Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The AdSense Referrals product team is looking for feedback on the current referral buttons. As we continue launching them for new languages and products, they want to know what's working well, and what might be improved.
They're especially interested in your thoughts and suggestions on colors, formats, styles...
I'll be checking this thread over the next several days to pass your comments along to the product managers. They won't be able to implement all of the suggestions, but it will definitely help them determine future directions to take referrals in.
Any thoughts you have will be great. Thanks!
-ASA
If you want google branding on those buttons, that's fine, but at least have some buttons that refer to "Picasa" as well.
I actually use picasa for all the simple picture editing, and to help keep track of them, and leave photoshop for the more advanced stuff. If I write a review, I don't want to have to keep referring to "Google Photo Software" so that the readers understand that the referral button is how to get it.
I consider those referral buttons to be the equivalent of "get a Chevy Fast Car" instead of "Chevy Corvette" or even "Corvette".
Some flash referral buttons might be in order.
The AdSense Referrals product team is looking for feedback on the current referral buttons.
Hmmm...what I would like to know is this!
In the "unpaid for" Opera browser there is an AdSense 468.
Instead of the "Ads by Goooooogle" there is a "Related Searches" with clickable links.
I WANT THAT NOW ON MY LEADERBOARD
It's the best thing I've seen since AdLinks!
The visual appealing questions may not arise for contexual advertising. Still we are allowed to change the color schemes but when it comes to fixed images we don't have any choice than to accept whatever G offers.
And they have made it so plain (I won't call it simple because simple is beautiful)that its very difficult to convince myself to add it to the site.
I have seen the banners, adding the beauty to the page. Why can't G provide such banners for referel products?
Instead of the "Ads by Goooooogle" there is a "Related Searches" with clickable links.
Do you not remember the mess it created when they did that? What was it 2 years ago.
I for one, want absolutely nothing to do with Related Searches. I am not a search engine.
Picasa referral buttons that actually say "Picasa".
Agreed. I'm not sure it's good to see Google everywhere.
I'd also like to see "download for free" for Picasa and perhaps mention its editing capabilities on top of photo organization.
Can't complain about the color. The light grey and green match my site quite well. Custumized buttons would still be great though.
They are bland, uninteresting, and the CTR is horrid.
[edited by: incrediBILL at 4:52 am (utc) on Sep. 12, 2006]
Thanks for asking.
Without trying to be insultive;
looking at the referral buttons I sometimes doubt if Google really wants people to download their software because:
- some of the referral buttons are hardly readable
- not all of them provide a convincing call to action (this site monetized....so what?)
- can not be customized to blend into their context
If I wanted this to work I would provide some buttons and text links with a strong call to action (click here to download the free ... etcetera) and give my publishers the same options to alter the code as with ad-blocks.
And I second the statement that the best thing would be if publishers can write their own creatives. That way textlinks will perfectly match the publishers content.
If I have a site about taking pictures of widgets, I want a button that says: "Want to modify your widget pictures? Click here to download the free Google Picasa software now!".
I second that we should be able to write our own ad copy or design our own banners.
1. The biggest is really really simple. You know how we have the alternate ad option in the adsense code – why can't we simply select various adsense referral products as the alternate ads. At the moment I have to create my own page, point to it as an alternate ad, then if I want to rotate the ads, ah it just gets a bit too messy. That's assuming of course that I there is a suitable format – see point 2:
2. More common formats – medium rectangle, 728 banners
3. These are ads for products, but they don’t do a very good job of making people curious. Much of the stuff is free and made by Google, but why not something like
'Picasa photo software. It's made by Google and free. What else could you want?'
Or 'Picasa: It's Google, it's free, it's good'
Sticky me for an address to send the cheque ;)
Dark Mage
1) I second allowing us to use referral as alternate ads.
2) Get the Google Doodler on the job, the graphics need some livening up.
3) More languages, many still missing.
4) In Advanced reports I want to see the conversions too
5) Finally: Why not throw in your algorithm into the referral product choice too? i.e. We place a general referral code, your algo plays them all and detects which product performs best in which page, and to which country, and chooses accordingly, having this as an option for publishers to test will go a long way, but remember to allow publishers to opt in for which products combo they want to run with this code.
The AdSense Referrals product team is looking for feedback on the current referral buttons.
Most buttons have rounded borders with white background, they can't be used on pages with backgrounds other than white.
Possible Solutions:
- make them transparent gifs without antialiasing
- supply us with more non-rounded images
- make the background color configurable
Additionally I would like to see some animated ones (gif or swf).
Stuff them with keywords: "free" (german: "kostenlos") and "download".
CTR is quite high for referrals but conversions are low.
I guess ppl are even downloading but then forget about it and don't install. Can't that be forced?
I'd dearly like to be able to use (say) Picasa referral buttons on a fallback page from (say) square AdLink units. It would be a good fit for my site, and especially useful where AdLink and only AdLink refuses to find matching items (other AS ad units are fine), especially on new pages.
At the moment this appears to be prohibited by Ts&Cs, confirmed by AS support.
I think you could turn this round and make it an explicit fallback option (alongside solid colour, etc) for AdLink units. I can't see a reputational or other downside from this.
Rgds
Damon
[edited by: DamonHD at 10:57 am (utc) on Sep. 12, 2006]
Point 5 made by Hobbs about the algo - that's highly valuable. It is pretty much what is great about Google (and some other networks) is that you paste code once and it takes care of everything.
Having a wide choice of ads doesn't mean a thing if most fail on your site.
Chitika have started doing it - I've always thought AdSense should too.
1. multilanguage support.
2. same referal fee in developed countries.
3. algorithm that checks whether user is using firefox or have picasa installed, if he/she does replaces to any other referal.
In the Firefox referral, I like the "Browse the web faster" line of the original designs better than "Browse the web more securely" of the new ones. Can there be at least one of the new 120x240 designs that uses the old text instead?
Thanks!
[edited by: Play_Bach at 1:59 pm (utc) on Sep. 12, 2006]
Second - follow chitika - "ads by google" should be referral for adwords/adsense
2) Absolutely needs to emphasize FREE on the buttons/links
3) The buttons are okay (albeit not very exciting) but I use the text links in many places, and I would like to have a shorter text link.
4) Our own creatives would be fantastic; failing that, I think AdSense should lift the ban on calling attention to ads for referral buttons. After all, the users have to download the software and install it before it counts anyway, so what's the big deal?
If you don't want to let people write their own creatives, you could have at least let some of us submit some of our own ideas for general use.
I have done pretty well with referrals, and with just a LITTLE bit of tweaking/my control could do a whole lot better - and thus, Google does better too, right?
I'm glad you guys are finally looking at this. To my mind, the program is severely underdeveloped and never gotten the attention it merits.
Customizing buttons would be nice. Maybe one way to compromise between customizing and G maintaining control would be to allow us to submit a URL to a image file to serve as the background. Then we could pick the ad copy and color that way we get a more custom look and google maintains control of the copy.
IMHO, the buttons are unattractive. Perhaps they should be flat with square corners and be available in a multitude of colors so that we can pick which will most complement our sites. Or be eye-catching.
I've tried the text version. A few clicks with only one conversion for Picasa. Better but still not good. Perhaps a change to the words used could help.
