When Google acquired Doubleclick in for $3.1 billion in April 2007, they also acquired Doubleclick’s affiliate marketing arm Performics. Over the past six years Google has managed to integrate most of DoubleCLick’s technologies into its AdSense and AdWords businesses, as well as using it to launch Doubleclick for Publishers (DFP).
As the vast majority of Google’s advertising revenues come from CPC and CPM advertising, Performics, which later became Google Affiliate Network, never really integrated into Google’s business. Their also never matched those of the other established brands in the affiliate/CPA space such as LinkShare (UK), Commission Junction, and Trade Doubler, and this has resulted in its closure.
In an email to Google Affiliate network publishers, the statement read:
Our goal with Google Affiliate Network has been to help advertisers and publishers improve their performance across the affiliate ecosystem. Cost-per-action (CPA) marketing has rapidly evolved in the last few years, and we constantly evaluate our products to ensure that we’re focused on the services that will have the biggest impact for our advertisers and publishers. To that end, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire the Google Affiliate Network and focus on other products that are driving great results for clients.
Publishers can continue to earn revenue through the AdSense network. And marketers can take advantage of other CPA-oriented Google tools like Product Listing Ads, remarketing and Conversion Optimizer to drive valuable online sales and conversions. These areas are growing rapidly and we continue to invest significantly in them.
We’ll continue to support our customers as we wind down the product over the next few months. While we will no longer be adding new product functionality, we will maintain the platform during the transition period. We plan to disable publisher relationships from advertiser programs on July 31, 2013. Publisher payments will be disbursed for network activity generated through this date. We will continue to make certain functionality available through October 31, 2013 for retrieving reports, reconciling orders, and processing payments.
A huge thanks to all our advertisers, publishers and the team that has worked tirelessly on Google Affiliate Network over the past few years. We look forward to helping you grow your business in the future.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
Sincerely,
The Google Affiliate Network Team
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