Google Affiliate Network Blog

An update on Google Affiliate Network

2013-04-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

Our goal with Google Affiliate Network has been to help advertisers and publishers improve their performance across the affiliate ecosystem. Cost-per-action (CPA) marketing has rapidly evolved in the last few years, and we’ve invested significantly in CPA tools like Product Listing Ads, remarketing and Conversion Optimizer. We’re constantly evaluating our products to ensure that we’re focused on the services that will have the biggest impact for our advertisers and publishers.

To that end, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire Google Affiliate Network and focus on other products that are driving great results for clients.

We’ll continue to support our customers as we wind down the product over the next few months. And there are other products that can help you achieve your goals. Affiliate publishers can continue to earn AdSense revenue through the AdSense network. And marketers can take advantage of other CPA-oriented Google tools like Product Listing Ads, remarketing and Conversion Optimizer to drive valuable online sales and conversions. These areas are growing rapidly and we’re continuing to invest heavily in them.

Thanks for your support of our affiliate product, and we look forward to helping you grow your business in the future.

Posted by: J.J. Hirschle, Head of Google Affiliate Network

Calling all SF Bay Area residents: help test our new local, same-day delivery service

2013-03-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted from the Google Commerce Blog)

We all rely on the web to turn our intentions into actions quickly and easily. From planning a spring break or a trip to the movies to finding the perfect gift for someone we love, the world is increasingly at our fingertips. And over the last few years, we've worked hard to bring the speed of the web to the real world. With Google Play, for example, you can now buy or rent books, movies and TV shows in seconds.

Today we're starting a new experiment, Google Shopping Express. It's a local delivery service that we hope will make it possible for you to get the items you order online the same day, and at a low cost. It's incredibly early days and so the service is only available to a small number of people in the Bay Area.

As a tester, you will be able to shop online, in a single place, from retailers such as Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle and Toys“R”Us/Babies“R”Us -- along with locally distinct shops such as San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee, and the Bay Area’s Palo Alto Toy & Sport and Raley’s Nob Hill Foods, and get your items delivered that same day. So hopefully, no more trips across town for simple errands.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (in the city of San Francisco, and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose) and would like to help test this new initiative, please sign up here. We’re still working out our long-term pricing plan but early testers will get six months of free, unlimited same-day delivery. The pilot will expand as we work out the kinks, so please stay tuned.

Posted by Tom Fallows, Product Management Director, Google Shopping Express

Google's new Think Insights: Your go-to destination for digital marketing

2013-03-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

This week marks the debut of the new Think Insights, Google’s hub for marketing insights and inspiration for advertisers and agencies. On google.com/think, you can learn about the latest research in digital marketing, be inspired by creative brand campaigns, and find useful products and tools. You’ll also find industry-leading case studies and Google’s latest research, strategic perspectives, interviews with innovators and experts and more — all to help you make the most of the web.

Also, check out Mobile Search Moments: Understanding How Mobile Drives Conversions, in which Nielsen and Google analyzed over 6000 mobile searches and the actions that resulted, drawing connections between mobile searches and the conversions that they drive.

For mobile marketers, you can explore the Mobile Ad Types section for mobile-specific research, case studies, articles and more. Start by viewing our featured story, The Mobile Playbook, The Busy Executive's Guide to Winning with Mobile by Jason Spero, Google's Head of Global Mobile Sales & Strategy.

While you’re visiting, don’t miss the Mobile Ads product page, which contains the latest in mobile solutions to help grow your business and build brand momentum with mobile.

For marketers who want to turn “light bulb” ideas into lightning or just want to check out the best in digital marketing -- we hope that you visit often. To stay up-to-date on the latest content added to the site, please subscribe to our monthly Think Letter.

Posted by: The Think Insights Team

Thank you for your feedback!

2013-03-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

We appreciate your time and valuable feedback in helping us make Google Affiliate Network better!

GAN Blog Post: Video tips from the Google Affiliate Network Team

2013-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

We’re excited to announce a new video series: “The Google Affiliate Network Minute”, featuring members of the Google Affiliate Network team sharing some basic optimization tips. In each short video, you’ll find helpful suggestions on how to get the most out of your Google Affiliate Network account. So far we’ve posted 3 videos for advertisers and 3 videos for publishers.

Publisher video content

Advertiser video content

You can find all of these videos (and more) on our YouTube channel.

Posted by: Dan Filowitz, Manager, Google Affiliate Network

Announcing the Notifications tab for advertisers

2013-03-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, we launched our Notifications system for publishers. Today, we’re pleased to announce the Notifications tab for advertisers. This notifications system makes it easier for advertisers to stay informed about important program changes to make the most of their affiliate marketing efforts.

Types of notifications
If you're an advertiser, starting today you’ll receive a notification whenever you have pending publishers in your account. For example, if you have over 10 pending publishers, a message will appear in your notifications reminding you to take action. You’ll also get a notification if publishers report an order that may not have tracked in your account. Other examples of the notifications you’ll receive include errors pertaining to any offline files you may have uploaded.

