Google pays Affiliates via AdSense

Google is now requiring clients of the Google Affiliate Network to link their account to a Google continues to consolidate its two web advertising systems: Goodle AdSense and the less well known Affiliate Network. Google is now requiring that Affiliate Network payments are made via an AdSense account.

Goodle AdSense and Affiliate Network both pay web publishers for putting ads on their web sites. AdSense pays per click on the ad, whereas Affiliate Network pays when the customer buys a product or registers interest. Google acquired Affiliate Network long after setting up AdSense and the two have had separate registration and payment systems.

I found this very confusing when I got the first notice asking me to link my Affiliate Network account to Goodle AdSense. When I went into my AdSense admin system I couldn't find anything about it. Then I got one saying I would receive no more Affiliate Network payments if I did not link the accounts, so I looked into it more. It turned out that I had to go to the Affiliate Network account and enter the AdSense details, not the other way around.

This should be an improvement for clients, as the AdSense payment system works well, allowing for electronic payment in Australian dollars to an Australia bank.

I have not found Affiliate Network that useful. Its advertisements are not as well targeted as those of AdSense and are therefore much more annoying. Affiliate Network was known as DoubleClick before being acquired by Google and had a controversial history. Also very few of the people who click on a Network ad actually end up buying a product and so payment is infrequent.

Google Affiliate Network: where are the ads?

I signed up for Google's "Affiliate Network" to try it out with just a few ads on a few of my web page and see how it works. So far I have been approved by several advertisers to allow their ads on my web site. But what is not clear is how I get their ads onto my web site. The usual way this is done is that the advertiser provides a small bit of HTML code I put in my web page, which then displays the ads and includes my account code so I can be paid for the ad. I have the list of advertisers, but can't see how I get the ads.

From the help site, it appears the ads are called "links". It took me some time to work out I could go to a page "get links" and this would generate a list of the available advertisements. For here I can select the ad, size and have the required HTML generated. I started cautiously, putting what I hope is an uncontroversial ad on a transport and smart apartment web page.

Google Affiliate Network

Some years ago I signed up to Google's AdSense service, just to see how it worked. Google cancelled the referrals part of AdSense in August 2008, but invited customers to try their "Affiliate Network". This is based on DoubleClick, which was acquired by Google. It has a controversial history. I will try it out with just a few ads on a few of my web page and see how it works.

While some have criticisms of Google, I found the AdSense service worked reasonably well. It seemed to make a genuine attempt to find relevant and non-objectionable ads to match the web page the ads were on (Amazon.com seem to be unable or unwilling to do this with their ads). It will be interesting to see how the Affiliate Network ads go. So far I have noticed that Google have not fully integrated the new service into the overall system, apart from applying Google layout to the web pages. Now I am going to start by reading some of the help pages, to see what to do first.

The previous Google referrals system was complicated. I found it difficult find any suitable ads for my web site and there were few responses to the ads which I did select. From a quick look, Affiliate Network has a similar interface and may have simialr problems. The difficulty is having to manually select ads for the web site. It would be much easier if the system could select the ads for me.