Google Data » Erica Sievert

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger now in the UK!

Erica Sievert — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:06:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we launched Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger in the US and added new enhancements in June. The positive results and feedback we’ve received are very promising, and we’re excited to announce that this gadget is now available to Blogger users in the UK!

To refresh your memory, Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is a gadget that makes it easy for Blogger users to insert an affiliate ad into a blog post and earn a commission when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site.

Watch the video below for a quick refresher:

Here’s how to get started:

If you’re a Blogger user in the UK (or the US), go to the Earnings tab in Blogger and sign up for AdSense if you don’t already have an account.
Once you have an AdSense account, you may see the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger gadget when you write a new blog post.*
Write a new post and select a relevant affiliate ad from the 'Advertise Products' gadget.
Publish your post, and voilà! You may earn a commission when someone clicks your affiliate ad and makes a purchase.

Participating UK advertisers:
Advertisers including Bestbathrooms.com, Cheapsuites.co.uk, Crooked Tongues, Diamond Manufacturers, eFlorist, Hudsonreed.com, Perfume Click and The Snugg have already come on board, and more are joining every day.

If you’re an advertiser interested in participating in Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, please reach out to your Google Affiliate Network account team or contact us if you’re not already working with us.

Posted by:
Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

*Note that this gadget will only be available to select UK and US Blogger users whose blogs match available ad categories, so you may not immediately see the gadget even if you have an AdSense account.

Your use of the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger program is governed by the Google Affiliate Ads For Blogger Online Program Terms and Conditions. Please review the Office of Fair Trading's Q&A that discusses a blogger's obligation to disclose financial benefits you may receive for endorsing products or services. As a reminder, under your Google Affiliate Ads For Blogger Online Program Terms and Conditions, You must comply with all applicable laws relating to the disclosure of financial benefits You receive for endorsing any products or services. For example, when you include a Blogger Affiliate Ad on Your blog, you will clearly identify, in a manner prominently displayed with editorial content on your blog such that it would be unavoidable to the average user, that the Blogger Affiliate Ad is an advertisement.

Exclusive promotions for fall

Erica Sievert — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Google Affiliate Network exclusive promotions are back! Over 40 limited-time deals are available only to Google Affiliate Network publishers from September 21st to September 24th.

Follow these steps to get started:

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 available promotions and click "Apply Link" for each one that you wish to promote.

When can I post these promotions on my site?
All promotions will be live on 12 am Central Time on September 21st, and they will expire at 11:59 pm Central Time on September 24th. You can find the promotions in your Google Affiliate Network Home tab or by searching for “September Exclusive” in the Links tab.

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

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Mark your calendar: Affiliate Management Days

Erica Sievert — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:12:00 +0000

We hope to meet fellow affiliate managers and marketing executives at Affiliate Management Days, which is coming up on October 9-10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Members of the Google Affiliate Network team will be attending the conference, and we'll also be participating in the following panels:

The Role of the 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 Tony Nelan, Head of Account Management for Google Affiliate Network, will discuss what role the network should play in areas such as affiliate screening, fraud monitoring, program management and more.

Revisiting Innovations in the Affiliate Marketplace
Ali Pasha, Product Manager at Google Affiliate Network, will discuss how the dynamics of the affiliate industry have changed and what we’ve learned in the last six months.

You can review the conference agenda and register on the Affiliate Management Days website. Register by Friday, September 7th to take advantage of the early bird rate, which will save you up to $700 from the onsite price.

Google Affiliate Network advertisers are eligible for a 20% discount. Simply log into your account and view the Announcements section of your dashboard.

Posted by: Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Accelerate: A deeper look at attribution

Erica Sievert — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Today, we're kicking off an educational series about accelerating your affiliate marketing business. We’ll be sharing insights that emerged from the Google Affiliate Network Client Summit, an annual event in July that brings together affiliate advertisers, publishers, partners and Google. The theme for the event this year was Accelerate, highlighting Google’s commitment to growing the affiliate channel for all.

In today’s post, you’ll hear from Neil Hoyne, Google's Global Program Manager for Attribution. Neil leads efforts to bring companies stronger insights into the measurement and valuation of their customers' journeys, working to improve conversion rates through better utilization of Google Analytics as well as advanced attribution modeling.

At the Google Affiliate Network Client Summit, Neil led an engaging session on attribution, encouraging companies to identify more actionable performance metrics and build stronger industry relationships as the advertising market continues its rapid evolution away from last-click valuation. Watch the video below to learn more.