Accessing notifications
From the Advertiser Home, you’ll see a notification alert in the upper right corner of the interface that shows the number of pending messages. When you click the alert, you can see more information along with a link to see all notifications.

When you click the Notifications tab, you'll see a basic summary and detailed view for each communication. You can search across notifications so you can more easily review and act on these alerts while you’re working in your account.

This launch is a continuation of a series of enhancements to communications in the Google Affiliate Network interface. We've listened to feedback from both advertisers and publishers that a central communication hub could increase efficiency and reduce the need to rely on email for important communications. As we mentioned last year, our vision is to move more communications into a central location in the interface so you can better track and maintain your affiliate relationships and activities.

Send your feedback
We welcome your feedback. If you have any suggestions, let us know what you think by posting a comment here or in our forum. Advertisers, sign in to your account today to access the Notifications tab.

Posted by:
Joel Ingram, Software Engineer

Mark your calendar: Affiliate Management Days San Francisco

2013-02-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

We hope to meet fellow affiliate managers and marketing executives at Affiliate Management Days San Francisco on April 16 to 17, 2013. Members of the Google Affiliate Network team will be attending the conference, and we'll also be participating in the following panel:

The Role of the Affiliate Network
Affiliate networks have evolved to play many different roles over the years and are a key partner for both merchants and affiliates. Panelists from different networks, including Google Affiliate Network, will discuss what role the network should play in areas such as affiliate screening, fraud monitoring, program management and more.

You can review the conference agenda and register on the Affiliate Management Days website. Register by Friday, February 22nd to take advantage of the early bird rate, which will save you up to $500 from the onsite price.

Google Affiliate Network advertisers can use this link to register and receive an additional 20% discount on all 2-day passes.

Posted by:
Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

eFlorist grew their affiliate revenue by 40% after partnering with Google Affiliate Network

2013-02-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

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

eFlorist operates a robust network of 1,800 florists across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Consumers across the globe have an affinity for the Romsey, UK-based retailer, thanks to their e-commerce site and same-day delivery in 135 countries. With goals focused toward further capitalizing market position and affiliate program growth, eFlorist’s Marketing Manager Paul Isaia turned to Google Affiliate Network in 2012.

Paul had three key reasons in mind when transitioning the eFlorist affiliate program to Google. He wanted to grow affiliate-generated sales by 10% within one year, improve the quality of their publisher base, and leverage reporting insights to uncover new growth opportunities.

After first launching the eFlorist program with Google Affiliate Network, Paul noted that he "was very impressed with the reporting as well as the tools to recruit new affiliates." Paul focused on building publisher relationships, using the Recommendation engine to identify new affiliates, and partnering closely with the Google Affiliate Network team to make sure his program had a strong network of high-value publishers. Within a few months, eFlorist also began to use their Google Merchant Center product feed to scale their product catalog to affiliates.

While executing these initial measures, eFlorist started to see a notable sales impact in their program. Within six months, the results spoke for themselves: eFlorist’s affiliate channel revenue grew 40%, well above their initial 10% benchmark. In turn, affiliate marketing’s share of total online sales grew from 15% to 20%, satisfying Isaia and his team.

To learn more about Paul Isaia and eFlorist, read the full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Executive

Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network: Advertiser best practices

2013-02-04T10:31:00.001-08:00

This is the third post in our ‘Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network’ series. Today, we’ll focus on best practices to help advertisers make the most of mobile in affiliate marketing.

As we continue in our series, today, we’ll cover affiliate mobile strategies for advertisers. As a direct-response focused advertiser, you might already see the evolution of mobile and the rise of mobile e-commerce.

With more mobile devices being activated each day and two out of three smartphone users now accessing the web on their devices, today’s mobile user is primed for online conversions. Half of US smartphone users use m-commerce apps, and our research at ourmobileplanet.com points out that purchases directly via mobile continue to increase, with 35% of smartphone users having made a purchase on their phone.

Mobile optimization tips
Visitors to a mobile or tablet site might be at a different point of the purchase funnel than visitors to a desktop site, so it's important to have an optimized site to match user intent and behavior. Plus, optimizing for mobile might also help you increase your conversion rate through all of your marketing channels, including affiliate.

We recommend reviewing the tips and best practices shared in last week’s post covering ways you can optimize your website for mobile.

In addition, it’s important that your website makes it easy for the consumer to convert and focus on information that might help conversion. You can find more tips & best practices in our GoMo Guide for advertisers at howtogomo.com.

Next, we’ll cover tips specific to affiliate marketing and mobile.

Affiliate conversion tracking
Advertisers using affiliate marketing must always ensure conversion tracking functions as expected. Google Affiliate Network advertisers are required to successfully implement and track conversions on their desktop sites in order to launch their account, and they must also implement Google Affiliate Network conversion tracking for any separate mobile sites they may create. See our Conversion tracking implementation guide for more information.

