Here at Google Affiliate Network, we’re working hard to make our product faster, more innovative, and available to more users. You may have already noticed many changes in the past few months, and we encourage you to check out our Interface Updates page to stay up-to-date on the latest.

In light of these changes (and many more to come), we’d like to take a moment to share our vision for our product.

Scale, scale, scale
We’re striving to make our product available to more publishers, advertisers and consumers around the world. So we’ve completely rewritten our hardware and software ecosystem to achieve vast technical scale. This allows us to make Google Affiliate Network available globally, launch innovative new features, and rapidly implement changes with little to no disruption to our users.

Affiliate Marketing for all
We believe strongly in the value of the affiliate channel, and we want to do our part to help it grow. We’re already paying publishers in over 40 currencies. We want to do better. We want all publishers and advertisers to use an interface that is customized to their timezone and language, and to be able to target ads to languages, regions, and audiences that they care about. We also hope to make it easier to sign up, find and run ads, and build relationships, so that publishers and advertisers who are new to the channel can jump right in.

Integrate with other Google products that you use
For those of you who use multiple Google products, we want you to be able to incorporate Google Affiliate Network into a seamless workflow. Today, you can already access Google Affiliate Network using the Google account of your choice. Publishers are paid via Google AdSense’s fast and reliable global payments system. Advertisers manage product feeds via their Google Merchant Center account, and they can access Google Ad Planner within their Google Affiliate Network account to evaluate whether a potential publisher affiliate is a good fit. We want to continue integrating with other Google products that are crucial to your workflow.

Find opportunities that make sense to you
Today, publishers and advertisers are able to find new relationships via the Opportunity Center. We’re also working on ways for you to see the creatives, opportunities, and products that will perform best on a given site -- and make that update quickly and easily. It should be easier for you to communicate with partners directly within the interface -- no emails or phone calls necessary (unless you want them).

Make decisions based on actionable insights 
We want you to have access to insights that help you understand every aspect of your affiliate program. We’re focused on creating tools in the interface to help you develop a profitable commission strategy, better understand how customers are reacting to your opportunities, analyze results of paid placements, and clearly see areas for improvement.

Protect your investment through quality controls
Google Affiliate Network already has the highest standards in the affiliate industry to keep our publisher network clean and free from violations. We will continue to harness Google’s strong anti-abuse tools to protect the affiliate ecosystem.

This is the future as we see it, and the changes you see today are the first steps towards these goals. For frequent updates on the latest changes, please refer to our Interface Updates page.

Posted by:
Kurt Spoerer, Senior Product Manager
Ben Collins-Sussman, Engineering Manager
Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

We are nearing the final stages of retiring our legacy systems and moving all Google Affiliate Network functions to Google systems. You have likely already noticed some of the changes associated with this process such as improvements to your account homepage, new reports, and faster-loading pages.  

In order to complete the final stages of migration, we will need to take the user interface down for maintenance from 8:00pm - 11:00pm CDT each evening from September 19th through September 22nd.  Please note that tracking will not be affected during these maintenance periods.

The releases taking place next week are important steps in completing our migration process and have been tested extensively by our engineering team.  However, if you notice any issues, or have any questions, please contact your account manager or send us an email at affiliate-migration@google.com.  

Posted by Mark Coppin, Technical Solutions

With the arrival of fall, the holiday shopping season begins. Give your users an early start by posting Google Affiliate Network Exclusive Opportunities. Over 40 opportunities will be available exclusively to Google Affiliate Network publishers. In addition, special opportunities will be live for one weekend only, from Friday, September 23 through Monday, September 26. 

As a reminder, this limited time opportunity enables you to add a variety of great consumer opportunities to your site and earn a performance fee from orders that originated from your links.


How do I promote these opportunities on my site?

1. To promote any of these exclusive opportunities, you need to be an approved publisher in the Google Affiliate Network.
2. Apply for Google Affiliate Network with your AdSense Publisher ID (or sign in if you're already a Google Affiliate Network publisher).
3. Once approved, review the opportunities available and click the "Apply Now" link for everyone that you wish to promote.

Tracking links will be available in your Google Affiliate Network account by viewing the Home tab. You can also search for “September Exclusive Opportunities” links in the Links section on September 23.


Need help applying or want more information? Review the Getting Started guide today.


When can I post these opportunities on my site?
All opportunities will be available on September 23, and all will expire at midnight September 26. Please remember that you may not post any of these exclusives until September 23.


Further questions? Check out our Help Center for answers to frequently asked questions or feel free to contact us with any questions.


Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist

Google Affiliate Network provides an industry-leading publisher payments system in over 40 currencies and 80 countries, with a wide variety of payment options. We're excited to announce that starting next month, Google Affiliate Network will be making publisher payments faster by eliminating 30 days from our current payment schedule. This enables publishers to be paid within 30 days or 60 days of driving a valid conversion, depending on the advertiser's schedule. Multiple benefits to our advertisers and publishers include:

For advertisers:

• Unlock new distribution opportunities by attracting publishers who require fast payments
• Increase efficiency by managing publishers who were unable to work with our previous payment schedule under your Google Affiliate Network account

For publishers:

• Depend on fast, reliable, and flexible payments
• Assume less risk when floating marketing dollars up front, so you can focus on innovation and growth

For current publishers, the new payment schedule means that your Google Affiliate Network earnings for next month will arrive on October rather than November, as they would have under the former payment schedule. For next month only, publishers will receive a combined payment for July/August activity (which is already posted to your AdSense account) and August/September activity. Starting on October, both Google Affiliate Network and AdSense earnings will be on the same 30-day schedule and payments will return to normal levels. Check out our payment calendar for a visual.

We're continually looking for new ways to keep improving payment and delivery options in different countries. Stay tuned to the Google Affiliate Network Blog as we work to improve the payments experience for publishers around the world!

For further information on payments, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Earlier this month, we launched the Google Affiliate Network Partner Marketplace, which features companies who can help our advertisers and publishers achieve affiliate marketing goals and grow the affiliate channel.

Today we’d like to highlight the two types of partner offerings that can help advertisers and publishers make the most of their affiliate marketing:

• Tools to help Google Affiliate Network advertisers and publishers manage and grow their program. These partner tools can help you with things like data feeds, coupon feeds, pay-per-call, affiliate in store coupons, link monetization and tracking videos.
• Agencies (also referred to as Outsourced Program Managers) to provide program management services for Google Affiliate Network advertisers.

Partners are selected based on their working relationship with the Google Affiliate Network and the value they can provide to our advertisers and publishers. Many of the companies in the Partner Marketplace demonstrate expertise in the pay-per-performance channel, help their customers develop innovative and creative solutions at scale, and provide training and support resources.

Please check out the Partner Marketplace if you are interested in working with any of these partners!

Posted by Jamie Ross, Affiliate Network Strategist