Google Affiliate Network Blog

ShopWiki.com grows 65% in Google Affiliate Network and expands internationally

2012-04-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years, Google Affiliate Network has helped advertisers and publishers grow their businesses with the right mix of technology, service, and data insights. We’re pleased to share these stories with you on the blog every few weeks. When ShopWiki.com entered the online shopping space in 2005, they started with a simple idea: “make shopping better.” As a shopping search engine, they hoped to index everything that can be bought online and help consumers make the best purchase. With over 200,000 featured stores and domains in the US, UK, France, and Germany, ShopWiki has become a popular destination for online consumers. Their technology now crawls partner sites and organizes a wide selection of their products in one centralized place.
With global interests and ever-changing consumer needs, ShopWiki General Manager James Keating and his team search for efficient ways to scale their site and grow revenue. Since partnering with Google Affiliate Network in 2007, Keating has relied on detailed reporting and analytics to make informed decisions and drive strategy. As he explains, “Google Affiliate Network gives us rich insights into the best-converting products. We combine these insights with our own site data to automatically optimize yield for every page of our site.” As ShopWiki has grown, they have also added new advertisers and focused on strategic partnerships. Keating has kept an eye on new advertisers in Google Affiliate Network and joined their programs upon launch, building links and using the new content to better serve his site visitors. Through Google Affiliate Network’s user interface, Keating has found new relationships and tools to streamline these processes. He explains, “whenever a new advertiser joins, we are able to create and implement links right away and begin optimization from day one.” Guided by data insight and focused on new partnerships, ShopWiki has continued to grow as a publisher in Google Affiliate Network and a shopping destination on the web. In 2011, they grew their network revenue by 65% YoY, helping to spur international expansion outside of their home US market. To learn more about how James Keating and ShopWiki have established their affiliate business, check out their full case study. Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager

Introducing Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

2012-04-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

Blogger is a free tool that enables anyone to publish a blog and have a voice on the web. When people share words, thoughts and photos on their blogs, they’re sharing their passions with the world. Here at Google Affiliate Network, we see that many of our publishers use Blogger, and often times they’re passionate about brands or products that they believe in. We’re excited to announce that starting today, a new gadget called Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger will be available to select U.S. Blogger users. This gadget makes it easy for Blogger users to insert an affiliate ad into a blog post and earn a commission when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site. Watch the video below for a quick preview:

Here’s how to get started:
If you’re a Blogger user, go to the Earnings tab on Blogger and sign up for AdSense if you don’t already have an account.

Once you have an AdSense account, you may see the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger gadget when you write a new blog post. Note that this gadget will only be available to select U.S. Blogger users whose blogs match available ad categories, so you may not immediately see the gadget even if you have an AdSense account. We’ll be sure to let you know when we expand this program to more Blogger users.

When you write a new post, you can select a relevant affiliate ad from the “Advertise Products” gadget to the right of the post editor. The ad can be a text link, a product image, or a banner.

Publish your post, and voilà! You may earn a commission when someone clicks your affiliate ad and makes a purchase.

We’re incredibly excited to make it easier for Blogger users to extend your influential relationship with your audiences by promoting the products you love. By providing an additional way to earn revenue, we want to help you keep doing what you love -- blogging.

Get started today by visiting the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger website.

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Note: The Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger gadget is currently only available through Blogger. We’re working to make this gadget available to Google Affiliate Network publishers through the Google Affiliate Network interface, and will be sure to let you know when this option is available. If you're an advertiser interested in participating, please contact your Google Affiliate Network representative or submit an inquiry if you’re not already working with Google Affiliate Network.

Google Affiliate Network expanding in the UK

2012-04-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

After testing Google Affiliate Network in beta throughout the UK, we’re excited to announce that we’re expanding to more UK advertisers and agencies. This means more relevant deals and promotions will be available to publishers with UK audiences. We’ve worked hard to enhance our international product offering and now have a team based in the Google London office actively supporting UK users.

