I\’ve been pretty lukewarm about Google\’s referral products. They\’ve been pushing them pretty hard but I haven\’t been impressed. I\’m not convinced that the Google Pack contains anything worth writing home about. I don\’t care enough about Mozilla to recommend that everyone downloads Firefox. And the commissions that Google is offering for its downloads just aren\’t big enough to take up real estate on my Web pages.
I\’d rather put together a joint venture with the creator of a product I genuinely love, recommend it to my readers and bring benefits to everyone.
But that could be about to change.
For the last few months, Google has been running a Beta on a new referral program.
The program will let advertisers on Google\’s AdWords network offer specific products on a referral basis. Publishers will be able to search for the products by keyword and find the items that suit their site best.
Could Google do to the affiliate system what it\’s already done to search and contextualized advertising?
It\’s possible. They\’re smart people and they tend to get things right. If the prices are high enough and the products are good, you might want to think about saving some space on your page for new referral ads.
The same principle that applies to successful affiliate advertising will apply here too though. You\’ll still need to choose relevant products that you can honestly recommend and talk them up.
And if you\’re advertising on AdWords, you might also want to start thinking about what products you can put on sale through the new referral network… or consider creating some.
Comments? I\’d love to hear \’em. Post below, please :-)