Maintenance This Evening, Oct 26 @ 8pm CDT

The Google Affiliate Network interface will not be available for approximately thirty minutes this evening beginning at 10 p.m. CDT (UTC-0500).  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.  Tracking will not be interrupted and reporting data will be restored shortly after the interface comes back online.

Regards,

Larry Adams

IP Address Range for Google Affiliate Network

Please note that the IP address range associated with Google Affiliate Network is changing:

Current IP Network	New IP Network
65.167.65.0/24	216.73.92.0/23

This change may impact your workflow for product feeds, link subscriptions and any automated reporting you built. Please make sure to add the new IP network (216.73.92.0/23) range to firewall settings by 10/26 and leave the old IP network range (65.167.65.0/24) until November 8th, the old range can be removed from your firewall settings.

You can also view this information in the Google Affiliate Network Help Center.

Posted by Kristin Hall

New FTC Advertising Guidelines

Earlier this week, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission released revised guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials that take effect on December 1, 2009. Among other things, these guidelines say that a blogger that endorses a product or service must disclose compensation received directly or indirectly from the seller of that product or service.

You can review the FTC press release or the full text of the FTC guidelines. If you have questions or need advice on interpreting these FTC guidelines, we encourage you to consult your own legal counsel to help you understand how these changes may affect you.

The Performance Marketing Alliance is a good resource to monitor how these guidelines are impacting the affiliate industry.

Here are some interesting links to some recent press about these new guidelines
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091006-709182.html
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc2009106_866275.htm
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/10/bloggers-face-11k-ftc-fines-for-not-disclosing-paid-endorsements.html

Posted by Dan Chiss
Manager, Affiliate Marketing

Providing Transparency Into Affiliate Traffic

We recently added a new option to our advertiser UI that is visible on the approved publishers page (Publishers > Approved). Below each publisher's EPC information, you'll see a link named 'View Traffic Sources.'

Clicking on this link produces a summary of the number of times consumers visit your site for each web page that contains your ad. A publisher may place your ads on several different pages, this report provides details on each of the pages that are driving traffic to your site.

The results will appear in a popup window similar to the screen shot to the right.  Here are some common questions we get when we talk about referrer data with advertisers:

What does count mean?

• Count is the number of clicks from a given referrer in the past seven days

What if the publisher doesn't have any clicks?

• You'll get a message stating that no results are available

What does 'No Referrer' mean?

• The link may have been opened in a new window (e.g. by using javascript)
• The user's browser could be preventing the referrer from being passed
• The publisher may be editing the referrer

What should i do if all of a publisher's referrers is blank?

• This isn't necessarily a problem, but you should communicate with the publisher and ask them to show where on their site(s) your ads are being promoted.  You can find each publisher's email address on the right hand side of the screen when viewing your approved publishers.

Regards,
Larry Adams, on behalf of Google Affiliate Network

Problems updating your login to a Google Account?

If you attempted to update your Google Affiliate Network account login to a Google Account login sometime between September 2nd and 10th, 2009, there may have been an error in processing your update. As a result, you may have been unable to log in to your Google Affiliate Network account using either login. This issue has been resolved, and you should now be able to log in using your original credentials.

Once you have signed in to Google Affiliate Network, you should see the yellow reminder message offering you the option to update your login to a Google Account. Please either update to an existing Google Account or create a new Google Account to use as your Google Affiliate Network login.

Note: If you created a new Google Account between September 2nd and 10th, 2009 (as part of your original attempt to update your Google Affiliate Network login), that account was created successfully and you should choose the option to provide the information for an existing Google Account.
If you have since logged in and completed the update process successfully, you do not need to take any additional steps regarding your log in credentials.

Questions?
Please refer to our Help Center for any questions you may have regarding updating your sign in to a Google Account. FAQ's include:

• Should I use my personal Google Account for my Google Affiliate Network access?
• Can I have more than one Google Account?
• Can I access Google Affiliate Network from more than one Google Account?
• I have several Google Affiliate Network profiles. Should I create a separate Google Account for each one?

Problems?
Please submit a ticket if you are still encountering problems with your Google Affiliate Network account.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

System Maintenance on Saturday, September 25

We will be performing system maintenance September 25; the interface will be unavailable at this time. Tracking will not be interrupted and reporting data will be restored shortly after the interface comes back online.

We anticipate the interface will be unavailable from 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. CDT (GMT -6).

AdSense Payment Integration

Google Affiliate Network is now paying publishers through AdSense, a platform that offers the widest array of publisher payment options in the industry. We have asked all publishers to link their Google Affiliate Network account to an AdSense account. For some this means linking to an existing account, while others are creating an AdSense account for the first time. The process is simple and tens of thousands have successfully linked.

We gain significant efficiencies by executing payments through the AdSense platform. Effective publisher payments are fundamental to affiliate marketing and we recognize that our legacy system needed improvements. AdSense offers users more payment options and we believe that our publishers will benefit from more transparent and predictable payments.

We understand some publishers are concerned about the integration of Google Affiliate Network and AdSense, particularly those who are unable to successfully link/create an AdSense account. But the fact is that fewer than 1% of all accounts that have attempted to link have been unable to do so. We are working to address publishers who have invalid account information or duplicate accounts, but we may not be able to continue working with those who have a disabled AdSense account due to policy violations.

I am also pleased to report that in addition to efficiency gains, Google Affiliate Network advertisers are already recognizing the benefits of expanded distribution through the growing number of AdSense publishers that are monetizing their sites/content with affiliate ads for the first time. In the weeks following the integration announcement we have seen more than twice as many new active and productive relationships created versus the same period last year.

Publishers should link by today to avoid any payment delays. After October 31st, publishers must have an approved AdSense account ID linked to their Google Affiliate Network account in order to continue participation in our network.

Chris Henger

Head of Google Affiliate Network