Add mobile creative sizes
It’s important to make mobile ad sizes available to your publishers. The Google Affiliate Network interface includes mobile ad sizes as standard ad units to make it easier for link creation and publisher discovery. You can find a list of standard ad sizes for Android, iOS, and other devices with full HTML browsers in our Help Center.

Partner with mobile-optimized publishers
Many traditional affiliates have mobile-focused sites, and we also distinguish publishers with mobile apps with the “Mobile application” segment. You can use this filter in the UI to discover virtual gaming apps, price comparison apps, retail catalog apps, and deal and product apps. See our Help Center for more information on finding mobile-focused publishers.

Additional tools
Google Affiliate Network extends the opportunity for advertisers to use pay-per-call via our Partner Marketplace. If you offer a toll-free number on your website and want to capture affiliate conversions via phone, review our Partner marketplace today to find partners to help you track pay-per-call activities.

As mobile continues to evolve, we look forward to providing more tips and tools to help you make the most of affiliate marketing for mobile.

Posted by:
Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network: Publisher best practices

2013-01-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is the second post in our ‘Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network’ series. Today, we’ll focus on best practices to help publishers make the most of mobile in affiliate marketing.

We kicked off our blog series earlier this week with details on the importance of mobile for affiliate marketers. As publisher, you already understand the growing market in mobile e-commerce. Below we’ll share some insights to help you mobilize your website.

Optimize your website for mobile
Visitors to a mobile or tablet site may be at a different point of the purchase funnel than visitors to a desktop site, so it’s important to have an optimized site to match user intent and behavior. What’s more, optimizing for mobile may also help you increase your conversion rate through all of your marketing channels, including affiliate.

Before you get started, find out what percentage of your visitors are coming from mobile devices. Next, consider how your site might look to mobile users.

When building your website to support different devices, consider if you want to utilize responsive web design, or if you should create a separate mobile site. Once you’ve decided on a configuration, be sure to consider some of our additional best practices for mobile users: simplify your landing pages and use strong call-to-action language to attract mobile visitors.

You can simplify navigation by:

Adding hierarchy and vertical scrolling to aid information access
Be thumb-friendly by designing your site so even large hands can easily interact with it
If applicable to your website, make your site local
Avoid using flash, since not all mobile websites support it
Minimize load times for the convenience of your mobile viewer
Learn, listen and iterate by building your site with input from your audience

And, if you’re wondering whether to first create an app or a mobile site, build the site first as it will offer more cross-platform reach than apps. See our Help Center for more information on optimizing your mobile website.

Tell advertisers your website is optimized for mobile
Once you’ve optimized your site for mobile users, it's important to make sure advertisers are aware. You can easily update your Website description in your Publisher profile so advertisers that view your profile can see that your site is optimized for mobile.

Get mobile affiliate ads
We’ve made it easy to quickly access standard mobile ad sizes. You can find mobile affiliate ads by clicking the Links tab and using the Size filter to find standard mobile ad sizes. You can also get mobile ads using Link subscriptions and the Links API. See our Help Center for a list of standard ad sizes for Android, iOS, and other devices with full HTML browsers.

A publisher's experience with going mobile
Pageonce, a popular app to track your money and pay bills, uses affiliate marketing to show targeted offers. Pageonce finds that their "users are much more engaged and focused on their mobile device. They know what they want and they want to be done quickly and efficiently,” says Steve Schultz, the company's Chief Operating Officer. Over the past year, Pageonce has built a healthy mobile ad revenue stream through Google Affiliate Network. Steve shares some tips for mobile success: "Messages need to be tight – there’s no room for extra copy, landing pages need to be optimized for the mobile experiences and offers have to be relevant."

While these tips are a great starting point for optimizing your mobile site you can find more tips & best practices in our GoMo Guide for Publishers at howtogomo.com.

Posted by:
Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

Stay connected with Google Affiliate Network on G+

2013-01-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

We've launched our Google+ Profile page. On this page, we hope to engage more with our followers, provide relevant and timely updates, share insights and research, and share more about the Google Affiliate Network product and our team. Whether you're an affiliate advertiser, publisher, agency, partner, prospect or industry insider, we hope you find our content to be relevant and insightful. We encourage you to follow us on Google+.

Posted by Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network: Why Mobile?

2013-01-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first post in our ‘Go Mobile with Google Affiliate Network’ series. Over the next few weeks, we'll highlight best practices to help advertisers and publishers make the most of mobile in affiliate marketing.

There’s no question about it: mobile is everywhere and continues to grow. As more devices are activated each day, users are able to connect to the web in new ways. Two out of three smartphone users now access the web on their devices (Our Mobile Planet, Google & Ipsos, 2012) and more websites are producing smartphone-optimized content, presenting businesses with exciting new opportunities. In fact, a recent study states that over 85% of marketers reported that they plan to increase their mobile advertising budgets in the near future (ANA/MediaVest, 2013).

You can see additional key statistics about US mobile consumer behavior from the 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research in the infographic below.

