Meet the Google Affiliate Network team at Affiliate Summit West 2013

Google Affiliate Network is excited to join our fellow affiliate marketers at Affiliate Summit West from January 13-15, 2013 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

At the conference, you'll have a chance to hear from our team. Kristin Hall, Head of Publisher Development, will lead a talk on Publisher Segmentation Ideas, providing insight into how to tailor communications and optimization strategies to effectively reach the right publisher partners.  Members of our account management team will also be on hand to meet with our valued advertisers, publishers and partners. Be sure to stop by our booth.

Visit the Google Affiliate Network booth:
Affiliate Summit West
Google Affiliate Network
Booth #327 and 329
map »

Attend the presentation:
Session: Publisher Segmentation Ideas
Location: Florentine 3 and 4
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm
Date: Sunday January 13, 2013

See you soon!

Posted by:
Josh Pyle, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Introducing structured promotional data for links

It’s no secret that special promotions and coupons are integral to the affiliate channel. If you're a publisher with a shopping-focused website, you know how important it is to present accurate, comprehensive promotions and coupons to your visitors.

Today, we're happy to announce a more structured way to get links with offers, promotion codes, and discounts so you can more easily automate and display the latest advertiser promotions. You now have the ability to search and filter by special offers, promotion codes, and discounts – including Link templates and Publisher-specific links. Read on to learn more about how you can now access structured promotion data.

Accessing links with structured promotional data

When you search the interface, you can perform queries that weren't previously possible. For example, try searching search for an Apparel link with Free shipping that has a Promotion code where the discount is greater than 25 percent off. This could be helpful if you have a website where you only want to promote coupons with a significant discount.

We’ve also updated the recommendation engine to help you find more relevant promotional links. If you're a shopping-focused publisher, you'll see that links with special offers, promotion codes, or discounts are more visible.

Links API

Structured link data is also available through the Google Affiliate Network API, so you can programmatically access and display offers, promotion codes, and discounts to your website in real time.

Link subscriptions

You can also get links with special offers, promotion codes, and discounts via Link subscriptions. To access structured link data through Link subscriptions, sign in to your publisher account and upgrade to Link subscriptions Version 2.

Send us your feedback

As always, your feedback is very important. You can click on “Details inaccurate?” in the interface to provide feedback at the link level to help us quickly resolve any potential issues.

If you have feedback or suggestions, let us know what you think by posting a comment here or in the Google Affiliate Network forum.

We’ve worked hard to make these changes to help you achieve greater success this holiday season. Sign in to your account today to access these new link features!

Posted by:
Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Easily find Google Trusted Store advertisers via new badges in Google Affiliate Network

We're excited to announce an easy way for publishers to identify advertisers within Google Affiliate Network that have earned the Google Trusted Store badge. Starting today in Google Affiliate Network, a badge will appear next to Google Trusted Store merchants in the U.S. that are also Google Affiliate Network advertisers.

About Google Trusted Stores
The Google Trusted Stores program helps shoppers buy online with confidence. The Google Trusted Store badge is only awarded to stores with a proven track record of reliable, on-time shipping and excellent customer service. So when shoppers see the Google Trusted Store badge on e-commerce websites, they know they’re buying from a store that provides a consistently excellent shopping experience. They also know that Google stands behind them when they shop, providing up to $1,000 of purchase protection in the rare event of a problem.

Benefits for publishers
The Google Trusted Store badge is a helpful tool you can use when considering advertiser affiliate programs to join. Look for the Google Trusted Store logo when browsing the Advertisers tab to find advertisers that are validated and certified by Google as providing a great shopping experience for consumers.

Benefits for advertisers
Advertisers have benefited from higher average order sizes and improved conversion rates after becoming a Google Trusted Store. If you’re an advertiser that delivers an excellent shopping experience and would like to learn more about the program, check out the Google Trusted Stores website for more information. If you earn the badge, it will automatically appear within your Product Listing Ads on Google.com and Google Shopping, as well as within the Google Affiliate Network interface.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback about this new feature, so don’t hesitate to share feedback via our Google Affiliate Network forum.

Posted by:
Bill Goudie, Systems Engineer

See performance by OS and browser with Platform reports

Today, we’ve released new reports to help you better understand the impact of desktop and mobile platforms in your affiliate program. With Platform reports, you can have full visibility into performance associated with desktop and mobile operating systems and browsers, right from within our interface.

You can review Platform reports to see OS and browser activity associated with clicks, actions, transactions, sales, fees, and more -- all based on the timeframe you specify. The Activity report provides a breakdown of performance based on the OS used. The Activity detail report drills deeper, breaking out performance by OS like Windows, Mac, Android, or iOS and browser type, such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

Publisher benefits
Publishers can use Platform reports to efficiently identify top performing advertisers by OS, helping them make more informed decisions as to which advertisers to promote through different platforms. Want to see which advertisers perform well in different operating systems? Review the Advertiser report to access performance metrics for advertisers based on platform. 

Advertiser benefits
Advertisers can see conversion performance by browser and operating system through Platform reports, making it easy to gain new insights – like whether or not visitors from mobile browsers convert at a higher rate than desktop browsers, or if the average order value associated with mobile is higher than conversions from desktop. Advertisers can also access Publisher and link reports with platform data, helping them identify the best publishers to partner with and the types of links to make available.

For example, let’s say an advertiser finds that traffic from smartphone or tablet browsers converts at a higher rate or is associated with a higher average order value compared to desktop browsers. In this case, platform data may be useful in helping the advertiser decide whether or not to work with more mobile-focused publishers.