Key benefits for UK users:

Market-leading insights and reporting available in local timezone, language and currency
Publisher payments available in over 40 currencies in 80 countries
Product feed integration via Google Merchant Centre
Ability to create accounts with different payouts, advertiser-specific terms and local market presence

Custom recruiting for select advertisers

For UK publishers:
UK publishers can now apply for UK affiliate programmes including Blue Nile, Onlineticketexpress.com, Orvis UK, Shoes.com, Skechers and more. Follow the steps below to to get started:

1.) Log in to your account (or apply to join our network)
2.) Go to the Advertisers tab
3.) On the left-hand navigation, click ‘Countries’ and choose United Kingdom
4.) Apply to programmes

For UK advertisers:
If you’re an advertiser interested in starting an affiliate programme with Google Affiliate Network, please contact us and a member of our team can provide more information.

We look forward to helping advertisers, publishers and agencies achieve their goals in the UK, and doing our part to grow the UK affiliate market! For more information, please visit our website.

Posted by: Tony Nelan, Head of Google Affiliate Network for Europe

Get ready for spring with Google Affiliate Network exclusive promotions

2012-03-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

Spring into action by giving your audience access to exclusive promotions, available only to Google Affiliate Network publishers. This opportunity enables you to promote a variety of limited-time deals and earn a performance fee from orders that originate from your links.

If you aren’t already a Google Affiliate Network publisher, join today. Over 40 exclusive promotions will be available for one weekend only, from Friday, March 23 through Monday, March 26.

How do I access these promotions?
To access any of these exclusive promotions, you need to be an approved publisher in Google Affiliate Network.

Apply for Google Affiliate Network with your AdSense Publisher ID (or sign in if you're already a Google Affiliate Network publisher).
Once approved, review the promotions available and click the "Apply Now" link for each one that you wish to promote.
Tracking links will be available in your Google Affiliate Network account by viewing the Home tab on March 19th. You can also search for “March Exclusive” links in the Links tab on March 23rd.

Need help applying or want more information? Review the Publisher Beginner’s guide.

When can I post these promotions on my site?
All promotions will be available starting midnight Central Time on March 23rd, and all will expire at midnight Central Time on March 26th. Please remember that you may not post any of these exclusive promotions until March 23rd.

For additional questions, check out the Help Center or contact us.

Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist

The importance of community policing

2012-03-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

Google Affiliate Network works hard to ensure a high quality network for advertisers, publishers, and users. In addition to our integration with AdSense and the safety net you get with Google’s cross-product security and fraud prevention efforts, advertisers and publishers must adhere to our terms of service and program policies.

We also get a lot of great input from the affiliate community via our help forum and other feedback channels. We believe that community policing is an important part of a healthy, high-quality network and review every entry that comes in through our ‘Report a Violation’ form. We encourage you to use this form to report abusive or suspicious publishers who may be in violation of our program policies or terms of service around site content, traffic sources, or our software guidelines.

Posted by Matt Dougherty, Network Quality

Offers.com utilizes technology and strong partnerships to increase sales by 36%

2012-03-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years, Google Affiliate Network has helped advertisers and publishers grow their businesses with the right mix of technology, service, and data insights. We’re pleased to share these stories with you on the blog every few weeks.

Offers.com is an Austin-based publisher that aggregates and promotes deals from all over the web. In 2011, as they considered their annual goals, Offers.com Vice President Howard Schaffer worked with Google Affiliate Network to grow top line revenue and better align with advertisers’ brand goals.

Using Google Affiliate Network link subscriptions, product search, and product feed subscriptions, Howard and the Offers.com team culled the right information to provide their audience with the most compelling deals. Their proven results earned the Offers.com team the trust and confidence of a growing group of advertisers, assisting a number of them with their search strategy.

By coupling Google Affiliate Network technology with building strong partnerships, advertiser sales through Offers.com increased 36% YoY in 2011.

Learn more by reading the full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager

Faster, better order management

2012-02-23T16:12:00.000-08:00

Since migrating to the Google stack last September, we’ve been working to improve the Google Affiliate Network interface by both adding new features and enhancing some existing ones.

As a part of that effort, we’ve just pushed out a brand new release of the Orders tab for both advertisers and publishers.

