Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I see they are now ranking PPA ads based on performance, even if it's only stars.
The improvements are nice, but PPA is still not there yet in my opinion. I think Google still has a bit of work to do and the advertisers have a lot of work to do.
FarmBoy
Referral banners not showing up here. Anyone else?
Ok, so this is the 3rd time I've tried Referrals and again, they show off-the-wall ads and not what I have chosen. AdSense contextual ads are dead-on. Does this tell me the advertisers budget has been exhausted or is there another reason?
I am now going to hold off once again until this program makes some real improvements. I think for the most part the referrals program is nothing more than a branding avenue for the advertisers. Google needs to crack down on the advertisers in writing good ad copy and accept only those that have realistic spending budgets and are willing to payout a realistic amount for conversions. For instance if I can join a network or program directly from the Advertiser and get paid 10x the amount, why would I want to use Google Referrals from the same company and get 1/10 of the amount (I can't imagine Google is keeping that kind of cut)? This is not Googles fault, except they need to scrutinize the advertisers and the ad copy more closely. Until they do I am holding off.
[edited by: The_Contractor at 12:23 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2007]
1- big problems with advertisers dumping their programs on unrelated keywords / categories
2- when we find a program through a keyword search, it would be nice if we knew in which category it currently belong, so we can check out similar programs.
3- some programs don't make a link to their landing pages, we have to find out ourselves by retyping the domain name shown in a sample ad. Annoying. It should be required.
4- although I made sure there would be only my selected program ads to be displayed in rotation, I am seeing unselected programs creeping in the google referral ads on my sites still.
5- interface is a bit clunky and slow, especially when you have to constantly click on the "return to search more products" link when browsing around.
Keep working at it!
Thanks.
There's one offer that is absolutely perfect for one of my sites, it's spot-on the target they are looking for, and I believe I could generate plenty of conversions for them.
However, they have the landing page set to their "about" page, instead of the sign up page or the home page, or an offer page - so the first thing the user sees is a bunch of not terribly relevant information about the history of the company making the offer, rather than the offer itself and the benefits to signing up.
So of course I can get clicks on that, because the ad isn't badly written, but people take one look at that inappropriate landing page, and flee. It will never convert as it stands.
And that same advertiser is probably over in the AdWords forum asking why they can't get any conversions on referrals.
Oh well.
And that same advertiser is probably over in the AdWords forum asking why they can't get any conversions on referrals.
I see things the opposite and feel the advertiser knows exactly what they are doing, which is getting visitors for free and building up their brand without paying Google or the publisher a dime. Crappy ad copy and crappy landing pages = crappy conversions and costs nothing.
they show off-the-wall ads and not what I have chosen
You have to uncheck the box that says "Pick best performing ads", otherwise, "Your chosen ads may not always show." This comes up in the Ad Shopping cart to the right side of the screen.
[edited by: Content_ed at 9:48 pm (utc) on Aug. 8, 2007]
We may leave the PPA ads running on pages that never did well with regular ads to start with, but on our most popular content, I'd rather have no advertising than advertising that doesn't work (or pay).
PS: what's the deal with the "Hot Best Selling Items 123" programs dumping their keywords everywhere. Get rid of that!
You have to uncheck the box that says "Pick best performing ads", otherwise, "Your chosen ads may not always show." This comes up in the Ad Shopping cart to the right side of the screen.
But I don't want Google to choose them for me - I simply want the one I checked/chose. If I go to CJ and choose an advertiser and ad format, they don't change on me. Why show me ads/advertisers that won't show-up? Why give me a choice if they aren't going to show it anyways?
PS: what's the deal with the "Hot Best Selling Items 123" programs dumping their keywords everywhere. Get rid of that!
hehe...yes, you can only guess how well those would convert....not! They need to get serious about this if they are to be taken seriously - I'm sure they will someday.
[edited by: The_Contractor at 11:41 pm (utc) on Aug. 8, 2007]
But I don't want Google to choose them for me
Unclick the box and they won't choose for you, they'll only run the particular ad(s) you pick out.
