Google Launches Pay Per Action Ads

Google announced a limited U.S. only beta for a new service they are calling Pay Per Action ads. Google Pay Per Action will allow advertisers to create ads that cost only when a desired action is triggered. The advertiser sets the price per action; for example, an advertiser can decide to pay $5 per lead acquisition, as opposed to paying per click or per impression.

These Pay Per Action ads are available to a limited number of AdSense publishers. Publishers will be able to select which Pay Per Action ads they would like to display on their content sites. A publisher accepted into the beta can choose to display all pay per action ads, or select to show keyword specific ads or select a specific ad from a specific advertiser. To do so, the publisher will have to login to their AdSense accounts, go to the referrals section and select other referrals from the options.

Currently, Google is not allowing a percentage based pricing scheme. Advertisers can only set a flat price prior to building out the ad. In addition, advertisers can select from a text ad, static image ad, and flash ad. Google is adding a new type of ad unit, a hyperlink text link and currently the video ad option is not available for pay per action ads. All the ad units will show “ads by Google” with the exception of the the hyperlink unit. The hyperlink unit will only show “ads by Google” when you hover over the link.

Google is accepting U.S. advertisers and publishers into the beta now. Google plans on adding more advertisers and publishers into the program over the upcoming weeks.

More information:
AdWords sign up page:
https://services.google.com/payperaction/

AdWords blog post:
https://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/03/pay-per-action-beta-test.html

AdSense sign up page:
https://www.google.com/ads/adsense/referrals/index.html

AdSense blog post:
https://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/03/now-accepting-applications-for-new.html