A few weeks ago Google launched a referral program where a publisher would be paid $1 per new Firefox installation with the Google Toolbar. Since that time many people have noted an extremely poor CTR and next to no earnings from the program.
Take a look at the way MacUpdate do it. Usually the site lists all the details of the software on offer, including a link to download from a mirror. But with Firefox they have removed the download link and replaced it with a Google referral button, a rather large and prominent button. They’ve even masked the referral url!
Interestingly they seem to be the only major download site that is doing this. VersionTracker don’t practice this, nor do Download.com. Now, I don’t really have a problem with MacUpdate making a quick bob with this. So if they can do it, why do the other majors not?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Joel Mueller // Dec 9, 2005 at 5:12 am
The funny thing is, we’ve referred tens of thousands of people to download Firefox. Something is fishy about Google’s deal with this. We’ve made a total of $2 for referring downloads using Google’s referral program they’ve setup.
Yep, $2 for tens of thousands of downloads. Pretty interesting eh?
-Joel
http://www.macupdate.com
2 Andy // Dec 9, 2005 at 2:17 pm
Now that’s pretty scary! $2 for thousands of downloads is bad. I understand they only pay out of brand new installs, but wouldn’t you think there would be more than 2 brand new Firefox users in the thousands of downloads?
And I guess it hasn’t improved any after the program was opened to non-US downloads?
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