The Pontiflex Blog

Google retires PPA (pay per action) program

July 2, 2008 at 5:00 pm Arun Krishnan Leave a comment

Google had a slew of announcements recently related to PPA: Pay Per Action.

First, Google has completed its rebranding of the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate program and relaunched it as the Google Affiliate Network. This service competes with Valueclick’s Commision Junction and caters to e-commerce companies which pay a small fee each time an affiliate publisher’s link results in a successful sale.

Just a few weeks back, Microsoft launched its Live Search Cashback program.  Clearly there continues to be a push towards these types of performance models which are very attractive to advertisers.  Performance models offer advertisers guaranteed ROI — an extremely valuable selling point.

For e-commerce companies looking to drive online sales, there are a wealth of options in affiliate link networks to meet their needs.  But brand and direct response marketers should also focus on building a large database of customers – so that they can have an ongoing conversation with interested consumers.

As you might recall, Google had launched a PPA model in March 2007 (in the form of a limited test). This model sought to address the ROI issue – one that existing CPC models don’t entirely address.

Today, Google announced that it is retiring its Pay Per Action advertising product.  Google advertisers will be able to rely on the Adwords conversion optimizer to help them maximize conversions. But they will still have to pay for clicks while running on Google.

Advertisers intersted in filling their e-newsletter and member loyalty program databases with a large number of interested leads can turn to online lead generation to accomplish their objectives in a cost-effective manner. The only caveat is that they need to do this is in a clear, conspicous and transparent manner – to ensure that they are filling their databases with as many qualified leads at the lowest cost. This ultimately will fuel conversions and drive campaign ROI.

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