More business from Web Traffic

Google continue to add new features to Adwords to keep it at the head of Pay per Click advertising.

At the moment they are beta testing Pay Per Action.

On the face of it this sounds a dream idea.

The basic premise is that as an advertiser I only pay when someone takes the action I want them to take once they have clicked through an Ad. In other words, I pay for conversions.

Sounds great doesn’t it.

However, the service only works on content campaigns not on the Google search network.

So a website displaying these types of ads will only get paid if your Ad click results in you getting a conversion (at least that’s how I think it works).

Therefore these sites are now dependant upon the advertiser’s ability to convert.

Since these websites owners can’t easily control the Ads that appear on their site then they cannot filter out the advertisers with poor conversion rates. So it starts to become a gamble for them.

I imaging the amount of commission they get for each conversion will be substantially more than they would get for a click since the advertiser is likely to big much higher for a conversion than a click. Even so there is some risk.

Only time will tell if the risks are outweighed by the benefits. They need to be for this service to succeed because it needs lots of content sites to run the new service otherwise it will starve through lack of support.

Despite how you might read my comments above, I think Google are to be applauded for continuing to try something new. Although I do wonder if they ought to consider making this service available from the Google search network as well.

All we can say for now is watch this space.