Forum Moderators: martinibuster
(1) I've selected one program for a prime location on my index page and referral ads for entirely different programs have shown. Totally unrelated ads. This is the most expensive "real estate" on my site and I am very careful about what appears there; the right ad there can do very, very well. One of those programs appearing -- that I did not select -- is banned from my site in adsense contextual ads and I do NOT want it appearing. Particularly not in the best slot on my site! It doesn't convert, it's considered a company for amateurs in my industry, and I do NOT want to look like I'm promoting it. And yet, even though I selected something entirely different and unrelated, I get ads for THAT company.
(2) Googlepack does nicely on my front page. I tried to go back to googlepack and the ads are now ugly -- pixelated with "ads by google" appearing in a box at the bottom. Plus I cannot seem to select the message I want to appear, which is any banner mentioning browsing, which will convert ten times better with my traffic -- it keeps displaying referral banners with messages about photo (picasa) on them. These. Do. Not. Convert. on my site. I am now LOSING money. I cannot go back; I've tried.
(3) On multiple occasions I've selected graphic banners & had text ads appear on my site. One single text ad in the middle of a 250X300 box rather than a nice loud animated ad. It's annoying, a waste of space, it looks awful (because it doesn't match the site's colors), and it's in flash -- why would you do a text ad in flash? I've yanked these ads off and gone back to adsense contextual ads, but grr!
(4) The interface to select ads is really awkward, really slow, and has bugs.
I rarely complain about Google because they've been pretty good to me over the years, but how hard is it to make the right ad appear in the right place? And NOT show programs I haven't selected?
Leva
Why not report the problems to Google?
Oh well.
Why not report the problems to Google?
After experiencing the same issues Leva mentioned (and a few others), there is absolutely no way Google does not already know about each of these problems.
In fact, they probably knew about the bugs before making the beta available.
That is funny.
If I told my customers 'nevermind, it's just beta' they'd tell me to go stuff it.
Nice to have such sloppy flexibility for their programmers.
Seems like these companies are all the same..Called Y the other day about a 10 month old issue - they say it's just beta, make another screen shot at we'll put it with the 5 others you have sent over the last 10 months.
PS. Sorry EFV, I'm back to the dark side.
PPS. Maybe if all companies called their product 'beta' they wouldn't get sued... 'This ladder is in beta, use at your own risk'
I just read that the programmer working on the Mars Global Surveyor came from Google. When he killed the satellite he said 'I thought it was in beta, whats the big deal?'.
If I told my customers 'nevermind, it's just beta' they'd tell me to go stuff it.
More likely, they'd have the sense not to join a beta program if they expected a product that was ready for prime time.
I seldom participate in beta programs myself these days--I'm not as adventurous as I was when I screwed up my courage and unplugged my computer while it was compressing my "C" drive during a Windows Plus Pack alpha test years ago. :-)
Our rep was made aware of it and it is a shame, we were having fantastic success with the program.
Couple things that make no sense,
Why would I promote a product, do a review etc then select a cpa ad for that product only to have that cpa ad show either another cpa ad or a regular google cpc ad that I seemingly do not get any credit for?
I mean it just doesnt make any sense. A good example would be...
I tell people and advertise to people to come to my store to buy sportscars, news print media tv etc. People show up to my store and I go oh! I am sorry we do not have sports cars but would you like to buy this tractor trailer perhaps?
This goes against every basic concept of cpa. The large obnoxious Ads by Google they recently put in doesnt help either. It's almost as if they do not want conversions.
We went from several hundred conversions a day to zero nada zip for weeks before we yoinked them. Oh well, guess we will try again after it is launched.
But looking within the categories, it looks like there are a lot fewer products than just a couple of days ago. For example, under the Travel category, no products are shown.
Someone else try this and see if you see the same thing.
I currently am displaying some Referral ads for products that are no longer shown in the inventory. I wonder if I should remove those ads? (The ads still appear when I visit my page)
FarmBoy
FarmBoy
Anybody think this was rushed out of the gate?
Anybody think this was rushed out of the gate?
Very rushed.
Seems rather odd too since Google knew it was purchasing DoubleClick before allow this 'beta' to begin.
Maybe Google has decided to pull their own CPA model back and concentrate on integrating with the DoubleClick model?
Darn few choices that evn come close to fitting well on my site. But I did find one that seemed like a decent fit, meaning it matched existing CPC ads being displayed very well. The CTR on both types of ads was about the same.
The difference in performance wasn't hard to see though.
The CPC ads kept paying, while the CPA ad sucked off clicks and paid nothing.
I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing.
Anybody think this was rushed out of the gate?
Very rushed...the interface is even buggy and quite frustrating to even work with...hehe
I really can't believe they even put this in people's control panels. Most of the advertisers are trying to steal a sale in my opinion. Very poor ad writing to boot.
After several thousand impressions, "5" clicks, and "0" conversions I pulled it from the pages I had them on. To show how bad the ad writing is those same pages get an avg 13-15% CTR with AdSense contextual ads.
Lucky their name is Google and not Microsoft because that's the only thing saving them from releasing something like this.
When your dealing with millions of impressions a month on your site and you devote A1 prime real estate to promote a certain cpa widget then that widget doesnt show, it shows a different widget, how does this make any sense to us?
