about the goals and expectations of the user. Sincere publishers run user-centric sites (we provide the user with useful content) and expect our advertisers to add to this experience.
Certain publications attract certain ads. Interestingly enough, this is the same with the print market. The print market, though, has one simple selection criteria for this: the pricelist, which we don't have, because Google keeps us in the dark. Sure, any premium publisher loves to print a truckload of crap ads IF THE ADVERTISERS PAY THEIR RATES. That's why we have been demanding from Google the ability to set the minimum price for ads being displayed.
Who decides on what adds to the user experience? Only the user does. Not publishers.
Yes. On my sites, I see people looking for quality information on certain topics. I know that they are bright enough to spot a lie (bogus ad copy) when they see one. If, for example, an ad reads "Find all hotels in Elbonia. From UKP 29 per person per night!" and the user lands at a page with affiliate links to booking engines, he will simply say "what the heck, this is not what I have been looking for." Maybe he gives another ad a try, and then he will stop clicking ads at all. (That's why I do not blend my ads, by the way. - Whatever crap will be displayed in the space reserved for ads, I do NOT want to be associated with this!)
Why shouldn't affiliates be able to think both volume and quality? What's wrong with thinking volume?
Nothing, when it still serves the user. One of my biggest advertisers is a review site that uses an affiliate reservation engine if users finally conclude that they want to do a reservation. Fine. Never even considered this site for blocking (and I don't care for their EPC). They think volume, BUT they also think quality. I am concerned about those who just think volume more-or-less ignoring user expectations, as laid out above.
So that's why you do Adsense, to create long lasting impressions? If that's your personal target, you don't need Adsense at all.
Guess what? My site existed for years before I even considered Adsense to be put up. And should Adsense go away, I will still continue the site. Maybe it's my own bloated ego that let's me do this. ;-)
The best thing for an affiliate to happen is return visitors. Because they are out to buy, and they don't cost you expensive clicks. I do everything in my power to get return visitors to my affiliate pages.
Sure, and it's fine. But maaaany affiliate pages are so crappy that I think they would not be memorized after a one hour surfing session on various sites. Go, make a test - give a certain task to two groups of users. One groups gets quality affiliates (my category #1), the other gets crappy affiliates (my category #2). Which group will be faster to acieve the result? Which group will be more annoyed by their surfing experience? Which group will consider to re-visit an affiliate site again in the future?
Because I just paid you $ 0,50 a click!
If all affiliate sites were like this, then I would not see increasing revenue when blocking category #2 affiliate sites.
Assumptions are not a sound basis for business decisions.
In fact, they are the ONLY basis if you have no other information from reliable sources. Of course, I would love to have better assumptions (e.g. know which ads earn how much), but without these I have to use something else. Clearly, Google is unwilling to address the problem, so I have to use what I have got.
This is the big issue I have with the anti-mfa crowd is that their assumptions blind them.
I am thinking strictly user-centric. If I consider a service/product useful that is promoted through an Adsense ad on my site, I will not block it. Why should I? But there are sooo many useless pages (read: pages that confuse people, lie to people, trick people) out there that I have to take corrective measure. For the benefit of my users (relevant ads, useful sites). And for the benefit of my site (brand building, word-of-mouth promotion, solid EPC, increasing revenues).