We invite you to continue this conversation with Neil by sharing your comments on this post or via Twitter (@nhoyne).

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Launched: Switch between your preferred currency and timezone

Erica Sievert — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 01:18:00 +0000

With our international launch earlier this year, we enabled you to set your preferred currency and timezone. We’re pleased to announce that if you changed your settings, you can now switch between your preferred settings and the default currency (USD) and timezone (Central Time) when viewing reports. This enhancement allows you to view your reports in the format that's most relevant to you, and is available for all reports except for payment reports.

Switch between your preferred and default currency:

Switch between your preferred and default timezone:

If you're a Google Affiliate Network publisher, please note that you can only view the reporting currency you’ve chosen in your AdSense account. It’s not possible to change this once you’ve set it.

Posted by: Kurt Spoerer, Google Affiliate Network Product Manager

New enhancements to Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

Erica Sievert — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Back in April, we introduced Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, a gadget that enables Blogger users to easily monetize their blogs through Google Affiliate Network and helps advertisers scale relationships with content blogs. We’ve received positive feedback about this gadget from participating advertisers and Blogger users, and wanted to let you know about a couple of recent enhancements we’ve made:

Additional advertisers: This program is now available to more advertisers. In order to participate, advertisers must provide a Merchant Center feed and consent through an email agreement.
Additional categories of blogs: All Blogger users located in the US with an AdSense account can now sign up for Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger. Participating advertisers can see performance at the category and blog level via the ‘Reports’ tab in the Google Affiliate Network interface.

Here are two examples of a Blogger user finding a relevant affiliate ad:

If you’re an advertiser interested in participating in Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, please reach out to your Google Affiliate Network account team or submit an inquiry if you’re not already working with us. If you’re a publisher, learn more about posting affiliate ads to your blog.

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Announcing new UK advertisers

Erica Sievert — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:48:00 +0000

We’re excited to let you know that 30+ UK advertisers have recently launched affiliate programmes with Google Affiliate Network. For publishers with UK audiences, these programmes represent a new opportunity to earn incremental revenue for your website.

Just a few of our newly-launched advertisers include:

Travel: Olotels
Entertainment: Netflix
Gifts: Moonpig
Apparel & Accessories: Radley
Finance: Baines & Ernst

Follow these steps to apply to UK programmes:

Log in to your account (or apply to join our network)
Go to the Advertisers tab
On the left-hand navigation, click 'Relationship status' and choose 'Available'
Click ‘Countries’ and choose United Kingdom
Apply to programmes

If you’re an advertiser interested in starting an affiliate programme with Google Affiliate Network, please contact us.

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

Welcome summer with exclusive promotions

Erica Sievert — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:11:00 +0000

Google Affiliate Network exclusive promotions are back! Over 50 limited-time deals are available only to Google Affiliate Network publishers from June 22nd to June 25th.

Follow these steps to get started:

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 available promotions and click the "Apply Now" link for each one that you wish to promote. These promotions will also be available in your Google Affiliate Network account starting on June 18th. You can find them in the Home tab or by searching for “June Exclusive” in the Links tab.

When can I post these promotions on my site?
All promotions will be live by 12 am Central Time on June 22nd, and all will expire at 11:59 pm Central Time on June 25th. Note that while you may access the promotions by June 18th, you may only post these exclusive promotions from June 22nd to June 25th.

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

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Connecting shoppers and great stores online

Erica Sievert — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:29:00 +0000

(Cross posted to the Official Google Blog)

Online shopping is great for many reasons, but most of all it’s a convenient and fast way to turn your intent to buy that new pair of running shoes, for example, into an actual purchase. But shoppers tell us they’re often nervous about buying from online stores they don’t know. We created the free Google Trusted Stores program to help solve this problem. When shoppers see the Google Trusted Store badge, they know in a snap they’re shopping with a reputable retailer and they can feel confident making an informed purchase.

We’ve been testing the program since last fall with about 50 online merchants and more than 10 million orders. It’s working even better than we hoped, generating positive feedback from shoppers and increasing sales for merchants. Starting today, Google Trusted Stores is open to all U.S. merchants who want to apply.

Helping shoppers choose stores they can trust

When shopping online, you may come across the Google Trusted Store badge. Hover over it and you’ll see a “report card” which shows “grades” for that merchant’s shipping and service, including more precise metrics about what the grades mean.

