Google Affiliate Network Blog

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

Google eBooks Affiliate program - Open for business

2011-06-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

Reposted from Inside Google Books blog by Pratip Banerji, Product Manager, Google Books team.

Retailers, bloggers, book publishers and other website owners in the U.S. can now become Google eBooks affiliates. Affiliates can link to Google eBooks on their sites for any of the hundreds of thousands of titles available for sale, earning a commission for referring sales to the Google eBookstore.

We launched the program as a limited beta in December with our first affiliate, Goodreads. Goodreads is a social reading site, who after becoming an affiliate was able to refer their avid book reading fans to the Google eBookstore. When Goodreads users buy a Google eBook, they’re gaining immediate access to their book and supporting Goodreads in the process.

Starting today, we invite all interested site owners to apply to join the expanded Google eBooks affiliate program. Participating sites gain new revenue streams by giving their book-reading audiences an easy way to buy Google eBooks.

Google eBooks affiliates become part of the Google Affiliate Network (GAN). After joining GAN, you can subscribe to the Google eBooks product feed to get links to the full set of available Google eBooks. If you want to query a more targeted set of ebooks you can use the new Google Books APIs.

For more information and to sign up to be a Google eBooks affiliate, please visit our partner Help Center here.

Reposted on the Google Affiliate Network Blog

It’s that time again. Exclusive Affiliate Opportunities: June 24-27

2011-06-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

Summer officially starts next week. To kick it off, we are excited to announce that Google Affiliate Network Exclusive Opportunities is back! Starting Friday, 6/24, through Monday, 6/27, affiliate exclusive offers from 50+ Google Affiliate Network advertisers will ONLY be available to Google Affiliate Network publishers. Special offers will be live for one weekend only.

Any Google Affiliate Network publisher who has a relationship with participating advertisers will have access to these opportunities. Now is the time to apply to these programs if you haven't already. Advertisers are waiting for your application.

Not currently a Google Affiliate Network publisher? Do you have a website you'd like to monetize? Placing Google Affiliate Network ads on your site is a great way to earn commissions. If you aren't currently a Google Affiliate Network publisher and would like to promote the opportunities below, sign up today for our network with your AdSense Publisher ID.
Need help getting started, here are a few helpful tips and tricks.

Participating Advertisers:
Below please find the advertisers, offers and application links.

