Is anyone making anything from Google Referrals 2?

[vik_c]

I seem to get zero clicks. The very first day I implemented it, it worked like a charm and then I have had just one lead in over a month. I get targeted traffic which just has to convert but even clicks don't seem to get recorded. Sometime back there was a thread here about bugs in Google Referrals. Have they yet to be fixed? Is anyone making anything worthwhile from this?

[marcus11]

clicks but very little conversions for the past several weeks, about to re-think the category chosen or toss them!

[joelgreen]

Working same as before. Same clicks, same conversions. Nothing changed for me.

[vik_c]

Working same as before. Same clicks, same conversions. Nothing changed for me.

Is that good or bad?

[WiseWebDude]

I've tried it in a couple differnet places and it just doesn't work. I am just sending the advertisers TONS of traffic for nothing. Will not use anymore. Not worth my time and I can hear the user's cookies being deleted (and me taking a screwing) as I type.

[eeek]

I gave it a try, but I quickly found it to be quite worthless. Obnoxious ads and no clicks don't do it for me.

[mayest]

It just didn't work for me. After trying referrals for a couple of months with virtually no conversions, I took it off of my site.

[DXL]

Thanks for the feedback, I was considering implementing those ads, but have now decided it probably isn't worth it. I think one of the biggest gripes I heard from other advertisers was that the landing pages weren't effective (too many calls to action encouraging people to call rather than fill out an application).

[vik_c]

Yes. Thanks for the feedback.

[sailorjwd]

1st month was good. Then all of a sudden conversions decreases and for every single one I received 1cent. Absolutely absurd.

Last week i removed every last one of them.

[Khensu]

Yep I was rockin, about $200 a day, for a month. Then all the adblocks went blank for 24 hours and nothing works after that.

Got every thing down just waiting to hear it is fixed.

"What we got here is a dead stick"

-Mission to Mars

[edited by: Khensu at 3:56 am (utc) on Sep. 23, 2007]

[icedowl]

I just removed them this afternoon. They were not earning their keep.

[Green_Grass]

Last 15 days have been bad.. I think some advertisers who were converting ran out of budgets while the rotten ones keep displaying ads which no one clicks.

[mslina2002]

No earnings at all.

For those who have earnings are you using image banners or text links.

[jeffgroovy]

I had some spotty unpredictable conversions for a while, but it fell apart like white bread left out in a rain storm. I got a couple referral systems set that converted fairly consistently (consistent according the type of numbers I'm used to seeing from Commission Junction,) but then those fell down and didn't get up. That aside still doing okay with the original referrals like firefox, and googlepack.

p.s. had a few dozen adsense sign ups (why I foolishly promoted more competition I can not say) yet not a dime.

[Scurramunga]

I used it in it's text ad form and ended up ditching it after reaching the conclusion that it was a complete rip-off.

[Khensu]

Both banners and text from the same company that was very aligned with my audience abd they were doing about equal (different pages). Then they started just thowing in any old one and two cent text ads from whoever and it went from $200>$5 per day and I pulled it.

WoW so that's the meaning beta!

[edited by: Khensu at 7:12 pm (utc) on Sep. 23, 2007]

[moTi]

so one can conclude once again, that this is complete rubbish, right?
it is striking, that every accounting method other than cpc offered by google is a complete waste of time.

why don't they just let the cpa ads compete with the other ads in our ad slots and show the best performing ones?
answer: if they'd do that, not a single cpa ad would stand a chance, because of the comparably absymal payout. they would have to pay probably ten to a hundred times more to make it worthwhile. these prices seem in no way to be enforceable on the site of the advertisers. cpa ads would suffer the same pathetic fate as cpm ads = hardly to be seen in our ad blocks.
so they offer cpa ads seperately in the hope of attracting curious publishers who get their fingers burnt one after another..

it's no wonder that every advertiser who contacts me directly only wants me to put their pay per sale affiliate ads on my website. at the same time, they are moaning about the high click prices for adwords cpc ads - as if i'd make such deal out of charity or what? whereas i wonder where my money from these allegedly exorbitant ad clicks is. strangely i find the click price i receive is still dirt cheap.

all this simply doesn't add up.

[wrgvt]

I make a couple bucks a month from Firefox referrals, and that's about it. Those run on just a few pages and don't get a huge amount of impressions.

[mattg3]

I don't get it displayed on my site :/ but I didn't really bother to look it up properly, as it will doubtlessly be again a complete waste of time.

Anything that doesn't make at least $20 a day is a waste of time, IE Amazon, affilinet and the various new adsense schemes find no place on my server.

OK with millions of adsense publishers making on average a dollar, Google et al do great, but I have probably peed of another 100 users a day littering my pages with cr@p. CPC that's it ..

The more webmasters refuse to put underperforming tad on their pages the more the giants will need to think what to do and it would be better for us all.

I am not gonna turn my sites into one of them cheap billboard rubbish, just to make 3 dollars extra ..

[loner]

First 'G' beat my affiliate sites down to dust in the SERPS, but I figure some you win, some you lose. I put PPA in the slots and got nothing. Yanked that garbage out right away. I'd rather have dust than nothing.

[MikeNoLastName]

Yanking it tomorrow. 6 weeks, 2% CTR, 0 conversions, bye-bye.

[joelgreen]

Working same as before. Same clicks, same conversions. Nothing changed for me.

Is that good or bad?

Good enough for me. It outperforms earnings from search. Usually i get "user must visit important page on our site", or "user must download widget" conversions.

Why do not use referrals where other ads cannot fit? For example one line text link.
Also ASA confirmed referrals do not influence contextual AdSense stats. So I think referrals are also good for low eCPM pages (for example on forum), which some guys believe are driving overall site/account eCPM down.

[surftrack]

make a pretty decent living off of it.

[fatpeter]

2 weeks 140,000 impressions = 0.00$

Got rid of them yesterday.

[farmboy]

...I think some advertisers who were converting ran out of budgets...

With PPA ads, I don't understand the concept of running out of budget, unless the advertiser is running a loss leader type effort.

FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Just something to keep in mind - if someone reports thousands of impressions with no sales or when someone else reports earning $ per day, none of the rest of us should make decisions simply based on that information.

We don't know which ads were chosen and we don't know the audience for the site.

FarmBoy

[miaoux]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place guys.

Is Google Referrals the same as Google PPA (beta)?

Thanks,

M

[greatstart]

These referrals are a complete waste of space and time. They just don't convert, period!

[netmeg]

Is Google Referrals the same as Google PPA (beta)?

Yep.

I put them up in a prime spot during my best time of the year, when I was getting 70K visits per day. Got plenty of clicks, but only two conversions that weren't Google product, and maybe 5 Google Pack conversions. Plus the interface is buggy as all get out, and it showed ads I didn't want showing. So I took them all off. Not ready for prime time.