Hey all, I was curious: Once conversion tracking technology has grown more, do you think Google will implement Adsense into a CPA model? In effect, will this make it easier or harder to generate profits for webmasters? share your opinions. Thanks!
They might start a new devision eventually but they wouldnt change the PPC that they have at the moment to just CPA
Well I think a lot of the advertisers that have their website listed in the google adsense toolbar value just a page view, even if the page view was somewhat accidental. I'm sure theres a much higher chance of having someone that clicks on an add purchase something from the advertiser if there is an interest in the add; however, I believe ever so often someone may click on an add even if not purposely and end up purchasing something from the advertiser. In that light its kind of like a TV commercial in the advertisers view. It may not be a view from an interested visitor but its still a page view and a potential customer, after that it just comes down to statistics to see if the advertiser does make money.
The major concern with the CPA model is upfront payment versus backend payment. With AdWords, when someone clicks, Google charges a fee. That fee is independant of what happens once the clicker arrives on the merchant site. For all Google knows, the site could even be down for some problem or other. Google doesn't care though, because they already got their money. It's up to YOU to make sure your site is up and running, that your products and pricing are competitive, and that you are wring good ad copy to drive traffic. AdWords doesn't require any sort of coordination or validation on the part of the merchant. With CPA, there will have to be some communication between Google and the merchant site. Google will not only have to track the click, they will have to track actions on the destination site. This means the site will have to feed some info BACK to Google for Google to get their money. Now, suddenly, Google's advertising revenue in a CPA scenario becomes dependent on Merchant reporting.... Of course no company would EVER try to fudge sales in order to pay a lower advertising cost, would they? Now I'm sure many of you are pointing at CJ and Linkshare and other affiliate programs. The difference between these programs and and Google AdWords is that the affiliate programs don't take up advertising real estate. With the current affiliate model, the advertising takes place on the affiliate's sites, or the affiliate does PPC and PAYS to be in the search results. In these scenarios, the AFFILIATE assumes the risk. Google moving to CAP would mean Google assuming the risk for advertising, even though it would be the merchants doing the advertising. Do you think that is going to happen? So if Google goes CPA, then they will be alloting advertising space on search results on an after-sale basis; this essentially means the ads will be shown for free (taking up valuabel real estate) with no guarantee of payment. With a backend payment, Google would be abdicating revenue generation to the merchant. What if the site is down? What if the product is crap? What if the price is outrageous? What if the ad copy is crap? What if it's fraud and they collect your money and never ship? How will they handle returns? What if the merchant fudges the numbers? Sure, they would eventaully be caught, but you're talking a whole nothing divisions who's sole job would be to police the merchants. Right now, advertisers do their best to generate QUALITY clicks, because they are paying for those clicks. Imagine what the ads would look like if the clicks were free.... and how would you rank the ads? Google might go with some sort of CPA program, but it won't be CPA that shows ads on search results pages. It will be seperate from AdWords. Imagine: Go to a newspaper and tell them you want to run an ad and, after the ad runs, you will pay them if it worked. See how far you get. That's what CPA would do to AdWords.