June Exclusive Opportunities
	$5 off purchases of $50 or more at AbeBooks. Find textbooks, rare books, bestsellers, and more! Apply Now
	5% off Sitewide. (Offer Exclusions: Click Here) Apply Now
	20% OFF 1st item, 25% OFF 2nd item, 35% OFF 3rd item. Apply Now
	$5 off Merchandise of $49+! Apply Now
	Get 10% off your online order at BN.com. (Offer Exclusions: The 10% discount will be applied to the most expensive eligible item in the order. Some product exclusions apply. See site for details.) Apply Now
	30% Off Sitewide! Apply Now
	20% OFF Sitewide at BloomAvenue.com! Apply Now
	20% Off Your Highest Priced Item. Apply Now
	Free Shipping on Orders of $50 or more! Apply Now
	Up to 51% off! Limited Time Offer. Apply Now
	10% off on $100 purchase. Apply Now
	Free Shipping on all orders over $25. Apply Now
	Dickies Weekend Exclusive! Apply Now
	Save up to 20% at Fairmont With Everyone's An Original Summer Rate. Apply Now
	Get $25 off your purchase of $75 or more! Apply Now
	10% off sitewide. Apply Now
	Get $20 off $125 at Finish Line. Apply Now
	Get $10 off on Flowers. Apply Now
	25% off $70 + Free Shipping. Apply Now
	20% OFF Sitewide at FromYouFlowers.com. Apply Now
	Special Offer! Save 15% on your order at GoDaddy.com! (Offer Exclusions: *Not applicable to ICANN fees, taxes, shipping & handling, sale priced domain names, bulk domains, premium domains, auction domains, Sunrise/Landrush domain registrations, discounted memberships or maintenance plans; additional disk space and bandwidth renewals, custom page layouts, custom headers, brand identity products, Incorporation Services, posters, die-cast cars, or gift cards. Discount reflected in your shopping cart -- cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, discount or promotion, including renewals discounted from current list pricing. After the initial purchase term, products purchased with special offer discounts will renew at the then-current renewal list price.) Apply Now
	Save 20% off all regular priced items at Jos. A. Bank. (Offer Exclusions: Shoes, gift cards and tuxedo rentals) Apply Now
	Get $10 off Your Next $75 Kmart Purchase! (Offer Exclusions: Offer Valid June 24, 2011 through June 27, 2011. Offer valid on regular and sale merchandise. Excludes Electronics, Entertainment, Excelled Leather, Weber, French Toast School Uniforms, Craftwell, As Seen On TV, Stamina, Teeter Hang Ups, Bongo, Rebecca Bon Bon, Dream Out Loud, Everyday Great Price, Clearance and Gift Cards. One coupon per purchase. Void if copied or transferred and where prohibited by law. Any other use constitutes fraud. In the event of a return, coupon savings may be deducted from your refund. Cash value 1/20 cent.) Apply Now
	10% off $100 orders on Kohls.com. Apply Now
	Save 50% on Clearance items! Apply Now
	Free shipping on orders over $30. Apply Now
	Shop LifeStride.com and Save 10% Sitewide. Apply Now
	$39.99 Sasha 3-Piece Reversible Quilt Set. Apply Now
	Get $25 off your purchase of $75 or more! Apply Now
	Free Shipping for orders over $100. Apply Now
	10% off sitewide. Naturalizer: Apply Now Shop Naturalizer Canada and Save 10%. Naturalizer CA: Apply Now
	Free Ground Shipping on Patagonia.com for orders delivered to the continental US. Apply Now
	Get up to four cotton pinpoint oxford dress shirts, designed by you for only $19.95 each. Apply Now
	Save $10 Off your First Order at Peapod.com. (Offer Exclusions: This offer is valid on First Purchase only.) Apply Now
	Summer Scent Sale, 10% off. Apply Now
	Free Shipping on all orders over $39. Apply Now
	PLNDR.COM - 15% OFF on all orders. Apply Now
	Get FREE Standard Shipping on Flowers and Gifts $39.99 or more at ProFlowers. Apply Now
	Pugster.com Big Savings For Summer Jewelry! Extra 50% Off. Apply Now
	Free Shipping on all orders. (Offer Exclusions: Free standard shipping offer is valid at Shop.PUMA.com for shipments to the U.S. and Canada only. Offer is valid beginning 12:00am Eastern Time, 6/24/2011 through 11:59 pm Pacific Time, 6/27/2011 and shall have no redeemable value thereafter. Offer is not valid at The PUMA Store or PUMA Outlet stores. Offer cannot be combined with any other promotion or applied to past purchases. Offer cannot be redeemed for cash equivalent, used to purchase gift cards, or used as payment on an account. PUMA reserves the right to cancel this offer at any time, and to cancel orders arising from pricing, technical, or other errors. All returns are subject to PUMA's Return/Exchange Policy Guidelines. Usage is subject to credit approval and product availability.) Apply Now
	Free Shipping on all orders over $75. Apply Now
	25% Off Sitewide at Relic Brand. Bags, Sunglasses, Watches, and more! Apply Now
	Get $10 off of orders of $100 or more from Road Runner Sports. Apply Now
	Get $15 off Your Next $125 Sears Purchase! (Offer Exclusions: Offer applies online only and on items marked Sold by Sears. Valid for Fitness, Sporting Goods, Cooking & Clean up, Apparel & Accessories, Beauty, Baby, Jewelry, Bed and Bath, Window, Decor, Tabletop, Rugs, Luggage, Furniture, Outdoor Living, Cookware, Automotive, Personal Care and Toys. Offers cannot not be stacked with any other coupons. Excludes Electronics, Lawn & Garden, Tools, Cooking, Dish, Refrigeration and Laundry Appliances, Floor Care, Mattresses, Small kitchen appliances, Clearance, Great Price, Introductory Offers, Price Drops, Apple, BOSE, Samsung, Sony, Flip Video, Mitsubishi, Computers, Cameras, Camcorders, Home office, Books, Magazines, Software, Video Games, Weber, Dockers, Levis, Excelled, Lands End, Custom/Personalized Jewelry & Watches, Tires, Snow Equipment, Generators, Electrolux, Electrolux ICON, Electrolux ICON Designer, Electrolux ICON Professional, Dacor, Jenn-Air, Henckels. Offer is subject to change without notice. Expires 6/27/2011.) Apply Now
	$30 off purchase of $299 or more at Searsoutlet.com. (Offer Exclusions: $30 off any Sears Outlet Merchandise of $299 or more on online purchase at searsoutlet.com only. The coupon code applies at check out. Offer expires on 6/27/2011.) Apply Now
	20% Off plus Free Shipping. (Offer Exclusions: Click here) Apply Now
	Free Shipping on orders of $75 or more! Apply Now
	Save 10% off of SpaFinder Gift Certificates over $50. Apply Now
	$10 off Merchandise of $100+! Apply Now
	Blinds & Wallpaper - Save up to 85% Off - plus Extra $10 on $125 purchase. Apply Now
	15% off sitewide. (Offer Exclusions: Valid on new online orders only, with select regular price items. Excludes purchases of gift cards, surfboards, sale items, Billabong, Nixon and UGGs.) Apply Now
	$100 Off on Select Glider/Rocker Ottoman Sets at Target.com. (Offer Exclusions: Valid on Select Glider/Rocker Ottoman Sets.) Apply Now
	25% OFF Multivitamins at Vitamma.com! Apply Now
	Save 10% at WaySpa. Apply Now
	15% off Doodle Speakers. Zazzle: Apply Now 15% off t-shirts at Zazzle Canada. Zazzle CA: Apply Now

