Black Hat PPC

The news broke today that Google have made the decision to terminate the Google Affiliate Network, to focus on other products. Affiliates were told this via email from Brain Clark at Google…

We are sure many of you have heard, Google Affiliate Network has, in their words, “…made the difficult decision to retire Google Affiliate Network and focus on other products that are driving great results for clients.” For GAN’s complete statement on their blog, click here: http://googleaffiliatenetwork-blog.blogspot.com/

Obviously, there are many ramifications that are going to be felt due to this decision. eAccountable’s first priority, though, is to guide our clients through this uncertainty with sound recommendations for moving forward. We will be working hard the next 24-48 hours to determine the best strategy for transitioning programs to alternative networks that make the most sense for each client in as seamless a manner as possible.

Part of these transition efforts for our clients is ensuring all of the affiliates in their current programs migrate to their new networks. As soon as we learn which network our clients will be transitioning to, we will reach back out to the affected affiliates in each respective program.

Thank you for your patience and diligence throughout this process. We value our relationship with your business and are excited about the opportunity to turn this unexpected news into a positive for everyone.

Brian Clark
eAccountable Interactive – Online Performance Growth without the Grind

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Haha…’Growth without the Grind’ – maybe its time to change the email signature their Brian

But on a more serious note…

Why did the Google Affiliate Network fail?

Probably because it wasn’t making Google any money. But why wasn’t it making Google money?…because the offering was wrong.

In our humble opinion…the two main issues with the Google Affiliate Network were:

For Advertisers – They didn’t offer any brand protection security. It was up to the advertisers to regulate their own affiliates and this is something that other affiliate networks offer as standard, where part of their sales pitch is how they protect advertisers brand terms. Sure, they offered great rates and easy integration with feeds, but their was a lack of professionalism and client support for advertisers.

For Affiliates – As a result of the lack of offering from Google, big brands didn’t want to move onto the network. As such these advertisers stayed with their previous affiliate networks that they had been dealing with for years. This resulted in the Google Affiliate Network attracting a host of lower level brands (sorry, we don’t mean any disrespect) but as such affiliate conversion rates were lower as users are more likely to convert through the top brands. This meant that affiliates made less money on GAN and focused their efforts or the other affiliate networks where the big brands were participating. When Google saw that the writing was on the wall, they were desperate to get affiliates to promote their advertisers and as such just invited any of their affiliates to join any of the programs on their network (trust us, we get the emails every day!) What did that result in…an affiliate network with both low level advertisers and low level affiliates as they couldn’t attract the big brands and super-affiliates to join their network.

Its a bit of a catch 22…but it goes to show how close knit the relationships already are within the affiliate networks and how difficult it is for another network to launch and get a foothold in the industry…even someone the size of Google!

So RIP the Google Affiliate Network…we will miss you!

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