As with all our reports, Platform reports can be easily exported to .txt or .csv for further analysis.

By breaking out visitors by OS and browser, Platform reporting may help provide direction on your mobile strategy. For example, you can use insights from Platform reports to consider whether or not to design a website to accommodate both mobile and desktop traffic, or to design a separate, mobile-friendly website.

If you have feedback or suggestions on these new reporting features, let us know what you think by submitting feedback in the interface or through our Product forum.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Senior Product Manager

Dynamic links: Serve the right ad to the right user at the right time

We’re excited to announce the release of Dynamic links, helping you serve more relevant affiliate ads to users. Dynamic links enable new ways to create and serve ads that use Google’s best-in-class display advertising features, giving advertisers the ability to serve geo-targeted ads, rotate and optimize creatives, automatically schedule and update ads, and more. Dynamic links can contain multiple creatives and also support Flash.

Publisher benefits
Since Dynamic links automatically update based on changes an advertiser makes even after the ad has been placed on a publisher website, publishers will be able to serve the right advertiser creative to their audience, helping increase the opportunity for conversions and revenue via the affiliate channel.

Optimized, Scheduled or Targeted ads
Advertisers have three unique options when creating Dynamic links.

1. Optimized – Set up the ad so creatives rotate evenly at first. As links generate activity, higher-performing creatives will get more exposure.
2. Scheduled – Set up all limited-time promotions so publishers only need to use one tag to show the most up-to-date affiliate ads.
3. Targeted – Set up country or US state specific targeting for localized creatives. Each creative can contain its own custom location targeting to country or US state.

Features available with Dynamic links

• Inventory selection – Advertisers can create Dynamic links for any ad size and can associate any number of creative images or Flash rich media assets with their ads. Ads are available both as Link templates as well as Publisher-specific links, and publishers can easily preview each creative within a dynamic ad.

• Ad trafficking – Ads from participating advertisers are available via the Links tab in the Google Affiliate Network interface. The ad serving code is a standard Iframe/JavaScript tag, and publishers only need to implement the tag once.

• Reporting – Performance reporting is easily accessible in your Google Affiliate Network account.

Publishers can access Dynamic links from the Links tab in the UI, under the Browse all links sub-tab.

If you’re a publisher, just sign into your account, click the Links tab and filter by Dynamic links to find available Dynamic links. Once you select an ad, it’s easy to get the code and post to your website. For details on posting Dynamic links to your website, review our Help Center.

If you’re an advertiser and want to get started with creating Dynamic links, see our Help Center article with detailed instructions for How to create Dynamic links.

We welcome your feedback -- as we continue to iterate on this exciting new feature, we want to hear from you in our Product forum.

- Posted by: Matt Hansen, Software Engineer

Introducing new reporting enhancements

We made a few updates to our reports over the past few weeks which include features useful for both advertisers and publishers. These new reports include Order-level payment reports for publishers, Multi-metric reports for comparing performance across different metrics and timeframes, and Geography reports to help both advertisers and publishers understand more about where user clicks and conversions are coming from.

Order-level payment reports

With our new Order-level payment reports, publishers can easily see which conversions their accounts have received payment for. Order-level payment reports contain a comprehensive listing of conversions that show the month in which conversions were paid out.

When you view the report, you'll first see order-level payment information for your advertiser relationships from the month when you received payment. The report pulls this information based on the timeframe you specify, so you can access order-level payments from the past.

Multi-metric graph reports

Multi-metric graphs allow you to quickly see performance across two separate axes. Set the graphs to review metrics based on the previous week or previous year’s performance for a specified time frame to identify changes in performance. You can also review against specific metrics, such as Publisher fees, clicks, conversions, and more.

Geography reports

With Geography reports, you can gain insights into where user performance originates from, in most cases down to the state or province level. See performance volume by geographic region so you can optimize and refine your affiliate program. You can review geographic locations associated with clicks, actions, transactions, sales, and more.

To get started, select your desired metrics and time frame above the world map. All metrics will populate in the table below.

If you have feedback or suggestions on these new reporting features, let us know what you think by submitting feedback in the interface, or through our Product forum.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Product Manager

Google's new Think Insights: Your go-to destination for digital marketing

This week marks the debut of the new Think Insights, Google’s hub for marketing insights and inspiration for advertisers and agencies. On google.com/think, you can learn about the latest research in digital marketing, be inspired by creative brand campaigns, and find useful products and tools. You’ll also find industry-leading case studies and Google’s latest research, strategic perspectives, interviews with innovators and experts and more — all to help you make the most of the web.

Also, check out Mobile Search Moments: Understanding How Mobile Drives Conversions, in which Nielsen and Google analyzed over 6000 mobile searches and the actions that resulted, drawing connections between mobile searches and the conversions that they drive.

For mobile marketers, you can explore the Mobile Ad Types section for mobile-specific research, case studies, articles and more. Start by viewing our featured story, The Mobile Playbook, The Busy Executive's Guide to Winning with Mobile by Jason Spero, Google's Head of Global Mobile Sales & Strategy.

While you’re visiting, don’t miss the Mobile Ads product page, which contains the latest in mobile solutions to help grow your business and build brand momentum with mobile.

For marketers who want to turn “light bulb” ideas into lightning or just want to check out the best in digital marketing -- we hope that you visit often. To stay up-to-date on the latest content added to the site, please subscribe to our monthly Think Letter.

Posted by: The Think Insights Team