MarketingVOX: Google is testing cost-per-action ads according to an email that Google sent out yesterday (Wednesday) to some AdSense publishers, reports Bloomberg News, citing an initial report in the SeekingAlpha blog by David Jackson. "You get paid whenever a site visitor clicks on the ad on your site AND performs a specified action, such as generating a lead or purchasing a product," according to Google's email.

"In other words, Google is launching a fully-fledged cost-per-action - otherwise known as affiliate marketing - network," Jackson writes, adding: "Let's not mince words. This is Google's ValueClick killer. Google has greater resources than ValueClick, a larger advertiser base, and the advantage of being able to offer publishers a full range of ads based on page views [CPM], clicks [CPC] and now actual purchases or leads [CPA]."

According to Google, the cost-per-action "ads will not compete with contextually targeted ads. Instead, they will show across a separate network, the Content Referral network. To place one of these ads on your site, you can set up a new ad unit that supports any of our current ad unit sizes."

"People have been asking for cost-per-action advertising for ages," Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch.com is quoted by Bloomberg as saying, "It's definitely nice to have the additional option."

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