Googles retiring AdSense Referrals and starting their affiliate network

[chatmasta]

As far as I see it. Google will replace CJ. I don't think they'll enter the space of networks that have real account managers, customer service, grey area offers, and all the rest. If I were CJ, shareasale or linkshare I'd be concerned. But the copeac's, ads4dough's and cpaempires I don't think have anything to worry about.

Yeah I agree completely (and also laughed inside at your comment). As long as Google doesn't have affiliate managers who I can IM at any instant to up my commission, extremely good customer service (which I know for a fact adsense does not have), and unique offers with high payouts that are hard to come by, I can't see them replacing the smaller companies.

With their corporate connections and ad deals, though, it won't be hard at all for them to push CJ out of the picture. Which is probably good, CJ sucks ass. Blackhat wise, I also am not about to push traffic, track users, and generate money with the same company. That's a bit scary.

 

[MarketingXpert]

Smax.. U own Ads4dough Dufus.

 

[MarketingXpert]

Oh don't forget Affiliate3.com there cool too

 

[johu]

As far as I see it. Google will replace CJ. I don't think they'll enter the space of networks that have real account managers, customer service, grey area offers, and all the rest. If I were CJ, shareasale or linkshare I'd be concerned. But the copeac's, ads4dough's and cpaempires I don't think have anything to worry about.

Why has nobody here heard of Performics before? It's existed for years, and is pretty much the #3/4 traditional affiliate network (CJ, Linkshare, Performics, ShareASale, Pepperjam). It operates exactly like CJ, except that they used to in-house manage every affiliate program. A few months ago, they launched a lower tier for advertisers where advertisers can manage their own programs, like Linkshare and CJ allow. This is a case where advertisers directly deal with publisher accounts, and not just throw it to a CPA network to have them deal with stuff. You won't see personal account managers (at least not for most affiliates). In my opinion, Perfomics still has a lot to improve on, but they did have a few large clients defect to them from CJ in the past year.

Let's just get this straight - Google did not launch a new product. They do not own a CPA network. They own a regular old affiliate network.

Threat? No. More newbies entering and exiting? Yes. More publicity of the concept of affiliate marketing to merchants? Yes. There are positives and negatives here.