How about an AdSense affiliate program?

With some tips for avoiding scammers / spammers

[ThatAdamGuy]

I've told countless Webmasters about AdSense, and frankly, I'd love a cut ;-).

On one hand, I realize that Google may be loathe to get into the affiliate game, worrying about the spamming of affiliate URLs all over the place.

So I have an idea... how about a "REFERRAL" section in one's AdSense account panel? Current AdSense users could type in the e-mail addresses of up to 10 friends or colleagues per day, personalize a message, and Google would send a hybrid note to each contact, along with a UNIQUE (and one-time-use only) URL.

This way, folks would be unable to post any working AdSense affiliate URL in any mass e-mail or on any Web page... thus saving Google from being associated with unscrupulous spam-related tactics. Yet Webmasters could still ethically refer their friends... ideally in the context of talking with their friends first, encouraging their interest in AdSense, and THEN entering their e-mail address onto the referral page.

What do you think...
- about the likelihood of Google doing this?
- about the specific scheme I've described?

[justageek]

Not that it is a bad idea but with how successful this has been I seriously doubt Google would want another finger in the pie :-)

[daunk]

I think adsense sells itself. I'd much rather get paid a pinch more for my ads then have that money imo wasted on some affiliate game. Google has gone against the grain in not setting up some kind of affiliate thing. IMO the affiliate idea is a way of people having the ability to cheat much easier than falsing clicks I would imagine.

I for one hope google doesn't do what every other company has done and set up affiliate in an attempt to recruit publishers, then theres the simple thing why bother, the numbers of publishers must be shooting up as I said adsense sells itself it needs no one else to sell it.

[killroy]

Well, what about tiered income?

I get 50% of all ads shown on my page, and, say, 5% of all ads shown on pages of AdSnese subscribers that I brought in..

Ought to be much harder to cheat.

SN

[chiyo]

justageek said it all i thought. There is no need for an affilate program given google's other ways of letting prospects know about the program. If anything they may have too many publishers already!

[NorthernStudio]

I'm picturing a future where Adsense/Adwords becomes a MLM program where every Adsense ad is for a work-at-home scheme recruiting more suckers to recruit yet more suckers into the Adsense program.

We could enlarge our own "GoogleLife" ads and nail them on utility poles all over town.

Wayne

[firstmark]

An affiliate program is always a good idea for any program that serves a purpose such as Google's adsense. No matter how obvious the solution may appear to a given knowledgeable webmaster it is not necessarily true that others know about the program or how to integrate it well.
Affiliate referral systems have their purpose.

[chiyo]

"Affiliate referral systems have their purpose." - agreed, but dont agree with your first statement that affiliate referral programs are ALWAYS a good idea. To me they are mostly useful for products/services that dont already have a lot of brand exposure and recognition.

To me Google is still experimenting with Adsense. They are accepting as broad a range of sites and see which ones work and which dont. Admin Problems also if an affiliate "sold" a publisher for Adsense, and google decided not to accept them or drop them at a later stage. A lot of room for very bad PR!

To a certain extent all adsense publishers are affiliates already, just by dispaying the adsense panels and the "ads by google" link. I tend like to think that our "affiliate referral fees" if thats what we want to call them, are included in our revenue when it all washes up.

[Clark]

I like the way you put it chiyo. Google is one step ahead of you Adam (no offense).

"Ads by Google" is an affiliate program without paying its affiliates for the cut :)

Imagine if you started an affiliate program for your widgets. But you required your affiliates to display in each of their affiliate links: "This affiliate link by ThatAdamGuy [ThatAdamGuy.com]" without paying a penny for those links.

They are control freaks but they do it well and get away with it. Had they offered adsense w/o the big payouts, we'd be screaming bloody murder. But the high payout makes it worthwhile...