Google starts their PPA network

Google has launched their performance based „pay per action“ ad network and opened it up to selected advertisers, writes clickz.

Some believe the pricing model will reduce the impact of click fraud since PPA ads won’t fall prey to automated bots designed to click ads to boost keyword prices or generate more revenue for AdSense publishers. Instead, an actual action must be performed by the user in order for the publisher and Google to be paid by the advertiser.

Yes, there might have been fraud, but why should I participate in the business risk of the advertiser? What if the product is unsellable? What if the creative is really bad and attracts people who click (which would be good for publishers in a way), but will never buy the product (or request info, or whatever the „paid action“ will be).

But Google solved this, too:

Publishers in the AdSense network can search for available CPA ads and review them before choosing whether they want to accept them for placement on their sites. The PPA ads will only appear on AdSense publisher sites, not in Google’s search results, as CPC buys do.

This whole thing is really bad news for all the affiliate networks out there…

Marketing with widgets on social networks

Whoever doubted that widgets can be a fantastic tool for marketing? Well, probably anybody who didn’t think that a widget can actually provide a fun „anything“ sponsored by a brand.

Here is a short article about a Red Bull Widget that seems to be the killer app for all those people bored at the office (during lunch break only, of course).

redbullwidget.jpg

It is an online version of Rock / Paper / Scissors. You can play this via the widget against other people from the facebook network. Great idea!

This might be the start of a whole new stampede of marketing widgets on facebook (and others).

Some figures and numbers on the Online Ad Spend in Europe

Adverblog just pointed me to a presentation by Zoran Savin of IAB Europe on the latest figures of ad spend in Europe. Search dominates, still. I am not surprised. And email is very low, unfortunately. (I like email marketing!)

[At this point, I unsuccessfully tried to embed the slideshow from slideshare.com. Does anybody have a tip for embedding these into wordpress?]

(And I am once again amazed at the things you can get at slide share!)