As you may know Google recently launched their pay-per-action program which is actually a CPA program. If you were watching the industry news lately you should know that this was something reasonable to happen as most online marketers believe that CPA is the future or internet marketing. In addition in the future CPC programs will be less important as happened with CPM programs in the last decade.

For Google this is a major hit, as their #1 money maker which is adwords, is going to lose popularity. Personally I didn’t think that they will start offering a CPA program so soon, but for another time Google seems to be in front of their competitors

Having a look at Google’s CPA program, I think that they have are not like the CPA networks we are used to. A very good post at shoemoney explains that very well and actually shows the problems that will occur. Anyway as it is just the beginning I guess we have to sit back and check how things will go. In the meanwhile there are much better CPA networks to use like CJ and AzoogleAds.

Just got an email from CafePress stating that they will discontinue their affiliate program and they will migrate their system to Commission Junction. Here is a quote from their mail :

About a year ago we launched the CafePress Affiliate Program. We saw it as a revolutionary program with benefits for Shopkeepers, Affiliates, and CafePress. As you know, the basic purpose of an affiliate program is to drive incremental external web traffic – and ultimately sales. Unfortunately this program did not meet that key objective, and a continued investment in a program that was not meeting this basic goal became difficult. Ultimately this program lacked ability to scale, build momentum, and ROI.

Looks like CafePress’s affiliate program was not a success, and I guess that wont change when they’ll migrate with CJ as webmasters need more options regarding advertising, and CP’s affiliate program don’t give many of them. After all CafePress is more useful as a company to create merchandise for your site, than an affiliate source of income.