I've been pretty lukewarm about Google's referral products. They've been pushing them pretty hard but I haven't been impressed. I'm not convinced that the Google Pack contains anything worth writing home about. I don't care enough about Mozilla to recommend that everyone downloads Firefox. And the commissions that Google is offering for its downloads just aren't big enough to take up real estate on my Web pages.
I'd rather put together a joint venture with the creator of a product I genuinely love, recommend it to my readers and bring benefits to everyone.
But that could be about to change.
For the last few months, Google has been running a Beta on a new referral program.
The program will let advertisers on Google's AdWords network offer specific products on a referral basis. Publishers will be able to search for the products by keyword and find the items that suit their site best.
Could Google do to the affiliate system what it's already done to search and contextualized advertising?
It's possible. They're smart people and they tend to get things right. If the prices are high enough and the products are good, you might want to think about saving some space on your page for new referral ads.
The same principle that applies to successful affiliate advertising will apply here too though. You'll still need to choose relevant products that you can honestly recommend and talk them up.
And if you're advertising on AdWords, you might also want to start thinking about what products you can put on sale through the new referral network... or consider creating some.
Comments? I'd love to hear 'em. Post below, please :-)
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
June 8, 2007 09:33 AM
My appreciate every effort to support us for knowledge and more practise
June 8, 2007 12:34 PM
Hey, Those irrelevant links on your highlighted words will generate some click thru, & when people get to where they dont want to be they just assume its some tech glitch, very clever.
Doesn't score highly for CMR though, just as well the world 's full of mugs willing to trust a 'guru'.
June 8, 2007 05:03 PM
Nick,
It is quite clear that those are advertisements, and they are all over the web. It's a common way to monetize traffic when you don't charge for people to access your site. :-)
Joel
June 9, 2007 11:07 AM
CLickbank must be squirming!
June 12, 2007 08:19 PM
Hey Nick,
cynicism like that will give you heart disease!
Now to research some these ads that look interesting from Google...
-Ed S.
June 30, 2007 01:31 AM
I got the boot from Yahoo! for bad advise. Please send your newsletter to my new email address at robbdeignan@gmail.com