AdSense Referrals Payment Changes are Official – And there’s a $2000 Bonus!

The AdSense/AdWords Referrals changes that I reported here yesterday are official with an announcement today on the AdSense Blog. Not only can you now earn up o $255 for an AdSense referral – you can also earn a $2000 bonus for referring 25 publishers who earn over $100 within a 180 day period.

There’s also a bonus for referring 20 advertisers to AdWords who spend more than $100 in a 180 day period. That bonus is $600.

The full details of AdSense and AdWords Referrals are:

• When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.
• When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment, you will be credited with an additional $250.
• If, in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).

AdWords Referrals:

• When an advertiser you refer spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee) you will be credited with $5.
• When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.
• If, in any 180 day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payments are limited to 1 per year).

There is also a recursive nature to this. If you’ve referred publishers previously that are yet to reach one of the earning thresholds then you will still be paid out when they reach that mark.

“These rules will also apply to users that you have already referred but who have not yet reached one of the new earning/spend thresholds. For example, if you referred an AdSense publisher who has currently earned $2.00, you will be paid $5.00 if that publisher reaches the $5.00 mark. But, if you have referred an AdSense publisher who has already earned $10.00, you will not be paid $5.00 retroactively for that referral reaching the $5.00 mark. However, should that publisher eventually reach the $100.00 earnings mark within 180 days, you will be paid $250.00.”

This is a much better system than they previously had. Over the last 12 months I’d previously signed up many hundreds of referrals but only a handful had ever converted. At least with this system those using referrals will make a little something out of most referrals and there is some very nice incentive to send more than ever.

Now – if only they’d allow a little more flexibility in how we could use their links. I’d love to be able to use 3 per product per page and to be able to use them as html text for starters.

PS: looking over the AdSense Referrals setup pages there is another change being rolled out too. There’s no more Picasa referrals options to put on your site. No official word on this or whether those of us promoting it have to remove code from our sites yet.