First, we've made the Orders tab fast. Very fast. Whether you’re looking up 10 orders or 10,000 orders, you'll see query results load in about the same amount of time.

Advertiser-facing changes:

We want to make it easier for you to handle bulk operations. So, we enabled inline order editing right from the Orders tab. No need to click through to another page -- you can simply edit the order inline. Once an order is updated, publisher and network fees are updated, too.

Also, it’s now easier to cancel orders in bulk. When you search for multiple orders, just select the orders you want to cancel and cancel them all at once.

Publisher-facing changes:

The key publisher feature we’ve added is the ability to directly edit the Member ID field for an order inline. If you're a publisher whose workflow involves verifying or editing the Member ID field, this process will now be much easier.

Finally, based on your feedback, we now display locked orders (e.g. those that have been paid out) in the tab, rather than just open orders. Keep in mind though that those locked orders can't be edited.

As always, we look forward to your feedback. Please use our forum for feedback and comments. Thanks!

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Abt.com transitions to Google Affiliate Network and grows revenue 119%

2012-02-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years, Google Affiliate Network has helped advertisers and publishers grow their businesses with the right mix of technology, service, and data insights. We’ll be sharing these stories on the blog over the coming weeks.

Today, we turn the spotlight to Abt.com, an online electronics retailer based just north of Chicago in Glenview, IL. Since launching in 1998, Abt.com has climbed to #151 on Internet Retailer’s list of America's top retail websites. The Abt.com team came to Google Affiliate Network in 2008 with three objectives: to grow online sales, reach new customers, and expand their existing reach across top affiliate publishers.

Steve Tazic, Abt.com’s Director of eCommerce Marketing, transitioned the company’s affiliate program to Google Affiliate Network based on the platform’s ease of use, automation, robust quality controls and advanced reporting. With less time spent managing processes, Steve collaborated with his Google Affiliate Network account team to optimize key relationships and implement best practices. Just a few highlights include:

Data-driven optimization: The Abt.com team used advanced reports to “reach out to publishers in different situations when numbers are good or bad to try and capitalize on opportunities. For example, we can easily pinpoint publishers who have dropped off in sales and know exactly who to contact to get them back on track.”
Take advantage of platform efficiency: “The Google Affiliate Network platform automates processes for creating ads, pinpointing potential new affiliates and recognizing current affiliates that need attention, whether it be good or bad. One big time saver is that we were able to automate the reconciliation process which we used to do manually.”

“Since coming from our previous network, we have seen average monthly revenue increase 119%. We have better relationships with each publisher and feel it is easier to get our offers out to our publishers. The affiliate channel now represents 15% of our online business.” - Steve Tazic, Abt.com’s Director of eCommerce Marketing

Learn more by reading the full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager

New and improved sidebar help widget

2012-01-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

Last week, we made some updates to give users quick access to comprehensive and interactive help within the Google Affiliate Network interface.

In the lower left of each page in your account, you’ll see a new and improved help widget that displays relevant help information based on the page you’re on.

Benefits include:

Advertisers can quickly access the Getting Started Guide and learn about creating links, supplying merchandising information and advertiser-specific terms, and more

Publishers can get quick access to the Publisher Beginner's Guide, learn about setting up product feed subscriptions, and watch a step-by-step video on setting up link subscriptions

Need an answer fast? Use the search box to get information from Help Center articles, forum posts, and even this blog -- right within the widget. You can click the search results to find more detailed information in a new browser window without interrupting the work you were doing in the interface.

Take a minute to check out the new sidebar help widget. You may discover features you’re not yet taking advantage of, and learn some affiliate marketing best practices, too.

If you have feedback, we’d love to hear from you in our forum.

Posted by:
Josh Pyle, Affiliate Network Strategist
Jessie Chavez, Software Engineer
Sabrina Gana, Publisher Support Specialist

Revamped commission reporting for publishers

2012-01-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

Last week, we made a few updates to help publishers stay on top of commission rates and commission rate changes.

