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Fig. 9.1 Google’s Referrals let you add another revenue stream to your Web page.
One of the biggest changes that Google has made to the AdSense program since the last edition of this book came out is in its referral programs. Initially, these were pretty poor. The products were Firefox, Picasa, Google Pack — a collection of different programs — and the AdSense program itself.
If you had users that included publishers interested in signing up for AdSense then you might be able to make some money. (The AdSense referral pays $5 for a publisher who makes the same amount within 180 days, another $250 if the publisher makes $100 and a very nice $2,000 bonus if you refer 25 of these kinds of users).
Most publishers though, don’t write content for other publishers. They were left hoping to earn a dollar a download for Firefox. Most found it more cost-effective to use that spot on their page for something else.
It turned out that those early referral products were just filling space.

Today, Google offers referral products in more than 26 categories, from animals to travel. Those products come in every format you can imagine and pay different amounts for different actions.
It’s a whole other way of making money on your website
9.1 What Are Referrals And How Do They Differ From AdSense?

The biggest difference between AdSense units and referral ads is why you’re being paid. Most AdSense ads pay for each click they receive. Some pay each thousand times they’re shown.
Referral ads pay on a cost-per-action basis, or CPA for short.
It’s not enough to get a click on an ad to earn income. The user has to do something when he reaches the advertiser’s site. That might be downloading a program, leaving an email address or even making a purchase.
It’s very similar to an affiliate system in which you’re paid a percentage of a sales price for a product. The only difference is that payable actions aren’t limited to buying.
Clearly, whatever the action the advertiser demands, it’s going to lower your success rate in comparison to your AdSense units. If 5 percent of your users click a referral ad and only 5 percent of those users take the action the advertiser wants, then you might generate only a few of these actions each month.
Higher payment rates should make up for the lower conversions.
We’ve already seen that the AdSense referral program can pay out $5 quite easily once you get the referral, but the payouts available on other referral products can be much, much higher than that.
Although most seem to fall between $10-$15, it’s not hard to find referral products that pay more than $50 for each user that takes action.
Fig. 9.2 J.G. Wentworth pays almost $77 for users who complete a form.
That already makes them attractive. But referral ads are attractive for another reason...
You should be building multiple revenue streams by placing different kinds of ads on the same page.
Ideally, each Web page should use at least three different types of payment system. Those could be cost-per-click ads, cost-per-mille ads and cost-peraction ads. That would help to ensure that you get something out of all your users.
A few users will take action on the referral ads and generate the most money per click for you.
Some will click your AdSense ads and generate larger numbers of small payments for you.
And your CPM ads will make sure that you get paid even if your users do nothing but look at your content and leave.
9.2 Signing Up For Google’s Referral Program

Putting referral ads on your site is very simple. Just click the Referrals link on the AdSense Setup tab and search for an ad by product, keyword or by category.
Search by product and you’ll be able to pick exactly the ad you want.
Search by keyword and Google will choose the ad for you, giving you what it thinks is the best performing ad to match the keywords you choose. You can enter up to ten keywords.

Search by category and Google will choose the best-performing ads within that category.
You’ll also need to select your ad format — the formats available vary from product to product — and create a channel so that you can track the ad’s performance.
Finally, place the ad (the category or the keyword) in your “Shopping Cart” and past the code.
Start the process by deciding where you want the ad to go. It might take a bit of experimentation to find out which really is the best spot on the page — you’ll have learn whether that location will perform better with a referral ad or an AdSense unit — but you’ll have to put it somewhere.
In general, you’ll probably find that it pays to keep the ad as close to the text as possible but the only way to find out which is actually the best setup for your Web page is to try different combinations and follow the results.
If you find that over a week, an AdSense unit earns more income embedded in your text than a referral unit, try using a different referral unit to see if the problem is the product rather than the placement.
And if the AdSense unit still performs best, move the referral unit somewhere else.
One good option is to use a square or rectangular AdSense unit at the start of an article and place a smaller referral unit lower down as though it were illustrating the text.
You can put up to three referral units on a single page but if your page isn’t very long, you might be better off sticking with one unit and optimizing it properly (I’ll explain how to do that below). You want your referral ads to be closely tied to your content and you don’t want them to compete with each other.
9.3 Choosing Your Referral Ads