Click to download US Mobile Consumer Behavior infographic

Mobile's impact on e-commerce
More consumers are using their devices to research and shop online, and smartphone research influences buyer decisions and purchases across channels. Mobile shoppers are primed for online conversions -- 96% of smartphone users research products across multiple devices, and 37% of users that research on smartphones lead to purchases on their desktop (Google & Ipsos, 2012). The latest eMarketer research predicts that the share of mobile sales for all retail e-commerce may increase from 11% in 2012 to 15% in 2013 (eMarketer, 2013).

Businesses are increasingly redefining their marketing strategies to engage the new, constantly connected consumer across devices. Below we’ll share some mobile best practices for the affiliate channel to help you be better positioned to reach consumers across the multiple paths to purchase.

Make your website mobile-friendly
It's critical to have an optimized site that’s customized to mobile users, not just because of the size of each device, but because the context reveals a different consumer mindset. Visitors to a mobile or tablet site may be at a different point of the purchase funnel than visitors to your desktop site. This is especially important in a conversion-oriented channel like affiliate marketing.

Consider how your site might look to mobile users. Are you offering an optimized experience? 79% of consumers say they will turn to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience and 55% say a poor mobile experience hurts their opinion of a brand (Google/Sterling Brands & SmithGeiger, Sep 2012).

Building a separate mobile website is an appropriate solution for many businesses, but it’s also important to understand how responsive design might fit into your plans to GoMo. In this blog post, our Mobile Ads team summarized how responsive design allows you to create a single website that will adapt to the device on which it’s being viewed, whether it’s a laptop, smartphone or tablet.

You can learn more specifics on going mobile at howtogomo.com. If you’re more technically inclined, take a look at our Webmaster blog post, as well as detailed recommendations on the Google Developers help site.

Go Mobile with your Google Affiliate Network program
In addition to website optimization, advertisers using affiliate marketing need to ensure conversion tracking works as expected. Just as Google Affiliate Network advertisers are required to successfully track conversions on their desktop sites before they launch their accounts, Google Affiliate Network advertisers must also implement our conversion tracking pixel on their separate mobile websites.

In addition to conversion tracking, it’s important to use ad sizes common to mobile devices. To help publishers get mobile ads more easily, we've included common ad sizes for Android, iOS, and other devices with full HTML browsers as standard ad sizes in the Google Affiliate Network interface. For a list of all standard ad sizes for mobile, see our Help Center.

Posted by:
Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

Easily find Google Trusted Store advertisers via new badges in Google Affiliate Network

2013-01-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

We're excited to announce an easy way for publishers to identify advertisers within Google Affiliate Network that have earned the Google Trusted Store badge. Starting today in Google Affiliate Network, a badge will appear next to Google Trusted Store merchants in the U.S. that are also Google Affiliate Network advertisers.

About Google Trusted Stores
The Google Trusted Stores program helps shoppers buy online with confidence. The Google Trusted Store badge is only awarded to stores with a proven track record of reliable, on-time shipping and excellent customer service. So when shoppers see the Google Trusted Store badge on e-commerce websites, they know they’re buying from a store that provides a consistently excellent shopping experience. They also know that Google stands behind them when they shop, providing up to $1,000 of purchase protection in the rare event of a problem.

Benefits for publishers
The Google Trusted Store badge is a helpful tool you can use when considering advertiser affiliate programs to join. Look for the Google Trusted Store logo when browsing the Advertisers tab to find advertisers that are validated and certified by Google as providing a great shopping experience for consumers.

Benefits for advertisers
Advertisers have benefited from higher average order sizes and improved conversion rates after becoming a Google Trusted Store. If you’re an advertiser that delivers an excellent shopping experience and would like to learn more about the program, check out the Google Trusted Stores website for more information. If you earn the badge, it will automatically appear within your Product Listing Ads on Google.com and Google Shopping, as well as within the Google Affiliate Network interface.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback about this new feature, so don’t hesitate to share feedback via our Google Affiliate Network forum.

Posted by:
Bill Goudie, Systems Engineer

See performance by OS and browser with Platform reports

2013-01-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today, we’ve released new reports to help you better understand the impact of desktop and mobile platforms in your affiliate program. With Platform reports, you can have full visibility into performance associated with desktop and mobile operating systems and browsers, right from within our interface.

You can review Platform reports to see OS and browser activity associated with clicks, actions, transactions, sales, fees, and more -- all based on the timeframe you specify. The Activity report provides a breakdown of performance based on the OS used. The Activity detail report drills deeper, breaking out performance by OS like Windows, Mac, Android, or iOS and browser type, such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

Publisher benefits
Publishers can use Platform reports to efficiently identify top performing advertisers by OS, helping them make more informed decisions as to which advertisers to promote through different platforms. Want to see which advertisers perform well in different operating systems? Review the Advertiser report to access performance metrics for advertisers based on platform.

Advertiser benefits
Advertisers can see conversion performance by browser and operating system through Platform reports, making it easy to gain new insights – like whether or not visitors from mobile browsers convert at a higher rate than desktop browsers, or if the average order value associated with mobile is higher than conversions from desktop. Advertisers can also access Publisher and link reports with platform data, helping them identify the best publishers to partner with and the types of links to make available.