Unclick the box and they won't choose for you, they'll only run the particular ad(s) you pick out.
Completely untrue, did you read this thread? I am not asking a how-to, I'm saying their system doesn't work...hehe
[edited by: The_Contractor at 11:38 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2007]
- Ad copy, campaigns that are actually trying to convert are out of inventory before 10am est leaving campaigns that are obviously not trying to convert. They are simply looking for free branding and it is very obvious to see.
- My suggestion is for the google team to setup a account with other affiliate companies etc and check out the campaigns that companies are running, then look at the ones in the Google cpa backend. The copy and conversion ratios are like night and day.
Completely untrue, did you read this thread?
I though I did:-)
It worked for me, to the point that I've run channels for eeks with a single ad, nothing else. I can see where it would be very easy to make a mistake since the box has to be unchecked for every new advertiser you add to a channel, and checked is the default.
If it doesn't work for you guys, then by all means send in error reports.
From the advertiser standpoint, if a site sends a bunch of non converting traffic, they do not pay (which is good). If a site sends very good traffic that converts, you do get paid more than you would from pay per click.
Case in point, one of the publishers we assist had a very small niche about widgets. He knew that he had a lot of people who came to his site and were constantly asking where they could buy widgets because no one could find where to buy them on Google search. The publisher who ranked very well for widgets found two eCommerce sites that actually sold widgets. He looked at the eCommerce sites, found that it was not SEO’d real well and was lacking inbound links, but they were solid businesses that were honest. Basically, the eCommerce sites were showing up at the 100 plus ranking in Google. So the publisher picked up the campaign that paid out $9 per conversion. The publisher was making about $15 a day on the site from pay per click. The publisher is making about $45-$90 a day on conversions.
Publishers have to take into consideration what kind of traffic you are getting. If you’re in a niche that targets teenagers who have no purchasing power because they do not have jobs or credit cards, do you really think your going to reap the rewards of conversions? Probably not! Keep the pay per click. But if you are in a niche where products are hard to find and the product or service is in demand, well you can make a ton of money. Yes, publishers have to do some work and research, but it can be worth it.
All the new sites you build, you want to find those niches, you want to rank very well in the search engines for that niche, and last but not least, you want to attract purchasing power! A good hint, target business to business types of transactions since the most money flows there. Remember, it’s not all about the traffic numbers you get; it’s about the purchasing type of traffic you get. Remember, 10 conversions a day can outpace your pay per click easily for smaller publishers.
So has it improved? Yes if you are a smart publisher it has improved greatly.
We end up with big holes in our layout, or java script disasters.
How is this helping anyone?
From the advertiser standpoint, if a site sends a bunch of non converting traffic, they do not pay (which is good).
And it looks like many of them are taking advantage of this by their ad copy and landing pages. You are right though, this is a two way street. But when the ad copy looks like it's a "message" instead of a call to action, and the landing page is drivel, with some landing on "About Us" pages as mentioned earlier...what's the chance of converting? I'm not saying there are NOT any good ad copy or landing pages, just none in a few niches I looked at and what others have described.
Realistically Google is out to compete with the likes of CJ etc. They have a loooooong way to go to even begin to catch up. If CJ is like a Marathon runner, Google Referrals is like an 9-month-old holding onto the coffee table.
So has it improved? Yes if you are a smart publisher it has improved greatly.
Maybe in your niche, but I wouldn't say all-around. Smart is generating the most money for your traffic - as of now I don't see this implementation of Google Referrals as doing that for the vast majority.
We end up with big holes in our layout, or java script disasters.
They should not allow people to sign-up if their budget runs out by 10:00 AM every day. I simply don't understand this. Advertisers shouldn't have a budget at all since they only pay when it converts. That's like saying I only wish to sell 10 widgets per day - not 1000. Again, they need to get serious with the advertisers if they want to be taken seriously.
