Google AdWords Pay-Per-Action Program

Search Engine Marketing Lary Stucker

Google has introduced a new beta program for their AdWords customers. Pay-per-action ads are part of a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when specific actions that they define are completed by a user on their site. Rather than paying for clicks or impressions, advertisers can choose to pay when a user makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other clearly defined action that they choose. Pay-per-action ads are eligible to appear on publisher sites in the Google content network, either in publisher-selected ad units or in standard AdSense for content ad units.

Who can use PPA?
Google’s PPA program is currently in Beta and you are only eligible to use pay-per-action advertising if you have received more than 500 conversions through a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) campaign in the last 30 days.

Why use PPA?
As a marketing Venue PPA can have multiple benefits:

  • Adding a PPA campaign to the AdSense community gives ANY web publisher the opportunity to add your advertisement to their website.
  • Publishers are actively choosing to display your ads, so they must believe that your products/ services will be of interest to their viewers.
  • You only pay for the Action you specified earlier, therefore you will not have to pay for poor performing ad placement.
  • You do not have to actively manage the individual payments to any publishers. It is all handled through Google’s AdSense program.
  • Announcing a Google AdSense affiliate program to your installed base of customers is a great way expands your web presence. It is often said that your customers are your best advertising, so the PPA program is a great way to leverage that while giving them an opportunity to earn money for referrals.
  • PPA can also appear on the entire Google content Network even if a publisher has not specifically request to run your ad. Google’s algorithm will look for AdSense customers with keywords that are a good match and run the PPA ads automatically.

If you are not currently eligible for the PPA beta I would recommend setting up conversion tracking and make a concerted effort to get the minimum requirements in place to begin PPA.