Google is working on an affiliate program for the Play Store

Google is said to be getting ready to launch an affiliate program for the Play Store. Rumors have said the program will be powered by Performance Horizon Group, which is the same company that runs Apple’s affiliate program.

It is also said that the program will initially cover only content sold through Play Movies and Music. However, eventually expand to include apps and even hardware.

9To5Google contacted Performance Horizon Group about the Play Store affiliate program rumor to which they responded by saying they were happy they contacted them about “the Google Play affiliate program,” and CC’d “Google Play’s affiliate team” to answer anymore questions. The email was “play-affiliates-help@google.com” and was labeled “Play Affiliates Support” in Gmail. Very strong evidence that an affiliate program is heavily in the works.

Google used to have an affiliate program, but shut it down back in 2013 to focus on products that would help advertisers and publishers more. Interestingly enough, Google Affiliate Network was owned by Performics and acquired by DoubleClick in 2004. A few years later they were bought by Google. However, the service has never included anything from Google’s digital stores.

An affiliate program for the Play Store would be praised by many. A Google search reveals thousands of websites and forum post asking for it for years now. I’m sure Google is also looking to drive more business to the Play Store as they are behind Apple’s App Store in revenue by about 70% even though it has roughly the same or more downloads.

Google did not respond to any inquires and Performance Horizon also did not respond afterwards.

Source: 9To5Google

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