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Google Launches Cost Per Action AdSense
rustybrick writes "Google has launched an invite only test of CPA (cost per action) AdSense ads. So instead of getting paid per click or per impression, you now can get paid for an action, such as a sale or lead referral."
I worked for a company back when no one cared about making money and we were looking at building something similar. One of the chief concerns we had at the time was how to prevent fraud on the part of the advertisers: ie, if a user clicks through and ultimately makes a purchase, did the advertiser properly track that and then report it back?
There are a couple of ways publishers can also loose out: for instance, if a user clicks through but doesn't make a purchase only to return to the advertiser's site the next day or week and make the purchase, will the publisher be compensated appropriately?
This is definitely a great opportunity for publishers and advertisers by increasing quality over quantity. However, there are a lot of potential pitfalls for the publisher.
Will google be able to properly intermediate? or will they tend to side with their big advertisers when issues/complaints arise?
In my opinion, this is just Google being too shy to give their users some profit. I think it is very unrealistic that mass amounts of people will sign up to whatever Google makes them sign up for, rendering this service useless.
If Google could release a new service that is as widely used as the current pay per click or pay for impression AdSense, then THAT is something that web site authors would buy into.
But, in the past, what have we learned from Google? In one or two instances, Google has showed us how a simple, but slightly farfetched idea can turn into something brilliant.
Well it's a switch from where it is now, where the advertisers have to trust the third party webmaster/web users to send them real clicks.
This model is much more amenable to the people spending the cash, therefore i'm sure it'll become popular.
What's curious is that they're putting these ads in a separate network, such that you can put both types of Google Ads in a website.
It'll be interesting to see how the mix works out.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
There have been several ad-providers who have been using cost-per-action for some time now. An example would be available here . As I understand it, this technology is actually mature and has been put forward several times as a better way to resolve click-fraud than the "just trust us to take care of it" method used thus far by google.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
The same way that you trust them when the method is CPM (Cost per mil, or per 1k impressions) or CPC (Cost per click).
They (The ad agency) trust that you (the advertised company) will provide an accurate report, just as you trust that they aren't padding their impressions/clicks with phony data.
This is generally done via tracking "pixels" on the contact and confirmation pages. I use pixels loosely as they are rarely images (albeit frequently implemented via img tags).
I've clicked on ads. I even bought something from one once. Banners, mind you, not popups. Now, I have adblock plus+filterset.g updater, so I mostly don't see them anyway. Email spam, on the other hand, I will not buy things from. It's kind of sad, because sometimes I get spam for stuff I actually want. I delete it anyway.
I don't see banners as being too nasty, unless they're flashing rapidly or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't filter out google text ads because they really don't bother me.
I have occassionally clicked on them, and have, even more rarely, bought things from them. Sometimes you find relative newcomers to a particular market who provide a better price than their established competitors who have the benifit of pagerank.
Why would anyone do it?
If I scan the organic results and don't find anything there, rather than moving to the second page, on occasion I'll click on a paid link. However, I only click on links that look reputable. A text ad that makes exorbitant claims or just seems like it's hucksterism won't get a click.
The advantage of well-done paid text links for the advertiser is that they can drive potential customers - people who are looking for exactly the sort of product/service you provide - to your site.
The advantage for users when such ads are done properly is that the user is likely to be fairly certain that ads coming out at the top of the list are going to be for sites that offer what the user is trying to find. It's a means of matching a buyer and a seller, rather than a way to trick potential customers into visiting a site.
To me there is nothing distasteful about advertising per se. Companies have to let people know they exist, or they'll have no customers. The use of innocuous, targeted text ads seems to me to be a good compromise between the needs of advertisers and the needs of web users. Even if a given ad link is only folllowed a very small percentage of the time, it can be worth it for the advertiser. At the same time, if I can ignore ads except when I want to scan them, as a web user I feel like I'm not being bashed over the head the way I do when I encounter popups and other bullshit from companies that just don't get it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
One leads to a badly implemented site, the other to a better site which generates more sales.
The website should be payed equally because its service to the advertisers was equal.
The payment should not be related in any way to the quality of the sales machine behind the click, because that is not within the website's scope of responsibility or powers.
There are two cases in which this setup would be acceptable. One is where the webmaster can hand-pick his advertisers. The other would be one where Google's great algorithms would in practice mean high revenue. What sells directly through gpay, gets advertised, what doesn't, should use pay per click.
I find this all highly entertaining. Google's is doing what pr0n sites have prevailed and mastered long ago. Do pay per click. Get spammed by click-fraud badly. Do pay per sale.
Google will have a much harder time though (no pun intended). They are ad-brokers, and expectations and growth models are all based on the faulty pay per click model. The fraud is huge, and they are earning money from it. So while investers and stock-owners are slowly realizing this, they must now start "experimenting" with pay per sale so they are ready for the future, but no too fast, or they will be canabalizing their own income. It's all about cushioning and leveling out.
I never understood how Google makes money at all, free email, free search, free calander, free video uploads, and the list goes on. All of this is paid for by those little text ads? I never click on any type of ad, except Google ads, but only cause I have to pay them back somehow, and I don't want Google going bye-bye.
It worries me that Google won't make the money they need from this to keep them doing great things. People like me that just click the ads to help out Google will have no effect, Google will lose money.
I would only want to do CPA for things that are remarkably likely to happen. I wouldn't want, for example, to have my income depend on someone ordering a laptop. In fact, Google already offers referral links for Firefox (w/ Google Toolbar, natch), Google Pack, and Picasa. (They offer it for adwords and adsense, but I find that a less likely action.) These links require not just a click, but a specific result, like downloading the app and installing it, or signing up for a certain advertising program. These are fairly likely actions, I think, and even that doesn't yield strong results. Even on a site where I have a feature that is legitimately non-IE friendly, and I offer the Firefox link right below, I don't get a strong result.