New commission report for publishers
The new commission report allows publishers to view all of their commission rates (except for tiers & category-level commission rates) in one location. This report allows publishers to sort, filter, and export the commission rates as a comma or tab delimited file. Learn more about commission reports.

Improved commission notifications for publishers
Commission notifications now display the old and the new values for commissions that have changed. This helps publishers easily track changes that have occurred to a commission rate.

------------------------------------------------------------
Test Advertiser 1 (K3)
------------------------------------------------------------
New Commission schedule:
Start Date: 2012-01-01
Event Type: Transaction
Rate: 58.00% of sales
------------------------------------------------------------
Previous Commission schedule:
Start Date: 2011-09-27
End Date: 2012-01-01
Event Type: Transaction
Rate: 10.00% of sales

If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you at our forum.

Posted by Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Mark your calendar: Affiliate Management Days

2012-01-18T10:43:00.000-08:00

We hope to see many of you at Affiliate Management Days on March 8-9 in San Francisco. Affiliate Management Days is a professional forum for affiliate managers and marketing executives responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, program management and related operations.

Two members of the Google Affiliate Network team will be speaking at the event:

Kristin Hall, Head of Publisher Development
Publisher Segmentation & Key Optimization Levers
Ali Pasha, Product Manager
Trends & Innovations in the Affiliate Marketplace

You can review the conference agenda and register on the Affiliate Management Days website. Register by Friday, January 20th to take advantage of the early bird rate, which will save you $500 from the onsite price.

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing the Google Affiliate Network API

2011-12-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

Today, we’re publicly launching the first version of the Google Affiliate Network API, which allows advanced publishers and advertisers to automate various tasks related to Google Affiliate Network.

The features in this release include:

Advertiser lookup: Publishers can now use the Google Affiliate Network API to more easily access data that advertisers have chosen to share with them (such as payout rank and advertiser category). Previously, publishers had to manually access this shared data through the Google Affiliate Network interface. Advertisers can also access their own information through the API.
Event and order details: Developers can easily integrate data from events that occur in Google Affiliate Network into their own website's workflow and internal systems. This API, in particular, allows access to all significant event-level data for transactions and actions.
Publisher lookup: Advertisers can use the API to look up data that publishers have chosen to share with them (such as payout rank and publisher classification). Previously, advertisers had to manually access this shared data through the Google Affiliate Network interface. Publishers can also access their own information through the API.

For more information, please refer to Google Affiliate Network’s API documentation page.

Posted by Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Google Affiliate Network Exclusive Opportunities Are Back

2011-11-30T09:15:00.000-08:00

Do you have a blog, website and an AdSense account? If you aren’t already a Google Affiliate Network publisher, now is a great time to join and monetize your website by giving your audience access to exclusive opportunities. Over 25 great deals will be available exclusively to Google Affiliate Network publishers for one weekend only, Friday, 12/9 through Monday, 12/12.

As a reminder, this limited time opportunity enables you to add a variety of great consumer opportunities to your site and earn a performance fee from orders that originate from your links.

How do I promote these opportunities on my site?
To promote any of these exclusive opportunities, you need to be an approved publisher in Google Affiliate Network.

Apply for Google Affiliate Network with your AdSense Publisher ID (or sign in if you're already a Google Affiliate Network publisher).
Once approved, review the opportunities available and click the "Apply Now" link for each one that you wish to promote.
Tracking links will be available in your Google Affiliate Network account by viewing the Home tab on December 5th. You can also search for “December Exclusive Opportunities” links in the Links section on December 9th.

Need help applying or want more information? Review the Publisher Beginner’s guide today.

When can I post these opportunities on my site?
All opportunities will be available on December 9, and all will expire at midnight on December 12. Please remember that you may not post any of these exclusives until December 9th.

Further questions? Check out our Help Center for answers to frequently asked questions or feel free to contact us with any questions.

Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist

Interpreting Your Data: How To Understand Calculated Metrics

2011-10-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the second post in our "Interpreting Your Data" series for affiliate advertisers, brought to you by Google Affiliate Network analysts. View all posts in the series here.

