Organic SEO Blog

Pay-Per-Action (beta): Pay only for actions that you define.

Google is now beta testing a different business formula for AdSense that eases up on its lucrative pay-per-click model in favor of a pay-per-action model. This Pay-Per-Action program could help address the problems faced by the advertisers due to click fraud.

The main benefit of this pay-per-action model for advertisers is that publishers can no longer make money by clicking on or paying others to click on advertisements on their own site.

You’ll create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site, such as signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. Then you’ll set the amount that you’re willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you’ll install conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed.

But don’t be surprised if Google’s new product helps advertisers to address this click fraud issue, Yahoo is also making a similar move to let advertisers know that it hears their concerns

Google announced its plans to start testing CPC-based ads using site targeting feature in Adwords. Site targeting, which was originally launched nearly two years ago used bids placed on a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) basis and allows advertisers to choose individual sites in the content network where they want their ads to appear. The new CPC based testing will begin in March, and a limited set of U.S. advertisers will have the option of paying on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

Google announced this in their official adwords blog and expects the CPC pricing to appeal to conversion-oriented, direct response advertisers who are focused on clicks, and track metrics such as sales, leads or sign-ups.

If you’re an AdWords advertiser located in the US and are interested in participating in the CPC site targeting beta, you can fill out this short web form: http://services.google.com/ads_inquiry/cpc_sitetargeting. Google will be selecting a limited number of advertisers from all that apply.