Earning with Referral Units

If you think things have been a little different with AdSense referrals up to
this point, you’ll really see the differences in the earnings department. Here’s
where everything that you’ve read about AdSense so far changes a little bit.
Earning with AdSense referral ads requires some action on the part of your
Web site visitors. Earning with referrals isn’t as simple as clicking through
a link, or even searching and then clicking through search results. AdSense
referrals have conversions — which are specific actions that must take place
before you get paid for displaying the referral ad.
Even after a conversion takes place, the payments are a little different than
what you see with other AdSense ads. All referral ads are paid on a flat fee.
However, the fee that you’re paid can be influenced by your location. Each
advertiser sets country-specific goals, so you’re paid up to the maximum
amount shown for each of the referrals that you make from your AdSense
referral ads.
To further complicate things, there’s a validation period when you first add
a referral to your Web site. This validation period is put in place to help
AdSense validate that conversions that take place through your referral ads
are genuine. During this period, you earn the minimum payment for conversions,
with the amount increasing after the validation period is over.
Here’s the frustrating part — the validation period has no time limit on how
long it lasts. On the AdSense Web site, Google states:
“For most publishers, the validation period should end quickly, but it
will vary by publisher due to differences in the time it takes to collect the
necessary account data.”
In other words, how long you’re paid the minimum instead of the maximum is
determined by how much traffic your site generates and how often your site
visitors take advantage of your referrals. That’s not exactly something that
you can change or influence in much of a big way.
When you’re looking at the available referral ads, the amount shown in the
upper-right corner of the referral information box may be a single dollar
amount or a dollar range. When you see a dollar range, you notice this principle
of minimum versus maximum the most.
For example, I looked at an ad that had an earning range of $1.73–$15.38. The
lower figure is the minimum, which is what you can expect to earn during
the validation period after you place the referral ad on your site. The higher
figure is the maximum, which you work up to earning as the validation period
continues (until it ends) for any future referrals made from the ad.
I find the whole process a little frustrating, but I do understand why AdSense
has the validation period in place. Without it, publishers could add referrals
to their sites, ask all their friends to click through, do whatever is necessary
for conversion, and rake in the dough. For a few days, the referral numbers
would be really nice for the advertiser and the publisher, but then referrals
would drop dramatically.
The validation period dampens this type of activity, making the actual number
of referrals more realistic — which isn’t such a bad thing. With realistic numbers,
you can know exactly what to expect from your referral earnings, and
advertisers can know exactly what to expect from their referral spending.