Calculated metrics provide great insight into how specific variables are performing. A few of these commonly used metrics are conversion rate, click through rate, and average order value.
In this post, we will use examples to discuss how you can use calculated metrics to interpret your affiliate program data.

Reviewing performance data using calculated metrics:
You’re in the Google Affiliate Network interface, reviewing performance reports and notice your conversion rate has increased. You may think -- “That’s great news!” Or, is it?

Before celebrating, you’ll need to ask a few more questions and take a deeper look to determine whether an increase in conversion rate is really a positive indicator for your overall program.

This is because conversion rate is a calculated metric that is generated by combining two other metrics -- in this case, conversions divided by clicks. Whenever you use a calculated metric, you should understand what’s happening to both of the underlying metrics to to determine an overall trend.

Example 1:

In period 1, you have 33 conversions and 100 clicks, so your conversion rate is 33%.
In period 2, you have 25 conversions and 50 clicks, so your conversion rate is 50%.

As you can see, the conversion rate goes up in period 2. Is that good? There are fewer conversions in period 2 and fewer clicks. You should investigate why clicks went down before you can determine if this is a positive or negative indicator.

Understanding metric composition:
With an affiliate program, you should also consider the composition of each metric. That is, the composition of all of the publishers that are driving clicks and conversions. Each individual publisher composes one part of each metric.If you see conversion rates go down, you may think that this is negative indicator. To determine the significance, you should check if the conversion rate is down for every publisher and if you added any new publishers.

Example 2:

Publisher X had 33 conversions from 100 clicks totaling a 33% conversion rate.
Then you add publisher Y, who generates 200 clicks, 20 conversions totaling 10% conversion rate.
These two publisher combined generate 53 conversions on 300 clicks, for a conversion rate of 26.5%.
The combined conversion rate is down, but that’s only because you added a publisher that drives more clicks at a lower than average conversion rate.
You still have 33% conversion from publisher Y that drove 100 clicks.

In this example, it’s important to look more closely at the new publisher. It’s possible they have a lower conversion rate due to their business model. Adding this publisher to the program changes your overall number.

In summary, when you’re looking at the movement of a calculated metric (such as conversion rate and average order value) you shouldn’t stop there. To understand the shift, you should do a bit more investigating to find out why that metric moved.

For additional resources on analyzing your program, please see this analysis checklist help center article.

Posted by Dan Filowitz, Manager of Affiliate Operations

Interpreting Your Data: Where do I start?

2011-10-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first post in our new "Interpreting Your Data" series for affiliate advertisers, brought to you by Google Affiliate Network analysts. View all posts in the series here.
Affiliate program success can be evaluated in different ways, so you’ll need to clearly define performance requirements and metrics early. Questions you should seek to answer include:

- What is happening?
- Why it is happening?
- What actions can I take?

In this post, we’ll cover time periods and getting started with performance analysis.

Time Periods
The first thing you'll want to decide is what time periods are important to you. Do you want a broad, monthly view or do you need to get more granular with a weekly view? Next, decide how you want to compare your time periods. Year over year will help take seasonality into account. If you are a new affiliate advertiser, week over week and/or month over month will help show how your program is growing.

Performance analysis
After the time period comparisons are determined, start by looking at your main metrics and see if they’re up or down. It's important to look at more than just transactions. An increase in transactions is valuable but you'll also want to see if your clicks increased to really understand the reason behind your increase. Did your opportunities just convert better or did you have a larger base of clicks?

Now, it's time to dig deeper into your program and examine changes in publisher performance. Take a look at your publishers using the same time comparisons. This will help you identify and sort by publisher activity to find the biggest increases or decreases. If only a few of your publishers saw large gains, review any actions you took with them. Did you purchase an ad placement? Did you increase their commission rate or run an exclusive affiliate offer with them? If you saw increases across many or most of your publishers, this could be a result of a sale, or might be tied to publishers implementing creatives or offers that better appealed to your customers. Once you're able to make conclusions about the cause and impacts of program changes, you can take the appropriate steps to optimize publisher performance and drive more conversions.