Your right, but also think outside the box. One of our clients who sell very pricey stuff on an eCommerce site put up a bunch of PPA ads for loans. It is converting. What does a loan have to do with what the eCommerce site sells? Nothing really except money. Funny thing is, people are probably clicking through to borrow money, eCommerce site gets the CPA, and then the people might come back to the site and make a purchase.
There should never be an instance where there are blank spots on a page as the advertisers budget runs out... They need to let advertisers know that this isn't a branding avenue (as I see it right now) and Google shouldn't waste it's resources on advertisers that cannot pay per conversion, whether it's $10 or $100k per day.
They also need to shop the clients of their competitors and get some companies that have been in the game awhile that want to pay for every conversion (and work hard to covert every visit). I'm amazed at some the ad copy/landing pages and not even sure how they would pass AdWords scrutiny, let alone paying on conversion.
[edited for spelling]
[edited by: The_Contractor at 11:02 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2007]
If the ad copy sucks along with the "Advertisers" conversion rates, Google simply shows less and less of that advertiser until they pull the ad completely (completely automated).
What's to stop those companies from pulling out the ad and create a new one whenever Google stops to show it? They still get free traffic and branding without paying a cent, contrary to PPC. They must be penalized in such a way that it cost them money not to convert.
Here is the problem for us, when you setup a campaign and deselect show best performing ads then implement this code on our product page which will interest this user, well the ad disappears when the budget is gone.
This can be in the first hour of the day or in 12 it doesnt matter. What we are then left with is a blank space or worse your targetting, I already know from looking at landing pages of the cpa advertisers who is trying to get conversions and who isnt. The problem is the ones who are trying to get conversions burn there budgets so fast that the campaigns die.
To pour more gasoline on the fire you are running the campaigns through regular adsense inventory now drilling out the converters at ninety times the pace as before. I have watched 30 or so good paying good converting campaigns die since you released it to general inventory.
Running the cpa ads through general adsense inventory at the same time as letting us select individual campaigns will never work unless you release the floodgates of advertisers. 40 or so companies that really want conversions cannot holdup to the onslaught of conversions that will come there way from the entire adsense network.
Some are setting up lead generation campaigns, some are looking at 500k-2.5m sales funnels which take months. Not all products are simple sales here. Even burger king can only sell so many burgers a hr.
I am sure you already know this, I am sure you are just testing stuff but you have to understand that from a affiliate marketing side, I cannot promote stuff that goes dead daily before noon. We have hundreds of thousands of users and page views a day, I cannot devote staff to campaigns that will go poofta in a few hrs enmasse. Until that problem is fixed the cpa program will be a dead duck for us.
I want nothing more than this program to work, I want to show millions of your Google CPA ads a month if you will let me.
What's to stop those companies from pulling out the ad and create a new one whenever Google stops to show it?
They can give them a probationary time-out where none of their ads show, 3 strikes and you're out...hehe
Seriously, Google needs to scrutinize the ad copy and landing pages. They need to completely seperate this from AdWords and do it right.
Oh and the referral page almost crashed this time, firefox gave me one of those "a script is running too long, do you want to stop" kind of error message. Do we really have to download ALL the products list whenever we check some stats?
I guess some sub categories would help also, the first broad ones are starting to have many many pages of products to go through.
Deliberating if I should wait again for another month or so, this is too beta for me. The only thing keeping me from it is there are some very cool products to promote that wouldn't be shown normally in contextual ads. I like to use a PHP script and show referrals every now and then.
I'm in very specific industries and areas and my ads are well paying and always on target. Unless I read this program wrong, it seems best for people who do not get on-target ads that pay well in a specific industry.
I have enough affiliate programs on pay per sale. I use adsense for the clicks (again - at least for me)
[edited by: Huntster at 1:35 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
Its more like a scam job on publishers for free advertising then anything to make money from.
Like others mention, you can make real money with the likes of cj, rather than waste time with referrals 2.0
SAVE YOURSELF TIME - GIVE IT A MISS TILL 2008!
