Google pay per action ads beta

Google Pay-Per-Action Ads Beta
By: John Brock



Well it’s finally here; pay-per-action hits the Google platform and Google is moving in on affiliate territory looking to take the affiliate industry for all its worth. Great for advertisers, sucks for publishers. Harsh but true.



As an advertiser I love pay-per-action; especially when what I really want is for the searcher to take a specific action like signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information or buying something. Very nice; I pay only when the searcher gives me what I want.



As a publisher, I hate it. It is much more difficult to get a searcher to take a specific action (free willed one that is), than it is to get the user to click on an ad. As a publisher of pay-per-action ads, more often than not I am sending the searcher to the advertiser’s destination page for free regardless of how well suited my site and page is to the product. I am giving them eyeballs for nothing. Not good. So my advice to AdSense publishers is to avoid pay-per-action ads if you can. Until you have a complete understanding of the CPA world, it will eat you alive. If you do try them make absolutely sure that a conversion rate less than 1%, yes that’s right you heard me I said 1%, will still make you a profit according to the advertisers commission schedule or you will be loosing money.



Google needs to really make sure that they appropriately match up the right advertiser with the right publisher or all hell will break loose. The advertiser will loose money. The publisher will loose money and Google will loose money. Advertisers will feel duped, publishers will feel betrayed and searchers will not have a clue.