Tracking links will be available via the Google Affiliate Network Publisher Blog within the Home tab in the platform on 6/13. You will also be able to search for "June Exclusive Opportunities" links in the Links section on June 24th.

The opportunities will not be live or valid until June 24th and will expire at midnight on June 27th. Affiliates may not post these offers until June 24th.

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

Approval into an advertiser's program is at the advertiser's discretion.

Review the link merchandising information to see if any exclusions apply.

Reporting Beta for Publishers

2011-06-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

We recently launched improved reporting for publishers. Top level features and enhancements include:

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

To help you learn more about the reports you can run and how to customize the graphs, we’ve created an overview video to walk you through our updated reporting features:

Additional information:

Use the date picker on the right side of the page to select pre-set date ranges (i.e. 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 on the Classic Version at this time.

We’ve also improved our Publisher homepage by providing more options for customizing the information you see when you sign in to your account. This includes:

Performance Summary: Displays the aggregate performance of all advertisers you are working with.
Network Rank: Includes your 7 day and 3 month EPC (effective cost per click) metric as well as network rank.
Top Advertisers: Top 10 advertisers in your program ranked by earnings (commissions).

Please submit your feedback as you use these new features. We plan on improving our user experience based on your comments.

Tip: Visit our Help Center for more information on how to use the new reporting interface.

posted by Sheila Parker, Product Manager

Product Subscriptions Dashboard for Publishers

2011-04-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

The newly launched Product Subscriptions Dashboard provides a robust and simple interface that publishers with real-time access to product feed delivery. To view the status of the feeds you currently subscribe to, login to your Google Affiliate Network account and navigate to Subscriptions>Product Subscriptions.

From this page, you can sort by advertiser name, feed status, last successful delivery, and the number of products included. This information is also available for export as CSV or TXT.

Note: To change your settings or add new advertisers, click the "Subscriptions Settings" link.

We will continue to iterate on the beta and we invite you to provide your feedback in our Help Forum.

posted by Sheila Parker, Product Manager

Exclusive Affiliate Opportunities: March 25-28

2011-03-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

Google Affiliate Network is pleased to introduce the Q1 Affiliate Exclusive Opportunities program that is available only to Google Affiliate Network publishers. This March, the program features affiliate exclusive opportunities from 30+ Google Affiliate Network advertisers. This special program will be live for one weekend only from Friday, 3/25, through Monday, 3/28.

Any Google Affiliate Network publisher who has a relationship with the participating advertisers will have access to these opportunities. If you see an ad you wish to promote for a new advertiser, please apply to the advertiser program via the links below.

If you are not currently a Google Affiliate Network publisher but would like access to these exclusive opportunities, sign up today for our network with your valid AdSense Publisher ID.

