Internet leviathon Google recently announced that it will soon be offering a pay per action (PPA) advertising program to compliment the popular pay per click program, Google AdWords. Comonly referred to as affiliate programs or affiliate marketing, PPA affiliate programs offer a fee for customer referrals from third-party web sites and have grown in importance since their inception.
There is considerable speculation that Google’s entry in to yet another lucrative advertising channel is based on criticism over phenomena known as, “click inflation” and growing concerns about how extensive the “click fraud” problem really is. Others claim that this may mark an end to web sites as we know them or at least drastically alter the content of existing pay-per-action affiliate networks.
At this point, it’s anybodys guess. Perhaps this is just the incentive needed in order to re-examine existing web site with an eye toward creating efficient conversion oriented content. Only time will tell if the new Google Pay Per Action program will turn our Internet efforts into the sales funnels we want them to be.
Published by dj //
Over the years, biographers, journalists, contemporary “big thinkers” and writers like me have commented on the incredible genius of the renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. How did he do it? What made him tick? Was he from another planet or from another time?
In addition to the “Theory of Relativity”, he left the rest of us a wonderful legacy of thought provoking and memorable statements. You can find books, t-shirts and even web sites full of his sayings. I have a t-shirt that has a picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out with the saying, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” While this is one of my favorite Einstein quotes, there are others.
Einstein has been quoted as saying, “Genius is ninety percent sweat.” Like everything else about relativity, this applies to everything else, even the Internet! It’s important to remember because for the most part, those halcyon days of seemingly genius ideas leading to nearly instant on-line success are mostly over. Sweat is what you must do in order to become an Internet genius nowadays. That is of course, if you really want to succeed.
Published by dj //
Chris Payne, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s Live Search initiative, is leaving the company to, “pursue other interests”. Although a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment and Mr. Payne was not available, it is doubtful that his departure will be lamented.
Microsoft’s search site has performed poorly under Payne’s leadership, loosing market share since the company launched its highly touted Search Engine, early in 2005. This attempt to challenge the leviathan in search, Google, while noble in its intent to provide the Internet with an additional choice in search results, has netted Redmond pretty close to nothing at the moment.
Payne went on record in a 2006 interview with the Seattle Post Intelligencer acknowledging that Microsoft needed to show a significant improvement in it’s search market share. He was quoted as saying, “I’m hoping this does turn it around,” and, “We believe that it’s still very early in search… that there’s still significant room for differentiation.”
Well, apparently no one in Redmond has sufficient sense of humor to see that the flat growth in search query volume on Microsoft’s Live Search engine has,”turned around” or “significantly differentiated” it while Google and Yahoo search volume have risen by 33 percent and 22 percent, respectively during the same time period, according to Nielsen NetRatings data.
A replacement has not yet been announced.
Published by dj //