For example, let’s say an advertiser finds that traffic from smartphone or tablet browsers converts at a higher rate or is associated with a higher average order value compared to desktop browsers. In this case, platform data may be useful in helping the advertiser decide whether or not to work with more mobile-focused publishers.

As with all our reports, Platform reports can be easily exported to .txt or .csv for further analysis.

By breaking out visitors by OS and browser, Platform reporting may help provide direction on your mobile strategy. For example, you can use insights from Platform reports to consider whether or not to design a website to accommodate both mobile and desktop traffic, or to design a separate, mobile-friendly website.

If you have feedback or suggestions on these new reporting features, let us know what you think by submitting feedback in the interface or through our Product forum.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Senior Product Manager

Dynamic links: Serve the right ad to the right user at the right time

2013-01-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

We’re excited to announce the release of Dynamic links, helping you serve more relevant affiliate ads to users. Dynamic links enable new ways to create and serve ads that use Google’s best-in-class display advertising features, giving advertisers the ability to serve geo-targeted ads, rotate and optimize creatives, automatically schedule and update ads, and more. Dynamic links can contain multiple creatives and also support Flash.

Publisher benefits
Since Dynamic links automatically update based on changes an advertiser makes even after the ad has been placed on a publisher website, publishers will be able to serve the right advertiser creative to their audience, helping increase the opportunity for conversions and revenue via the affiliate channel.

Optimized, Scheduled or Targeted ads
Advertisers have three unique options when creating Dynamic links.

Optimized – Set up the ad so creatives rotate evenly at first. As links generate activity, higher-performing creatives will get more exposure.
Scheduled – Set up all limited-time promotions so publishers only need to use one tag to show the most up-to-date affiliate ads.
Targeted – Set up country or US state specific targeting for localized creatives. Each creative can contain its own custom location targeting to country or US state.

Features available with Dynamic links

Inventory selection – Advertisers can create Dynamic links for any ad size and can associate any number of creative images or Flash rich media assets with their ads. Ads are available both as Link templates as well as Publisher-specific links, and publishers can easily preview each creative within a dynamic ad.

Ad trafficking – Ads from participating advertisers are available via the Links tab in the Google Affiliate Network interface. The ad serving code is a standard Iframe/JavaScript tag, and publishers only need to implement the tag once.

Reporting – Performance reporting is easily accessible in your Google Affiliate Network account.

Publishers can access Dynamic links from the Links tab in the UI, under the Browse all links sub-tab.

If you’re a publisher, just sign into your account, click the Links tab and filter by Dynamic links to find available Dynamic links. Once you select an ad, it’s easy to get the code and post to your website. For details on posting Dynamic links to your website, review our Help Center.

If you’re an advertiser and want to get started with creating Dynamic links, see our Help Center article with detailed instructions for How to create Dynamic links.

We welcome your feedback -- as we continue to iterate on this exciting new feature, we want to hear from you in our Product forum.

- Posted by: Matt Hansen, Software Engineer

Meet the Google Affiliate Network team at Affiliate Summit West 2013

2013-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Google Affiliate Network is excited to join our fellow affiliate marketers at Affiliate Summit West from January 13-15, 2013 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

At the conference, you'll have a chance to hear from our team. Kristin Hall, Head of Publisher Development, will lead a talk on Publisher Segmentation Ideas, providing insight into how to tailor communications and optimization strategies to effectively reach the right publisher partners. Members of our account management team will also be on hand to meet with our valued advertisers, publishers and partners. Be sure to stop by our booth.

Visit the Google Affiliate Network booth:
Affiliate Summit West
Google Affiliate Network
Booth #327 and 329
map »

Attend the presentation:
Session: Publisher Segmentation Ideas
Location: Florentine 3 and 4
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm
Date: Sunday January 13, 2013

See you soon!

Posted by:
Josh Pyle, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Last-Minute Google Affiliate Network Holiday Tips

2012-12-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

As we’re nearly halfway through the holiday shopping season, online shoppers have come out in full force this year, with Black Friday online sales totalling $1B and Cyber Monday 2012 taking the crown as the biggest online shopping day ever, with nearly $2B in sales and 30% growth year over year. With a few weeks left in 2012, we wanted to pass along a few tips to help you make the most of your affiliate program and capture as many incremental holiday sales as possible.

Holiday Tips for Publishers

Easily search for relevant links tagged with upcoming seasonal tags for Green Monday (12/10), Christmas/Holiday (12/25), Boxing Day (12/26 - UK, Canada), Post-holiday sales, January sale.
Use the Special offers filter to search for the most compelling links to feature on your site.
Use insights from our recently-launched reports to help optimize your program.
Quickly create product links with our new Google Affiliate Network Link Builder Chrome extension.

Holiday Tips for Advertisers

Be sure to tag and share your seasonal links for upcoming shopping days, including Green Monday (12/10), Christmas/Holiday (12/25), Boxing Day (12/26 - UK, Canada), Post holiday sales, January sale.