Participating Advertisers

Below please find the advertisers, opportunities and application links to the advertiser’s Google Affiliate Network program:

	25% off all personal check products Apply Now
	20% site wide (no restrictions except rug pad items) Apply Now
	Free shipping on all purchases (no minimum) Apply Now
	10%, 20%, 40% off 1st, 2nd and 3rd items Apply Now
	$2.99 shipping no minimum order from Bargain Outfitters Apply Now
	10% off all Dale Tiffany branded products Apply Now
	Buy your first game for $4. 60% off the retail price! (Valid for new customers only. Limit one per household.) Apply Now
	25% off highest priced item Apply Now
	25% off + free shipping on orders over $50 (Valid 3/25 through 3/29 at 3 am EST.) Apply Now
	$20 off $100 or more Apply Now
	$10 off orders of $75 or more Apply Now
	$5 off your $25 purchase (exclusions apply) Apply Now
	Free shipping no minimum offer Apply Now
	Free shipping for orders over $75 Apply Now
	30% off top selling Micro Fiber Bagel Dog Bed Apply Now
	10% of $100+ Apply Now
	30% off all orders Apply Now
	4 days only! Extra 20% off any PLNDR.com order. Apply Now
	Free shipping on orders over $40 Apply Now
	$10 off $100 from Road Runner Sports Apply Now
	25% site wide (Not available on Oriental Weavers Sphinx & Trans Ocean brands or rug pad items, minimum cart $299 or more.) Apply Now
	Save $25 off $200 (exclusions apply) Apply Now
	20% Off site wide at Shoes.com Apply Now
	$15 off orders over $100 Apply Now
	$15 off orders over $50 Apply Now
	$10 Off merchandise of $99+ Apply Now
	15% off select birthday bouquets Apply Now
	$10 off each pair of men’s footwear Apply Now
	Take 20% off your order at Wedding Channel Store! No minimum purchase required. Apply Now
	Free Shipping on all purchases (no minimum) Apply Now
	15% off T-Shirts Zazzle: Apply Now Zazzle CA: Apply Now

Tracking links are available via the Google Affiliate Network platform in the Announcements section within the Home tab. You will also be able to search for “March Affiliate Exclusive Opportunities” links in the Links section on March 25th.

These ads will not be live or valid until March 25th and will expire at midnight on March 28th. Affiliates may not post the links until March 25th.

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

*Approval into an advertiser’s program is at the advertiser’s discretion.

Browse Advertisers for Publishers

2011-03-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

The Browse Advertisers Beta tab now provides search functionality and filtering options so that Publishers can easily find Advertisers that match their desired program traits. The filter options are as follows:

Relationship status*
Advertiser categories
7-day EPC
3-month EPC
Payout rank

*To search for Advertisers where you have no relationship (declined, deactivated, pending or approved), choose the “Available” option.
.
Here’s how to get started with Browse Advertisers:

Log in to your Google Affiliate Network Publisher Account
Navigate to the Advertisers - Beta tab
You’ll see all of your approved Advertisers
Navigate to the left side for filter options
You can search for a specific Advertiser or filter on desired program attributes

Publishers can still navigate to the legacy version by clicking on "switch to classic version".

We will continue to iterate on the beta and we invite you to provide your feedback in our Help Forum.

posted by Sheila Parker, Product Manager

Browse Links Beta for Advertisers

2011-03-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

We have recently improved the Links tab for our advertisers. Enhancements include improved filtering by status, type, ad size, promotion type and start and end dates. We’ve also added a search feature that allows advertisers to find a particular link template by entering the link name or merchandising text.

To get to the new version, click on the Links - Beta tab. In order to view the Classic Version, you will need to select "Switch to the classic version" (screenshot below).

Note: You can perform an export of links from either interface, but you are only able to upload from the Classic Version at this time. Any link changes you make on the Classic Version will take up to an hour to appear on the Links - Beta tab.

Please submit your feedback as you use this new feature. We plan on improving our user experience based on your comments.

Building new links? Visit our Help Center for best practices.

Posted by Sheila Parker, Product Manager

New Product API for Google Affiliate Network Publishers

2011-02-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce that Google Affiliate Network publishers can now take advantage of a new Google product API -- a simple yet powerful programmatic interface -- to make it easier to access and integrate product data from Google Affiliate Network advertisers.

The Google Search API for Shopping makes it easy for Google Affiliate Network publishers to build innovative applications using advertiser product data. The API simplifies access to product data and is optimized to deliver the most relevant product results.

To get started with the Google Search API for Shopping, visit the Google APIs console, and enter your Google Affiliate Network publisher id.

For more information, please review the Google APIs Console FAQ and the Getting Started Guide for the Shopping API.

We invite you to provide your feedback in our Help Forum.

posted by Sheila Parker, Product Manager