It's important to understand when gains or losses are due to seasonality and when they’re due to actions taken by you and/or your publishers. For instance, if December is your top month, January sales are going to be down when comparing month over month. This is why it's helpful to use year over year comparisons and understand the seasonality of your business.

For additional resources on analyzing your program, please see this help center article.
Posted by Elliott Chapman, Account Strategist

A look ahead at Google Affiliate Network

2011-09-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Here at Google Affiliate Network, we’re working hard to make our product faster, more innovative, and available to more users. You may have already noticed many changes in the past few months, and we encourage you to check out our Interface Updates page to stay up-to-date on the latest.

In light of these changes (and many more to come), we’d like to take a moment to share our vision for our product.

Scale, scale, scale
We’re striving to make our product available to more publishers, advertisers and consumers around the world. So we’ve completely rewritten our hardware and software ecosystem to achieve vast technical scale. This allows us to make Google Affiliate Network available globally, launch innovative new features, and rapidly implement changes with little to no disruption to our users.

Affiliate Marketing for all
We believe strongly in the value of the affiliate channel, and we want to do our part to help it grow. We’re already paying publishers in over 40 currencies. We want to do better. We want all publishers and advertisers to use an interface that is customized to their timezone and language, and to be able to target ads to languages, regions, and audiences that they care about. We also hope to make it easier to sign up, find and run ads, and build relationships, so that publishers and advertisers who are new to the channel can jump right in.

Integrate with other Google products that you use
For those of you who use multiple Google products, we want you to be able to incorporate Google Affiliate Network into a seamless workflow. Today, you can already access Google Affiliate Network using the Google account of your choice. Publishers are paid via Google AdSense’s fast and reliable global payments system. Advertisers manage product feeds via their Google Merchant Center account, and they can access Google Ad Planner within their Google Affiliate Network account to evaluate whether a potential publisher affiliate is a good fit. We want to continue integrating with other Google products that are crucial to your workflow.

Find opportunities that make sense to you
Today, publishers and advertisers are able to find new relationships via the Opportunity Center. We’re also working on ways for you to see the creatives, opportunities, and products that will perform best on a given site -- and make that update quickly and easily. It should be easier for you to communicate with partners directly within the interface -- no emails or phone calls necessary (unless you want them).

Make decisions based on actionable insights
We want you to have access to insights that help you understand every aspect of your affiliate program. We’re focused on creating tools in the interface to help you develop a profitable commission strategy, better understand how customers are reacting to your opportunities, analyze results of paid placements, and clearly see areas for improvement.

Protect your investment through quality controls
Google Affiliate Network already has the highest standards in the affiliate industry to keep our publisher network clean and free from violations. We will continue to harness Google’s strong anti-abuse tools to protect the affiliate ecosystem.

This is the future as we see it, and the changes you see today are the first steps towards these goals. For frequent updates on the latest changes, please refer to our Interface Updates page.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Senior Product Manager
Ben Collins-Sussman, Engineering Manager
Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

System maintenance from Sept 19-22

2011-09-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

We are nearing the final stages of retiring our legacy systems and moving all Google Affiliate Network functions to Google systems. You have likely already noticed some of the changes associated with this process such as improvements to your account homepage, new reports, and faster-loading pages.

In order to complete the final stages of migration, we will need to take the user interface down for maintenance from 8:00pm - 11:00pm CDT each evening from September 19th through September 22nd. Please note that tracking will not be affected during these maintenance periods.

The releases taking place next week are important steps in completing our migration process and have been tested extensively by our engineering team. However, if you notice any issues, or have any questions, please contact your account manager or send us an email at affiliate-migration@google.com.

Posted by Mark Coppin, Technical Solutions

Google Affiliate Network Fall Exclusive Opportunities Now Available

2011-09-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

With the arrival of fall, the holiday shopping season begins. Give your users an early start by posting Google Affiliate Network Exclusive Opportunities. Over 40 opportunities will be available exclusively to Google Affiliate Network publishers. In addition, special opportunities will be live for one weekend only, from Friday, September 23 through Monday, September 26.

As a reminder, this limited time opportunity enables you to add a variety of great consumer opportunities to your site and earn a performance fee from orders that originated from your links.

