Have You Tried CPA Yet?

CPA stands for Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition,  and it’s an advertising strategy that’s starting to gain some notice in the online world.  If you haven’t heard about CPA or don’t really know what it’s all about, you’re in good company.  I venture to guess that a lot of “gurus” don’t know too much about the subject.

So let’s see if we can shed a little light on the subject!

CPA in A Nutshell

CPA is an online advertising model where the advertiser only pays for a specified action linked to the advertisement.  For example, if you run a banner on a website and only pay the website owner whenever someone clicks on the banner and subscribes to your newsletter, that would be a CPA campaign.

I’m sure you can immediately see the benefit of running such a campaign – you only pay for actual subscribers, rather than paying for clicks or impressions.  This is by far the most lucrative form of advertising currently available to online businesses.

CPA is really an advertisers dream.

You can run a CPA campaign for nearly any outcome you choose, but most online businesses use it for purchases, free trials, subscribers, zero friction, etc.  If you’ve seen the advertisements where you’re required to put your name and email to get a coupon or be submitted for a chance to win something, then you’re already familiar with the concept behind this form of advertising.

How Can You Benefit From CPA?

Although CPA has been around for a long time, there have been some interesting developments in the industry recently.  The most beneficial development for most of us is that there are now a large variety of advertising networks available to advertise your offer.  Many of the full-service firms will even help you form your campaign, design your creatives, and even help you with your landing pages.

Not only are there a large number of advertising networks that offer CPA, but there is also a variety of methods of showing your advertisements now available through these networks.  You ad now has the opportunity to be shown in a full page pop under, pop over, email, contextual ad, banner, survey, form, etc.

There are tons of choices and lots of opportunity to profit, especially in zero friction campaigns.

CPA And Affiliates

And that brings me to the other evolution of  CPA.  As an affiliate, you have a lot of opportunities to offer CPA advertisements on your website – beyond the normal pay per commission affiliate program.

As an affiliate, you have the opportunity to earn a lot more affiliate commission through CPA because it’s generally easier to pre-sell your website visitors on those kinds of offers.  After all, it’s generally easier to get visitors to fill out a form or request more information about something than it is to get them to pull out their wallets.

Of course, there is also a downside.  It’s often more difficult to get approved to join CPA affiliate programs than it is to be approved for your normal, run of the mill affiliate program.  In fact, I recently came across a statistic that only about 10% of  applicants are approved for CPA programs.

If you can get approved, you can earn some serious affiliate revenue.

If you’d like to learn more about CPA, then I highly suggest you take the time to learn more about different strategies.  I personally like the zero friction method because it just makes sense!

Related posts:

1. Why Don’t SOME Affiliate Products Sell?
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers
3. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3
4. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 2
5. Boy Did Google Slap Me Hard!

Tagged with: Advertising • Affiliate Marketing • CPA • landing page • make money • pre-selling • preselling • Swipe file

Filed under: Advertising • Affiliate Marketing • Direct Marketing

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