Tom LeDree brought this to my attention in the forums. I haven’t seen this publicised elsewhere so I thought I’d give you all a a brief summary of the new options you have with referrals in Google Adsense.
In a nutshell
In short, Google Adsense now offers CPA affiliate marketing. CPA stands for Cost Per Action which basically means you qualify for a payment if the action is completed. The CPA is different for every site, for example with a quiz site the CPA could be $1.50 per email sign up whereas a hosting company might offer $50 per new hosting customer you send them.
If you login to your Adsense account and go to the referral section you will see this screen.
You can still choose Google products from this area (eg. Adsense) but you now also have numerous other categories including shopping, travel and entertainment. There is a search feature too so that you can search directly for the keywords you want to target.
When you search for a term or choose a category you are taken to a list of suitable affiliate partners for that term. You can then browse through all of the advertisers and see which one is suitable for your blog.
If you click on the advertisers links you are taken to a page which gives you various ways of linking to the advertiser and more importantly, you find out how much you make per referral for placing the link on your blog.
Summary
In my opinion this is one of Adsense’s best features and I’m surprised that it has taken them so long to get into the CPA market, LinkShare and Commission Junction are going to lose a lot of affiliates because of this.
Adsense publishers now have a lot more control over what ads are displayed on their sites as you can pick and choose the websites you believe will perform best for you. I am going to use direct referrals on Blogging Tips posts for the next month or so to see what kind of increase in commissions I get. Adsense has been performing very badly for me lately and I was close to dropping them from the blog because of it but I believe using CPA adsense links will boost commissions.
If you have any questions about this please let me know 
Good Luck,
Kevin
Sounds interesting…. Google adsense has come a long way….
Has anyone benefited so far…
Do we have any live examples…..?
Wow
This opens up affiliate marketing to a HUGE audience! It's funny a lot of the offers seem quite spammy.
Don't be evil?
great post I will try this out soon me thinks
I'll take the sit back and see approach. I want to hear how other folks do with Google CPA before I jump in….
Thanks for the review, Kevin. I just started exploring this feature of AdSense a few days ago … and I am totally amazed at how many self-appointed "probloggers" haven't had a word to say about it. The program began rolling out weeks ago … but has been so little publicized … even on Google's own AdSense blog that it surprises me. Maybe because it's now sort of "kewl" to ignore AdSense, since AdSense ha spawned so many copycats? I dunno, but I pay attention to AdSense every month when the direct deposit goes in the bank … thanks for bucking the trend and not being a lemming.
That's a really great strategy. Google's constantly coming up with something new. I wonder what they'll release next.
HI
Just tried what you suggested but I only get offered google products to refer? Is this just available to some people?
not that I'm aware of Tara, I assumed that everyone now has it
mmm… I have just emailed Google, I will see what they say.
Just though I would report back. I had an email back from google, the CPA service is being gradually rolled out (from June 28th) so if like myself the service is not available to you, it apparently will be in the next few weeks.
I've written a guide how to make money from Google Referral over at my blog:
http://www.sabahan.com/2007/07/06/10-tips-to-help…
Tara1 – The must be rolling it out randomly because I dont make much money through adsense (havent had a check in a few months!).
Great tip. Tara1, not sure if it helps but it was available to my site and I'm testing it right now. Thanks again Kevin.
Some great tips! I just started adsense, so i needed the info! Thanks!