How do I promote these opportunities on my site?

To promote any of these exclusive opportunities, you need to be an approved publisher in the Google Affiliate Network.
Apply for Google Affiliate Network with your AdSense Publisher ID (or sign in if you're already a Google Affiliate Network publisher).
Once approved, review the opportunities available and click the "Apply Now" link for everyone that you wish to promote.

Tracking links will be available in your Google Affiliate Network account by viewing the Home tab. You can also search for “September Exclusive Opportunities” links in the Links section on September 23.

Need help applying or want more information? Review the Getting Started guide today.

When can I post these opportunities on my site?
All opportunities will be available on September 23, and all will expire at midnight September 26. Please remember that you may not post any of these exclusives until September 23.

Further questions? Check out our Help Center for answers to frequently asked questions or feel free to contact us with any questions.

Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist

Introducing faster publisher payments!

2011-09-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Google Affiliate Network provides an industry-leading publisher payments system in over 40 currencies and 80 countries, with a wide variety of payment options. We're excited to announce that starting next month, Google Affiliate Network will be making publisher payments faster by eliminating 30 days from our current payment schedule. This enables publishers to be paid within 30 days or 60 days of driving a valid conversion, depending on the advertiser's schedule. Multiple benefits to our advertisers and publishers include:

For advertisers:

Unlock new distribution opportunities by attracting publishers who require fast payments
Increase efficiency by managing publishers who were unable to work with our previous payment schedule under your Google Affiliate Network account

For publishers:

Depend on fast, reliable, and flexible payments
Assume less risk when floating marketing dollars up front, so you can focus on innovation and growth

For current publishers, the new payment schedule means that your Google Affiliate Network earnings for next month will arrive on October rather than November, as they would have under the former payment schedule. For next month only, publishers will receive a combined payment for July/August activity (which is already posted to your AdSense account) and August/September activity. Starting on October, both Google Affiliate Network and AdSense earnings will be on the same 30-day schedule and payments will return to normal levels. Check out our payment calendar for a visual.

We're continually looking for new ways to keep improving payment and delivery options in different countries. Stay tuned to the Google Affiliate Network Blog as we work to improve the payments experience for publishers around the world!

For further information on payments, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing the Google Affiliate Network Partner Marketplace

2011-09-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, we launched the Google Affiliate Network Partner Marketplace, which features companies who can help our advertisers and publishers achieve affiliate marketing goals and grow the affiliate channel.

Today we’d like to highlight the two types of partner offerings that can help advertisers and publishers make the most of their affiliate marketing:

Tools to help Google Affiliate Network advertisers and publishers manage and grow their program. These partner tools can help you with things like data feeds, coupon feeds, pay-per-call, affiliate in store coupons, link monetization and tracking videos.
Agencies (also referred to as Outsourced Program Managers) to provide program management services for Google Affiliate Network advertisers.

Partners are selected based on their working relationship with the Google Affiliate Network and the value they can provide to our advertisers and publishers. Many of the companies in the Partner Marketplace demonstrate expertise in the pay-per-performance channel, help their customers develop innovative and creative solutions at scale, and provide training and support resources.

Please check out the Partner Marketplace if you are interested in working with any of these partners!

Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist

Third Annual Fast-A-Thon

2011-08-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

One in seven people worldwide will go to bed hungry tonight... and the Google Affiliate Network team, wanted to do something about it, so on August 18th, some of the team went hungry for a day to raise over $4,000 for the World Food Program USA.

The Google Affiliate Network team joined 600 Googlers from nine offices around the world for one of our largest fund-raising events ever, the third annual Fast-A-Thon. In the name of hunger relief, participants abstained from food and water from sun-up until late afternoon, with some breaking their fast in the Ramadan tradition of dates and light snacks. Through generous donations from friends, family, and the Google employee Gift-Match, over $100,000 was donated to aid the hunger crisis in the horn of Africa.

This philanthropic event was a fantastic opportunity for the team to come together (with stomachs growling) to raise money and support a great cause.

