Google Moves to Cost Per Action
The news has been out for a week or so now that Google is about to launch a test run of cost-per-action advertising. For affiliate marketers that’s an interesting development but not one that my partner and I will be able to participate in.
While several of our sites have a large amount of American traffic Google is restricting the participants in the test to those who have business addresses in the United States.
Not every affiliate marketer who does reside, or have a business address, in the United States may want to participate once they’ve read the terms. Many merchants who run cost-per-action programmes pay a percentage of each sale to the affiliate who sent the purchaser to the merchant’s site but Google will not be paying any percentages.
Instead Google will be paying a flat rate for each sale. That would be enough to make us think twice about joining the programme.