The Google Trusted Store badge and report card

This badge is only awarded to online stores that deliver a great overall experience, so even if you haven’t shopped with this merchant before, you can easily tell if they are trustworthy, ship quickly and reliably, and offer exceptional customer service. If there’s a problem with your purchase, we’re here to help. When you buy from a Google Trusted Store, you can opt in to get up to $1,000 lifetime purchase protection per shopper. And our dedicated customer service team is there to work with you and the merchant to assist in resolving the issue.

Helping merchants demonstrate their excellence and earn new business
Google Trusted Stores helps online stores attract new customers, increase sales and differentiate themselves by showing off their excellent service via the badge on their websites. Soon the badge will also appear on Google.com ads and in Google Shopping results.

Google Trusted Store badge on AdWords

Over the last nine months of the pilot, our tests show that participating in this program can help merchants big and small. For example, Wayfair, the largest online-only retailer of home goods and one of the top 50 largest online retailers as ranked by Internet Retailer, increased sales* on its site by 2.3 percent with Google Trusted Stores. And Beau-coup, a specialty online favors and gifts retailer, saw an 8.6 percent increase*. Take a look at our merchant success stories to learn more about how Google Trusted Stores has had a positive impact on website conversion rates and average order sizes for online retailers.

Google Trusted Stores is entirely free, both for shoppers and for online stores. We’re still testing the most helpful ways to display Trusted Stores information to shoppers, so you may see different versions, or none at all, while we conduct experiments. If you’re a merchant and would like to participate in the Google Trusted Stores program, please apply.

Posted by Tom Fallows, Group Product Manager, Google Shopping

*Increased sales percentages are based on a combination of uplift in conversion and average order size.

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

Erica Sievert — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:51:00 +0000

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

Introducing Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

Erica Sievert — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:51:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

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

Google Affiliate Network expanding in the UK

Erica Sievert — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:01:00 +0000

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

Key benefits for UK users:

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

Custom recruiting for select advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

The importance of community policing

Erica Sievert — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:45:00 +0000

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

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

Posted by Matt Dougherty, Network Quality

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

Erica Sievert — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:53:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

Learn more by reading the full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager

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

Erica Sievert — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:50:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more by reading the full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager

Revamped commission reporting for publishers

Erica Sievert — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:27:00 +0000

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

Erica Sievert — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:43:00 +0000

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

Erica Sievert — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:46:00 +0000

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

A look ahead at Google Affiliate Network

Erica Sievert — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:53:00 +0000

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

Erica Sievert — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:46:00 +0000

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

Introducing faster publisher payments!

Erica Sievert — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:12:00 +0000

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

Our software application guidelines explained

Erica Sievert — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:18:00 +0000

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

Erica Sievert — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:19:00 +0000

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

Erica Sievert — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:22:00 +0000

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

Join the Conversation.

Erica Sievert — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:53:00 +0000

If you’ve ever had a question about your Google Affiliate Network account, you’ve likely visited our Help Forum, a virtual meeting place where a community of affiliate publishers, advertisers, industry experts, and Google employees discuss all things Google Affiliate Network. We rely on all of you to keep the conversations lively, ensuring that the forum is a fantastic place for you to interact, troubleshoot, and learn from one another. Take a look through the current forum discussions and join the conversation!

As a forum user, we would love to know more about you, your site, your experience with Google Affiliate Network, and anything else that you want to share. Please visit our forum post and introduce yourself to the community.

And to complete your introduction, please take a minute to add your location to our Google Affiliate Network Map!

Follow these steps to add yourself to the map:

Go to our map, Google Affiliate Network U2U Forum
Enter the name of your location into the search bar at the top of the Maps page.
Click, “Save to My Maps”
Select the map, “Google Affiliate Network U2U Forum”
Click on the “Title” and add your username
Click “OK”

- Posted by Erica Sievert, Google Affiliate Network team

Join the Conversation.

Erica Sievert — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:53:00 +0000

And to complete your introduction, please take a minute to add your location to our Google Affiliate Network Map!

Follow these steps to add yourself to the map:

Go to our map, Google Affiliate Network U2U Forum
Enter the name of your location into the search bar at the top of the Maps page.
Click, “Save to My Maps”
Select the map, “Google Affiliate Network U2U Forum”
Click on the “Title” and add your username
Click “OK”

- Posted by Erica Sievert, Google Affiliate Network team