Written by Emily Hotz, Account Management

Our software application guidelines explained

2011-08-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, we announced new Google Affiliate Network software application guidelines to better protect the interests of our users, advertisers, and publishers. These policies are rooted in the belief that applications should enhance the user experience and never interfere with the user’s choice or purchase path.

Google Affiliate Network’s publishers have shown great innovation, building useful applications, toolbars, and browser extensions that benefit their users and drive quality conversions for advertisers. All approved applications go through a software review, where our Network Quality team thoroughly tests all submissions and each of their updates.

Our guidelines help ensure that applications don’t subject users to malicious or manipulative behavior, or create unwarranted commissions for advertisers. They also help prevent software from automatically co-opting commissions from other publishers. Most notably, these policies require users to agree before redirecting them through Google Affiliate Network links.

In the two years since we released our updated guidelines, our Network Quality team has reviewed and approved dozens of new software applications and updates. We want to thank our publishers for applying these guidelines to their applications, and look forward to the continued growth of the entire affiliate ecosystem.

Posted by Matt Dougherty, Network Quality

Join us at Affiliate Summit East

2011-08-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

The Google Affiliate Network team is excited to join our fellow affiliate marketers at Affiliate Summit East from August 21-23, 2011 at Hilton New York.

At the conference, you'll have the opportunity to hear from our product management team. Many members of our account management team will also be on hand to meet with our valued advertisers, publishers and partners. Make sure to stop by the Google booth to meet the team and pick up a pair of wayfarers to wear around the Exhibit Hall.

Affiliate Summit East
Google Affiliate Network
Booth #216 and 218
map »

See you soon!

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

New look for Google Affiliate Network's website

2011-08-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

This week, we launched a new look for Google Affiliate Network's website. In addition to a refreshed design, we've added new features to provide you with fresh product updates, educational resources, success stories, and more.

New features:

Throughout the website, you'll find diverse stories of advertisers, publishers and partners who have succeeded with Google Affiliate Network. We hope they inspire you and that you'll share your story with us, too.

Check out the new website and tell us what you think!

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Advertiser Home and Reports Page Updates

2011-07-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today, we’re announcing two new improvements to the Google Affiliate Network Advertiser interface. We have updated the Advertiser Home to help you understand your affiliate program more efficiently and see the latest network announcements. We have also updated Advertiser Reports with more robust features, including fast-loading graphs to give you a more detailed visual overview of your program’s performance.

Here's a look at the new Advertiser Home:

Watch the video below to learn more about the Advertiser Home and walk through the updated features:

Key Advertiser Home updates include:

Performance Summary: High-level program performance, including key indicators aggregated based on pre-selected timeframes (e.g. month to date). You’ll also see metrics for productive publishers, publisher fees, Google fees, and more.
Network Stats: Includes your 7-day and 3-month earnings per click metric (EPC) as well as your program’s network rank.
Top Publishers: Top 10 publishers in your program, ranked by sales.
Year over year sales performance: Get a quick view of total sales performance, along with a year over year variance to see how your program is trending.
Customizable widgets: Tailor your Home page to what is most relevant for your program. You can adjust the date range of the reporting widgets and customize the order, based on your preferences.
Announcements: Never miss an announcement -- find all current network-wide announcements including the Google Affiliate Network blog, as well as our most recent Twitter updates.

We have also launched an improved Advertiser Reports page. Top level features and enhancements include:

Visual representation of performance through fast-loading graphs and customizable axes
Enhanced filtering options
Improved speed
Export options now include .csv and .txt

Here’s a view of the new Advertiser Reports page:

Additional information:

Use the date picker on the right side of the page to select pre-selected date ranges (e.g. last 7 days, month to date, last full month) or choose your own custom date range.
Group data into desired time frame (day, week, month, etc.) with the drop-down in the report results.
Select Switch to Classic Version to view reporting on our legacy platform

Note: Saved reports are only available in the Classic version at this time.

Sign in to your Advertiser account now to view the updated Home and Reports pages. If you have questions or comments, please submit your feedback as you use these new features. We plan on improving our user experience based on your comments.

Posted by Kurt Spoerer, Senior Product Manager