Pay Per Action

How have you fared?

[Hubie]

For those who have tried G's new Pay Per Action --- how have you fared so far?

I'm interested in jumping in, but know nothing about it yet....

Is this the future? Or just a beta test that will end up costing us trailblazers money in the short run...

Hubie the Nubie

[biking4jesus]

Just got in to this today. I am trying to setup existing paid keywords and ads into the PPA campaigns. If anyone from Google reads this, big suggestion is an easy way to import or duplicate existing non PPA campaigns to a their PPA campaign.

[mimmo]

How does Google decides who wins the PPA bidding if I pay 1 dollar for an action that happens very rarely vs my competitor who pays 0.05 cents for an action that happens more often? thanks

[Huligan]

This could be a problem for Google. Some PPA advertisers may only use it as a branding tool. They will set up a conversion that rarely happens and try to gain lots of impressions while paying little for them. I think Google has already thought of this and will set up a quality rating similar to PPC. Poorly performing ad (few conversions) will lose exposure.

Huligan

[trinorthlighting]

Google will quickly figure out if the pages convert. Then I am sure you will see some sort of quality scoring.

We are experimenting with it as well, but it does not seem user friendly.

[biking4jesus]

I agree that it is not as easy and complete as AdWords standard campaigns. It does feel a bit incomplete, but give them a little time to add some of the missing features that users want.

[trinorthlighting]

Have a few campaigns running, but not getting many impressions.

I do not think there are many publishers signed up yet.

[fearlessrick]

And don't count on publishers signing up for yet another screwgle. While advertisers are paying more for ads, publsihers have been working on their sites, adding content and traffic and watching their revenues decline.

The math is only working for Google. Signing up for another program with on "on trust" would be foolhardy. Like all other publicly owned corporations, their alliegance is to shareholders, not advertisers and/or publshers.

Yes, I think Google sucks.

What's with the editing here. I can't use the word "#*$!?"

[BradleyT]

Does it say anywhere what googles cut is? If I say $5 per action how much is the publisher getting paid?

[trinorthlighting]

Google does not divulge that information, but its probally close to 50%

[farmboy]

For those of you who have been accepted, how does the system account for refunds?

Suppose I purchase your product via an ad on a publisher's site and the publisher earns $X for generating that sale.

A few weeks later, I return the product to you for a refund. Do you get reimbursed by the publisher via Google or does the publisher keep the money?

FarmBoy

[trinorthlighting]

Farmboy,

Its probally too early to tell about refunds. There is no place in adwords for refunds.

[farmboy]

Its probally too early to tell about refunds. There is no place in adwords for refunds.

In browsing through some of the offers available to publishers, I can see some products where there are going to be people trying to game the system.

Have a friend buy a product via your site, collect the "commission", have the friend return the product and then split the commission with the friend. Rinse, repeat.

Or people will have others to submit false leads, applications, etc.

If this is not already accounted for in some way by Google, I think advertisers should give it a lot of thought before using PPA.

FarmBoy

[trinorthlighting]

I agree farmboy, it really depends on the advertiser.

In our case, a refund/chargeback rate is less than 1/2% So if I lose a dollar or so due to it, I am not too concerned.

If a site has a much higher refund/chargeback %, they do need to account for it.

[jbgilbert]

Same story here:

Have a few campaigns running, but not getting many impressions.

I do not think there are many publishers signed up yet.

[biking4jesus]

Anyone have an conversions yet?

I got my campaigns setup and running middle to late last week. I have been getting okay impression counts but not many clicks and no conversions.

[trinorthlighting]

We are getting very few impressions still. We have quite a few campaigns up and running. I think we really do not have that many publishers in our niche

[karamkshetra]

I also got one message for testing PPA... I haven't jumped in right now. But I will be looking at it in somedays... and than only I can give my comments. But for sure the comments you people will give will be very useful.

[hendrix82]

I'm also seeing a decent amount of impressions, but just a handful of clicks and NO conversions.

[trinorthlighting]

We are still seeing very few impressions with only a few clicks. No conversions yet. How is everyone else doing?

[ccam96]

I really don't think this is going to be very popular with publishers and advertisers. I've been doing this now for a couple of weeks and I've seen very few impressions. If Google's cut is 50%, then that's way too high compared to the cut that affiliate networks take.

I think this will fade just like CPM.

[farmboy]

For those of you who currently have PPA ads running and are also AdSense publishers, when you log in as an AdSense publisher, do you see your PPA ad in the inventory?

I'm (primarily) an AdSense publisher and I'm wondering if all the ads are being shown to all publishers who have been accepted, or if Google is only showing some ads to publishers. The inventory I see looks limited and the offers not very compelling.

Also, there's a thread from a publisher's perspective over on the AdSense board if you would like to read things from that point of view.

FarmBoy

[sailorjwd]

Here's one publisher who won't try it - I don't trust you b'tards.

[trinorthlighting]

Yea, I am a publisher and I see my own ads, but I placed myself in my competitive filter and have not seen any of my own ads.

[celgins]

Yea, I am a publisher and I see my own ads, but I placed myself in my competitive filter and have not seen any of my own ads.

That's just wrong. LOL

[trinorthlighting]

Yea, its would be kind of funny to pay google to advertise on our own sites.

[farmboy]

Is PPA now available to anyone with an AdWords account or do you need to be invited/apply?

FarmBoy