Google Adwords new affiliate policy could result in huge earning drops

New changes mean one affiliate per merchant

[Jenstar]

As reported in theAdwords forum [webmasterworld.com] January 12th is the day the one affiliate per merchant rules will come into affect. Something that has been hardly mentioned at all is the potential earnings drop for publishers - and this is something that can have a hugely negative impact on AdSense... or if they do it right, a positive impact.

While the full details will not be released until tomorrow (January 6th), if this rule also applied to content, publishers could see a significant drop in earnings, particularly for those who have a high percentage of affiliate ads appearing.

On the flip side, if the one affiliate per merchant only applies to search and Adwords will still allow multiple affiliates to advertise, this could actually result in higher earnings for publishers. As advertisers bid higher to increase the liklihood of appearing on content sites, if they are not able to get that coveted top spot in search. This is obviously the scenario I am hoping for :)

Depending on how this is handled by Adwords, it could have a huge impact on how happy publishers are with AdSense, particularly if their sites have that high percentage of affiliate based ads.

What are other publishers thinking about this new Adwords policy?

[bird]

As a publisher, try to consider the following two scenarios for a visitor on your site, when they find that there are a series of ads about a product category they intend to buy:

A) four affiliate ads promoting the same product of the same vendor with very similar wording.

B) four very different ads leading to seperate individual vendors.

In which scenario do you think the visitor is more likely to click on more than a single ad on your page? What will that have for an impact on your revenues?

[darkmage]

Plus the ad they click will be the highest bidder for that affiliate block, so this is likely to be a higher CPC. The net result is a possible of a CPC and higher CTR, nicely equates to higher eCPM and earnings.

[skippy]

Plus the ad they click will be the highest bidder for that affiliate block, so this is likely to be a higher CPC.

I afraid that one will just be googles. I seriously doubt the successful bidder for the affiliate block will turn on content for that one.

Be a nice little gift from google if they forced the winner to turn on content though. ; )