I can understand testing, I can even understand the ridiculous ads by google size now, what I cannot fathom is why would anyone bother with a cpa program that shows the cpa product you selected only some of the time.
We actually have many of these products on our sites already since that is what our site is about. I sure hope they change this back to how it was in alpha, we were doing great with it for the first couple months. Now it just seems like a way for folks to get tons of free traffic.
1. The code generator doesn't work for me. For three days I gone through the ad selection process, gotten to the "select the code in the box" page....empty box. From two machines, Firefox on Linux and Windows, as well as IE. They've got some issues.
2. I don't know the details of the deal, but could this have been pushed out of the gate early to push down the price of DoubleClick stock to lower the price of the deal?
The code generator doesn't work for me. For three days I gone through the ad selection process, gotten to the "select the code in the box" page....empty box. From two machines, Firefox on Linux and Windows, as well as IE. They've got some issues.
I experienced the same problem at first.
When you select the size of the ad, make sure it accepted your choice before continuing. All ads are not available in all sizes and if you select a non-available size for the ad you selected, you won't see any code when you click on over to the code page.
FarmBoy
Yea, it has a bugs, but I think a lot of advertisers like the idea so I think it will continue to grow. Honestly, I think people who come to the content network are not as likely to click on an advertisement as the would on google search. Especially if they are not sure of the content site. Too many people worry about clicking on an ad and getting spyware.
Honestly, I think people who come to the content network are not as likely to click on an advertisement as the would on google search.
Or, if they do, they may be clicking for the wrong reasons (e.g., because ads are substituted for a navigation bar or because ads are the only "content" above the fold).
I guess this will eventually put the ball in the publishers court for getting traffic that will click on the ads and will convert.
I myself looked at a lot of our sites which have adsense on them. We have one site that is an informational blog. It gets good traffic, but the audience who comes and reads it are more than likely not going to click through on the ads and make a purchase. It does not get that many clicks at all and it is really making its money for site targeted advertisements.
So I guess a change in strategy is coming to the publishers, how to attract traffic that will click on the ads and will make purchases.
May be we should term pay per click as google affiliate.
I guess this will eventually put the ball in the publishers court for getting traffic that will click on the ads and will convert.
It takes two to tango. The advertisers have to provide a landing page that will convert.
I was excited about PPA when I first heard about it. Not that it is a reality and I've seen the advertisers' offerings, my general attitude is, "You've gotta' be kidding me. You think I'm going to give up PPC ads to send traffic to that page/site?"
FarmBoy
So I guess a change in strategy is coming to the publishers, how to attract traffic that will click on the ads and will make purchases.
As with most things, it depends.
For most publishers, AdSense is a "set and forget" solution. Most AdSense publishers aren't going to invest the time required to use AdSense CPA as it's currently set up. The effort required might be okay for a publisher with a limited range of subtopics, but it isn't practical for publishers of sites that are editorially diverse (even within a niche) and who have more productive ways to spend their time.
For advertisers, CPA will mean a limited pool of venues for their ads. That will be okay for some advertisers, but not for others. (The vendor of Elbonian barge cruises probably has enough trouble reaching a sufficient pool of prospects with contextual ads, never mind CPA ads.)
Remember, too, that Google's CPA offering is just one of several product extensions. Site-targeted contextual ads are another solution to the problem of junk clicks from anyone and everyone.
One big one is the fact that there is ZERO incentive for an advertiser to do anything to up their conversion rate, beyond just them making more money in a general sense.
Lots of advertisers are lazy. PPA is the epitome of joy for businesses who have to pay zero unless they get a sale. So they don't care. They also get all kinds of free advertising on all kinds of sites until they do get a sale. This is nirvana for them.
The problem, in my experience, is most PPA offers are worth very little. Conversion rates are ridiculously low, even on a custom tailor site with pinpoint traffic. What do they care though, they only pay when they make a sale. I do affiliate marketing for a living, and suffice it to say, I see the publishers ultimately getting screwed in this deal.
I just don't see how this is going to generate more revenue than a PPC model, which actually requires advertisers to do some work in order to keep their costs in line and create a ROI.
With a PPA campaign their return on investment is fixed. So it is set it and forget it for a lot of companies.
What will publishers do when they get a bad advertiser, and they send hundreds or possibly even thousands of clicks with no conversions. It is possible. I test PPA programs all the time. Most programs suck.
What you will end up with are made for PPA sites that target the handful of businesses, niches that actually convert, and the rest will be essentially just a free advertising co-op.
I really am interested to hear what kinds of returns people are seeing compared to their regular adsense campaigns.
What you will end up with are made for PPA sites that target the handful of businesses, niches that actually convert, and the rest will be essentially just a free advertising co-op.
If that's true, publishers who don't benefit from CPA won't continue using it, and those who do will.
Sounds pretty simple to me.
What will publishers do when they get a bad advertiser, and they send hundreds or possibly even thousands of clicks with no conversions.
They will be reluctant to try the next advertiser.
FarmBoy
I really am interested to hear what kinds of returns people are seeing compared to their regular adsense campaigns.
No returns on PPA so far.
And the way AdSense is going, pretty soon PPA and AdSense will be about equal. :)
FarmBoy
