New Google Adsense Referrals - Referral 2.0
Google have taken the 2.0 out of the much maligned (by me) term “web 2.0″ and combined it with their somewhat limited Adsense Referrals system to create a new ways for webmasters like me to ‘monetize’ their website(s).
I only discovered this new system this weekend on a routine Adsense shift-around that I was performing - having been so busy recently that I’ve not had much time to re-jig the ads that I run on a couple of sites - and it looks pretty promising. So promising, in fact, that I’ve taken most of the day having a play around with the system, and thought I’d write a post up here about them, with what I have learned.
One of the best aspects about Referrals under the Adsense system is this: unlike with the standard Adsense contextual advertising (which you will see in my right-hand sidebar here) one can actually talk about the adverts and tell people to click on them, and even explain why a certain product is worth visiting, without falling foul of the rules. Indeed, it is to be encouraged.
High Referral Fees on Offer
Glancing through several of the products currently available in the new Google Referrals 2.0 system I was struck by some of the referral fees offered. After a while of clicking around, I soon found that more details can be gathered before deciding on what products, categories or keywords to promote. For example, you can find out precisely what action is required for you to get paid - most important as the Google Referrals 2.0 system is entirely CPA (Cost Per Action) - an action must be taken before you get your referral fee.
What this action is in reality is certainly important to us as publishers of advertisements - a company may be offering $40 per referral, but if in order to get that you must refer a paying purchaser of a product which costs many thousands of dollars, it is likely that your conversion rate will be extremely low. However, there are several advertisers who will pay you simply for a free user registration, or a sign-up to an email list: these conversions will therefore be easier to make.
You can also check the actual ad units that a company has in its repertoire - as this will have a huge bearing on the number of click-throughs and, as a consequence, the number of referrals made, you should check the wording of the ads carefully and decide if it will suit your target market.
Stand Out From The (Growing) Crowd
I’ve yet to fully get to grips with the whole system, having only today implemented it on a couple of sites, however, one other ostensible benefit of this system is that it allows the publisher of Adsense Referrals 2.0 to select “only image ads” - i.e. only banners. Why would I wish to do this?
I have begun to notice, more and more, that web users are becoming more discerning. I have also noticed a gradual, but nonetheless relatively substantial, reduction in the number of clicks and conversions with Adsense as a whole. Why is this? Well, and this is simply an educated guess, I believe that Adsense is beginning to saturate the web, with many blogs in particular becoming so loaded with Adsense that people are ignoring the ads entirely.
So, why use the image only option? Because this reflects a difference - by publishing only the image based ads I am removing myself from the content scrapers and affiliate marketers who load too many ads into their sites and aligning with sebsites like Myspace and Facebook who tend to run such image based ads: our site appears to be a more professional operation as a result.
Of course, this is just an opinion, but it is one founded with solid rationale: Adsense is everywhere, people are growing tired of it.
In any case, with a number of websites in my stable, I’m afforded the opportunity to experiment until I find the very best results, and now I can have one link unit, one traditional (unobtrusive) Adsense unit and a very specificly aimed Referral 2.0 unit on each page of each of my sites (if I want to!). I’ll get on with testing and will post the results here for those of you who are interested.
If anyone else has any comments to make on Google Referrals 2.0, you can, as always, leave them at the bottom - there’s no better way to make money from advertising than to share knowledge about what works best!
In the meantime, feel free to sign up to, or make a purchase from any referral ads that you find within this site 
Google are running a webinar this Wednesday to explain some new features of Adsense - including the Adsense Referrals 2.0 program. Click here for details.
I might add that affiliate marketing is something which I have often veered away from, as it is difficult to ascertain the merits of an affiliated product or service: I’d rather not piss my site’s visitors off by referring them to shoddy sites or rip-off products.
Adsense Referrals 2.0 at least affords some opportunity to screen advertisers before they are added to one’s website. As anyone who read the getgoogleadsfree debacle from this very site of a few months ago, that would have come in handy then!