So a couple of weeks ago, I open up my email to find a little note from Google Affiliate Network (who I still affectionately refer to as “Performics”). Was it a love note? If only! Nope, Google Affiliate Network was dropping me a line to let me know that I would soon have to link my account to an approved Google AdSense account if I wanted to get paid.
Now, this caught me a little off guard. Granted, it’s not a completely ridiculous request and they did give me generous notice (I have until midnight on September 21st). However, I am still a little bit miffed. I mean, if I wanted to use AdSense, don’t you think I would have done it already? What’s the big draw of AdSense? AdSense will allegedly dazzle me with “a wider range of payment options, improved ways to manage payment information, and consolidated payments from Google (if you’re working with other Google products).” Hmmm, this could be halfway decent – but is any of it true?
Let’s start with the allegations of a wider range of payment options. Alright, so I login to my AdSense account, click on “My Account,” and then “Payment Details.” Since I’m new to AdSense, I haven’t gotten around to setting up my payment information yet. Well, it appears we’ve hit a roadblock. I’d love to tell you about these exciting new payment options, but I can’t. Why? Because until my account balance reaches $10.00, AdSense won’t let me select a form of payment. Fantastic. What about that claim about improved payment information management? It must be nonexistent, or maybe it’s another thing a newbie like me can’t access, because I don’t see anything different from the standard. Lastly, I will apparently benefit from consolidated payments from Google, but I can’t for the life of me think of how this benefits me. I mean, what vast array of Google products are out there that merit such a consolidation? Google Checkout?
Since AdSense has decided that I must prove my loyalty because I will be trusted with any privileged information, I had to go to anther source. I asked a friend to look into the “improvements” that the joining of Google Affiliate Network and AdSense was spawning, and I didn’t really hear that much in the way of “improvement.” Apparently one of the changes is the payment threshold, which has been raised from $50 to $100. So now I have to make twice as much money before I’ll see a penny of it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, AdSense now pays once a month instead of twice. Sure, this might not affect those big moneymakers out there, but what about the small-time guys who need that money now? How are they supposed to keep up with their advertising costs when they have to wait a whole month to get paid? Compare this scenario to Linkshare, who pays once a week, and these changes seem just a little ridiculous.