Review recommended publishers to find new publisher opportunities based on similar categories and revenue potential.

Check out our recently-launched reports which enable you to compare performance across different metrics and timeframes and see geography based click and conversion data.

It’s gearing up to be an exciting end to the holiday shopping season and we hope these tools and tips will help you take full advantage of your affiliate program from now into 2013!

Posted by:
J.J. Hirschle, Head of Google Affiliate Network

Days before Thanksgiving, Online Shopping is in Full Swing

2012-11-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

(Cross posted to the Google Retail Advertising Blog)

While retailers might still be carting out decorations and Black Friday deals have yet to hit shelves, the holiday shopping season is already in full swing. Searches for "holiday gift" on Google have already spiked 156% since the first of November, and searches for "Black Friday" are up 546%.

In the days leading up to the biggest shopping event of the year, we took a look at early trends in holiday shopping using Google Consumer Surveys and found that it’s shaping up to be the first Nonline holiday season. People are shopping earlier and shopping smarter, both online and in stores. Case in point, while 80% of shoppers plan to research their purchases online, 69% of apparel shoppers still plan to make their purchases in a store while 36% plan to purchase online.

Shopping earlier, shopping smarter
Although we're only halfway into November, many consumers have already purchased their holiday gifts - 14% of people who plan to shop for toys have already made purchases, 11% for apparel shoppers, and 6% for electronics shoppers. Most plan on completing their shopping primarily in December, but Thanksgiving weekend shopping remains strong. We found that 28% of people who plan to shop for electronics plan to make their purchases primarily during Thanksgiving weekend, 18% for toy shoppers, and 17% for apparel shoppers.

In addition to shopping earlier, people are using smartphones to be smarter about the purchases they make. We found that 80% of shoppers use their smartphone or tablet to shop before buyingonline or in a store. If you’re a retailer, most people that walk through your doors will already have an idea of what they’re looking for in mind.

Smart marketers are helping customers pre-shop items online before getting to the store. Macy’s is using search ads to drive people to their Black Friday sale preview whether they’re on a laptop or mobile device. Holiday card searches jump after Thanksgiving, and new ad formats are allowing Storkie Express to raise awareness of their Hidden Dimension app, a new tool that animates theirpaper holiday cards. Running the mobile app extension on search ads has boosted downloads for their app across screens.

Discounts and free shipping seal the deal
Consumers still see shipping costs as a barrier, and for some it can be a deal breaker. If the a site doesn’t offer free shipping:

48% will look for it on another site with free shipping
32% will visit a nearby store to buy the product
20% will still purchase the item from the site

Most shoppers felt that they are seeing the same amount of holiday discounts and coupons as they did last year (70%). However 22% of shoppers feel that they’re seeing fewer deals for holiday sales and promotions - which opens the opportunity for retailers to reach consumers with special offers as they’re actively hunting for deals this week. This is particularly impactful for toy retailers, as 40% of shoppers always compare prices on toys before making a decision.

Shoppers go online to beat crowds
As more people cross-shop online and in stores this season, many view online shopping as an easier way to shop. Consumers described holiday shopping online as easy, great, and convenient, while they described holiday shopping in stores as crazy, hectic, stressful, and exciting.

However, having an easy-to-use mobile website is essential to keeping shoppers on your site. More than 46% feel frustrated when mobile sites are hard to navigate. And as we’ve seen from past research, mobile shoppers will quickly move on to another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away.

You can find these stats and more by viewing the full report on Google Consumer Surveys. Find more of our holiday shopping research here.

Posted by Jon Sadow, on behalf of the Google Consumer Surveys team

Searching for and sharing the best seasonal links

2012-11-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

With the holiday season quickly approaching, the next few weeks are pivotal for driving sales through affiliate marketing. We’re excited to announce that we’ve made it even easier for publishers to quickly find and advertisers to easily share seasonal links through the Google Affiliate Network interface.

Finding seasonal links
If you're a publisher, you can now easily find seasonal links to promote -- just in time for the holiday rush. For example, click the link below to find available Black Friday links:

https://www.google.com/affiliatenetwork/viewlinks?atags=black_friday

This link will take you to the Links tab in your publisher account and automatically filter the results for links tagged for Black Friday. Advertisers are tagging additional links this week, so keep checking back to find the most updated list of Black Friday promotional links.

Advertisers have the capability of sharing these seasonal links with you directly via email. We hope this new feature, along with the structured promotions features launched earlier this month, helps you more quickly and easily find great advertiser offers.

Tagging and sharing seasonal links
If you're an advertiser, you'll find that it's now really easy to tag links and share them with publishers.

To add seasonal tags to your links, Click the 'Links' tab, then 'Browse all links'. Find the links you want to tag and check the box to the left of each link. Next, select the ‘Tag’ button at the top of the page, choose any appropriate seasonal tags, and click 'Apply'.

It's easy to share your newly-tagged links with publishers. Click ‘Share’ at the top of the page to get a link you can share with your joined publishers. Then, share the link via email with any publishers in your program so that they can easily view the seasonal links you just tagged.

