Google tests new online ad network
If successful, the so-called "cost per action", or CPA, network would extend the search engine company’s range of advertising activities and reduce its reliance on the "cost per click" model that has been at the heart of its early success.
CPA networks, also known as affiliate marketing networks, let merchants sign up independent websites to help find new customers for their products or services.
The website owner is typically paid only when a customer actually makes a purchase, or when they perform some other pre-determined action such as filling in a form on the merchant’s site with their personal details.
Already used by companies like Amazon.com, affiliate networks are starting to spring up more widely on the Web.
Ebay launched a form of CPA network of its own last week, offering to pay affiliate websites that carry its auction listings a share of the sales commission if the adverts result in a sale.
A number of online advertising services companies, such as ValueClick and DoubleClick, also run affiliate marketing networks.
Websites that take part in Google’s test will be able to select merchants whose adverts they want to carry on their site.
The adverts will be carried on a separate advertising network, rather than the AdSense system that carries the company’s existing cost-per-click ads.
According to details from Google circulated to potential test sites, the adverts can run in parallel on a different part of a webpage to the cost-per-click ads, and so represent an additional way for websites to "monetise" their internet traffic.
Google has already extended its reach into cpm (or "cost per mille") advertising, a more traditional form of advertising where websites are paid based simply on the number of times they display an ad.
CPA pushes its range of advertising options in the other direction, by linking payment to actions more specifically than under its main cost-per-click model.
In a note to website owners, Google said that websites would be able to add editorial comments around CPA advertising, for instance by writing "I recommend this product", but should not try to incite someone to click on an advert, for instance, with a prompt like "Click Here."
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