Fig. 9.3 So many choices, so many ways to make money...
Obviously where you put your ads will be important. But choosing what you advertise will be even more important.
One option is to go for the highest paying ads, put them on your site and hope.
You’ll probably be hoping a lot and earning little.
Unless your referral ads are closely linked to the content on your page, you’re not likely to get many clicks, let alone many conversions.
It might be tempting to put J.G. Wentworth’s $76.92 ad on your site, for example, but unless you have the sort of users who are likely to want structured settlements, you’ll just be wasting valuable space on your page.
It might also be tempting to choose keywords or categories and let Google do the thinking for you. It does a pretty good job with the ads in AdSense units, so why shouldn’t it do a good job with the ads in Referral units too? Google even gives you a checkbox marked “Pick Best Performing Ads” that overrules your choice and places what it thinks is the best ad for your site.
(Actually, that box does something else too: it automatically serves up a different ad if your chosen advertiser ends his campaign. Leave the box unchecked and you’ll be left with a empty space. The best solution is to pick a big company with a big budget and keep a close eye on your referral ads.)
There are a couple of reasons why you should be choosing Referral ads yourself, by product, and not leaving it to Google.

The first is that the referral inventory is smaller than the AdSense inventory. That means there’s a much better chance that Google will get it wrong and give you something that’s close but not close enough.
It also means that there aren’t so many ads available that you can’t browse them yourself and make your own decision.
The choice you make should be a compromise between the price you can earn for the action and the closeness of the ad to your own content.
That’s going to be a calculated risk at first, followed by experimentation to make sure you’ve made the right decision.
The other reason you should be picking your own individual ads yourself is that you can recommend the products in your referral units. That’s an important difference in comparison to AdSense units and it’s a crucial element in optimizing your ads to get maximum conversions.
9.4 Getting The Most Out Of Your Referral Ads

Like AdSense units, referral units need to be optimized.
The same principles don’t necessarily apply. The fact that you can recommend the products in your referral ads changes everything.
You can recommend them because advertisers aren’t paying for the click. They’re only paying for the action. If a user reaches their site and does nothing, it’s cost them nothing. They don’t risk anything then, by having you send them users if those users turn out not to be interested.
Recommending products that you advertise is the number one most effective way of rocketing any ad clickthroughs. You’re only allowed to do it for CPA ads such as referral ads and affiliate ads.
Once you’ve chosen your ad then, try to mention the product in your text.
Ideally, you’ll choose a product that you’ve actually used and enjoyed. That will make the recommendation personal — and that’s the best kind. Your readers trust you, so they’ll trust your judgment.
If you haven’t used the product though, try to find a website or a blog that gives it a good review and mention that someone else has said these people have done a great job. That’ s not as powerful as saying that you’ve tried it and loved it yourself but it’s better than nothing. It’s certainly better than

abusing your readers’ trust by talking up something that you haven’t used and which might be poor.
But here’s the thing...
Once you’ve mentioned a product, people are going to look for it. Even if they see a banner and know it’s an ad, there’s still a good chance that they’ll click because you’ll have made them curious.
That affects the format you choose.
The range of formats available for each ad varies. But try to choose either a text link that you can slip right into your article, or a graphic ad that will attract ads.
Usually, I don’t recommend graphic ads. But if you’re recommending a product — and if you keep the image close to the recommendation — it will more look like an illustration than an ad. Fig. 9.4 Free Junk Car Removal offers a text links, an AdSense-style text block and a banner. Choose the link or the banner.
9.5 Creating Content For Referral Ads

I’ve said that you should choose ads that match your content as closely as possible.
I’ve also said that you should be recommending the ads in your referral units.
The easiest way to do both those things is to write a post, choose a referral ad that’s related to the post and add a sentence or two mentioning the product.
That’s very simple.

An alternative approach is to choose an ad that matches the content of your site, then write a post that matches the product.
The page can’t read like an ad. It has to be the same quality as all your other content otherwise users won’t read it and they won’t click the ads. The post would just find a reason to say something positive about the referral product.
It’s a very easy way to create a revenue-generating Web page.
In practice, you’re not going to be able to do this too often. You’ll probably find that there’s a limited number of ads that match your site. But even two or three pages like this on, easily reached and well-marketed, could give you some very nice extra income.