On behalf of the engineering team, we want to wish you a happy holiday season. If there’s anything more we can do to help, please let us know in our Product forum.

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Announcing the Notifications tab for publishers

2012-11-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Communication is a key component to Affiliate marketing, so it's no surprise that advertisers and publishers exchange a lot of email. With the peak shopping season coming up, it’s critical for publishers to stay informed of important advertiser program changes to make the most of their affiliate marketing efforts. To make it easier for publishers to keep track of important account notifications from within the Google Affiliate Network interface, we’ve launched a new Notifications system.

Types of notifications

If you're a publisher, starting today you’ll receive a notification whenever an advertiser makes a change to their account that impacts your relationship or commissions. For example, if an advertiser invites you to join their program, this invitation will appear in your notifications. You’ll also receive a notification when an advertiser makes a decision on your application to their program. Other examples of the notifications you’ll receive include Commission rate changes or updates to Advertiser Specific Terms.

From the Publisher Home, you’ll see a notification alert in the upper right corner of the interface that displays the number of pending messages. When you click on the alert, you can see more information along with a link to see all notifications.

When you click the Notifications tab, you'll see a basic summary and detailed view for each communication. You can search across notifications and advertisers so you can more easily review and act on affiliate-specific notifications while you’re working in your account.

This launch is the first of a series of enhancements to communications within the Google Affiliate Network interface. For a long time, we've listened to your feedback that adding a central communication hub could help increase efficiency and reduce the need to simply rely on your email inbox for important communications. Today's launch is the first step we're making towards this hub. Our vision is to move more communications into a central location in interface so you can better track and maintain your affiliate relationships and activities.

Send your feedback

We welcome your feedback. If you have any suggestions, let us know what you think by posting a comment here or in the Google Affiliate Network forum. Sign in to your account today to access the Notifications tab.

Posted by:
Joel Ingram, Software Engineer

Introducing new reporting enhancements

2012-11-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

We made a few updates to our reports over the past few weeks which include features useful for both advertisers and publishers. These new reports include Order-level payment reports for publishers, Multi-metric reports for comparing performance across different metrics and timeframes, and Geography reports to help both advertisers and publishers understand more about where user clicks and conversions are coming from.

Order-level payment reports

With our new Order-level payment reports, publishers can easily see which conversions their accounts have received payment for. Order-level payment reports contain a comprehensive listing of conversions that show the month in which conversions were paid out.

When you view the report, you'll first see order-level payment information for your advertiser relationships from the month when you received payment. The report pulls this information based on the timeframe you specify, so you can access order-level payments from the past.

Multi-metric graph reports

Multi-metric graphs allow you to quickly see performance across two separate axes. Set the graphs to review metrics based on the previous week or previous year’s performance for a specified time frame to identify changes in performance. You can also review against specific metrics, such as Publisher fees, clicks, conversions, and more.

Geography reports

With Geography reports, you can gain insights into where user performance originates from, in most cases down to the state or province level. See performance volume by geographic region so you can optimize and refine your affiliate program. You can review geographic locations associated with clicks, actions, transactions, sales, and more.

To get started, select your desired metrics and time frame above the world map. All metrics will populate in the table below.

If you have feedback or suggestions on these new reporting features, let us know what you think by submitting feedback in the interface, or through our Product forum.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Product Manager

Introducing structured promotional data for links

2012-11-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that special promotions and coupons are integral to the affiliate channel. If you're a publisher with a shopping-focused website, you know how important it is to present accurate, comprehensive promotions and coupons to your visitors.

Today, we're happy to announce a more structured way to get links with offers, promotion codes, and discounts so you can more easily automate and display the latest advertiser promotions. You now have the ability to search and filter by special offers, promotion codes, and discounts – including Link templates and Publisher-specific links. Read on to learn more about how you can now access structured promotion data.

Accessing links with structured promotional data

When you search the interface, you can perform queries that weren't previously possible. For example, try searching search for an Apparel link with Free shipping that has a Promotion code where the discount is greater than 25 percent off. This could be helpful if you have a website where you only want to promote coupons with a significant discount.

We’ve also updated the recommendation engine to help you find more relevant promotional links. If you're a shopping-focused publisher, you'll see that links with special offers, promotion codes, or discounts are more visible.

Links API

Structured link data is also available through the Google Affiliate Network API, so you can programmatically access and display offers, promotion codes, and discounts to your website in real time.

Link subscriptions

You can also get links with special offers, promotion codes, and discounts via Link subscriptions. To access structured link data through Link subscriptions, sign in to your publisher account and upgrade to Link subscriptions Version 2.

Send us your feedback

As always, your feedback is very important. You can click on “Details inaccurate?” in the interface to provide feedback at the link level to help us quickly resolve any potential issues.

If you have feedback or suggestions, let us know what you think by posting a comment here or in the Google Affiliate Network forum.

