I’ve been using Google Referral Ads for over a month now. I’m happy to report that I’ve had one conversion so far! What’s up with that?
OK, so maybe I don’t get 10,000 visitors a day but even if you do get like a couple of hundred, you would think that in a month at least a few more convert. Perhaps Google’s move into referral units will probably not yield much for a publisher, or an advertiser. At least in my ad runs, they haven’t.
Maybe if I try different ad formats, it might work out better. So far I’ve been using the 300X250 units. The regular contextual units are performing as expected. I think the problem lies in the differentiation of the text ad ‘referral’ units and the text ad ‘contextual’ units. When Google updated their default layout for the ‘contextual’ units CTR’s virtually went through the roof - the CTR on the text ‘referral’ units are about the level they were as compared to the old ‘contextual’ layout. Did that make sense to you?
How has your experience with Google ‘referral’ ads been?
I have yet to try any of the image ‘referral’ units. Maybe they might convert better. In related news, I’m happy to report that the redesign I did of one of my affiliate sites is already proving successful. I spend less time updating it, spend more time doing other things and conversions are picking up. Here’s hoping, God willing, they stay that way.
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About the author
Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.
Dave on September 13th, 2007
1
You have one more conversion that I have! I played with the refferals, and some get a lot of clicks but no return on the effort.
Climb Kilimanjaro on September 15th, 2007
2
No luck here either.
Millionster on September 15th, 2007
3
My guess would be that unless your ultra targeting a specific audience, referrals/commission based ads aren’t going to do well. I make some decent bank on it, but my usage of that type of ad unit is very specific.
Webmaster Money on September 17th, 2007
4
I dont like Google referral program… I prefer when I get flat number and forever not just few months. That way I do some money with other multi tier affiliate programs.
Dazzled on September 17th, 2007
5
My referral ads were quite targeted…I left them up for a month and got 1 referral, plus I lost a lot in my usual revenue. Now that they’re down my income is up.
Ali on September 17th, 2007
6
I guess the odds have it, Google referrals blows!
Webmaster Money on September 18th, 2007
7
Bad to hear this since I live from referrals earnings mostly…
Mike on September 22nd, 2007
8
I too have problems with Google referrals. They just won’t convert. That’s why i decided to eliminate them from the site in the end, and start focusing on other ways of monetising
Amanda on October 1st, 2007
9
Haven’t seen any conversions here as of yet, only a few clicks, but my site is rather new. I’ll try them out a little longer, we’ll see.