We’ve worked hard to make these changes to help you achieve greater success this holiday season. Sign in to your account today to access these new link features!

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Holiday optimization tips for publishers

2012-10-30T09:19:00.002-07:00

With the holidays quickly approaching, advertisers are trying to reach more customers. Now is the time to make the most of Google Affiliate Network – use the below insights and tips from our recent interface updates and optimization checklist to boost your performance this holiday season.

Update your publisher profile

Your website description is the first thing advertisers see, so always keep it current.
Make your profile visible to more advertisers by opting into Recruiting communications.

Discover and apply to more advertiser programs

Use the Recommended advertisers tab to find new advertiser programs, sorted by category and earnings potential.

Get links and keep them fresh

Review Recommended links to see Staff picks and Exclusives.
Use automated services like Link subscriptions, Product subscriptions, and the Links API to easily keep links, special offers, promotions and products updated.
Get banner and dynamic links. The larger ad sizes for banner and dynamic links are more visual and easier for users to read and interact with.
If your site has an active user base and you’re driving a lot of conversions for an advertiser, ask them to create a co-branded landing page to help increase conversion.

Optimize your website

Make sure your website is updated for peak promotional seasons, and set aside inventory for Google Affiliate Network ads.

Track performance and take action on reporting insights

Use Creative reports to review link performance and find the top-performing creatives and links for your site.
Review your analytics to determine your most relevant content and top performing links.
Identify top-selling products through Product-related reports, then optimize for these products.
Order-level payment reports show you the list of orders that have been paid out in any given month.

Sign in to your publisher account today and take advantage of these optimization features. Cheers to a successful and productive holiday season!

Posted by:
Emily Harris, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing the Manage Inquiries tab for advertisers

2012-10-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Many savvy shoppers shop online through loyalty and reward programs, since their purchases can lead to incentives like miles, points, or other reward-based currencies (typically referred to as a passback).

As an advertiser, you know how important it is to make sure customers are satisfied with their purchases. If they shop through loyalty programs, you also know how it’s important that they receive their passback. To that end, you may sometimes be contacted by loyalty publishers' customer service teams asking to confirm orders for customers who may not have received their passback. To ease this process, we've released the new Manage Inquiries tab to streamline the order lookup and resolution process so you can quickly review and take action on inquiries.

The Manage Inquiries tab shows all pending order inquiries, and publishers also have the option to provide notes to help you research and take action on the inquiry. You’ll also receive a weekly notification email if a publisher has added an inquiry to your account.

Reviewing inquiries
You can start reviewing inquiries by taking the following steps:

Click on the Orders tab, then the Manage Inquiries sub-tab.
Review the list of Pending inquiries.
Review your own reporting to decide whether or not the inquiry is already associated with a valid order.
Click on the Action drop-down and take the appropriate action on the inquiry. You can select the order and approve it as-is, or edit the order amount and approve, or decline the inquiry. You can also use the “select all” function to take action on multiple inquiries at once.

If you have a large number of inquiries, you can save time by exporting them to .csv, specifying the actions in the file and uploading it to the interface.

Learn more about managing pending order inquiries in the Help Center.

Posted by:

Gabe Black, Software Engineer
Mark St. John, Software Engineer

Quickly create links with our new Chrome extension for publishers

2012-10-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

If you're an affiliate publisher, you might be looking for the most efficient ways to promote great products. With this in mind, we’re happy to announce the Google Affiliate Network Link Builder, a new Chrome extension that makes creating product links fast and easy.

Publishers have long been able to create links by signing into Google Affiliate Network and creating a Publisher-specific link (PSL). Now, the Google Affiliate Network Link Builder enables publishers to create affiliate ads that link directly to unique product pages -- right from an advertiser’s website.

If a great product catches your eye while browsing, why shouldn't a PSL be anything more than a click away? With our new Chrome extension, it isn’t. The extension displays a button in the corner of your browser window. If the advertiser's program supports deep linking, you can easily create a PSL for any product you’re viewing by clicking the button.

Get started

To start using the Link Builder, just follow these steps:

Sign in to Chrome with your Google Affiliate Network publisher login and password. Here’s a step-by-step process for signing in to Chrome.
Visit the Chrome Web Store and download the Google Affiliate Network Link Builder. This will add the icon to your browser.
Next, visit an advertiser website where you have an existing affiliate relationship and search for a product.
Found a cool product? Use the extension by clicking on the icon and a pop-up window will prompt you to create a PSL with one click.
And that’s it! Copy the PSL, and you can begin promoting it right away.

How it works

The extension works entirely by making calls to Google Affiliate Network’s public API, and the only requirement is that you be signed in to Chrome with your publisher account. Once loaded, the extension downloads all your advertiser relationships into memory and then recognizes when you have an affiliate relationship with a website you’re visiting. The extension's open source code is available for all to see, as an example of how to use Google Affiliate Network's public APIs.

We encourage our users to study and use the code to support their creative endeavors. If you have questions or feedback, please let us know in our public support forum.

Posted by:
Ben Collins-Sussman, Engineering Manager