What’s CPA Marketing?
CPA (also known as cost per acquisition or cost per sale), is an affiliate or advertising model that pays your CPA partners a fixed commission when a sale is made or a desired action has been completed. CPA marketing can deliver effective results if it has the right affiliates. CPA marketing is more than just driving clicks and impressions. It can also generate leads and drive conversions that will allow businesses to grow.
CPA marketing is a great way for affiliates to increase their revenue through advertising. Many affiliate marketers work with multiple companies to diversify their content or CPA offers. This allows them to offer options to their site visitors and followers, as well as solutions to their unique pain points.
CPA marketing can be divided into three categories:
Pay per Sale
Pay per sale, as the name suggests, is when you, as the marketer are paid whenever a visitor uses your link and makes a purchase on your partner website.
Pay per Action
Affiliates are paid for any leads generated. A set of actions is called pay per action and it refers to the actions that visitors must take, such as filling out forms, watching videos, signing up for free trials, or filling out forms.
Recurring payments
You can attract new subscribers to your partner site regularly to earn regular commissions on the monthly subscription fees.
CPA Networks
CPA networks are a bridge between publishers and advertisers. They are experts in cost-per-action campaigns. These agencies will determine if you are a legitimate business and can send qualified leads.
CPA marketing is a popular way to make money online, without selling anything. CPA networks are difficult to join due to their strict requirements and criteria. It’s possible, but not impossible. It’s important to be transparent and take proactive steps that will help you get accepted.
CPA networks don’t only work for affiliate marketers who are experienced. CPA networks are great for beginners. Although it can be difficult to join one, there are many benefits.
Payouts are relatively high
Low entry barrier–affiliate marketers start with minimal to no investment
There are many CPA opportunities
You can filter listings based on your niche expertise.
Here are the top CPA networks for publishers and advertisers. These networks may have minimum payments thresholds that range from $35 to $100.
While you are implementing your campaign, CPA networks may change their offer terms and offers. This can lead to you losing time and money, which could result in your goal return on investment (ROI) not being achieved.
These networks also take a portion of the profits for their services. You might consider in-house programs to improve your odds of achieving a higher ROI.
3 Tips on How to Get Accepted by a CPA Network as an Affiliate Marketer
Create a website
Now is the perfect time to start a website. Create a website that represents your brand, your experience and skills as an affiliate marketer. WordPress is an open-source and simple to use CMS platform. You can also hire someone to design and create your website.
Your domain name should be used in your email
You might also want to consider creating an email that includes your domain name and looks like this: “yourname@yourdomain.com”. CPA networks may reject applications that use an email address that is free. These are simple to set up and do not provide proof that you own the site.
Get started with your CPA network
It’s a smart idea to apply to smaller CPA networks if you are just starting out. After you have enough experience in CPA marketing, you can apply to the larger and more well-known ones. You may have to apply for more CPA networks if you are unable to receive enough applications.
After you have been accepted into a CPA network you can begin looking for offers in your niche. Once you have selected the offers, it is time to promote them on your site.
CPA Niches
Focusing on a niche, whether you are starting a blog or selling Amazon products, is one of the best ways to get organic traffic and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Profitability is not possible in every niche. Affiliate marketers need to identify a profitable niche in which they can succeed. These are the top CPA niches worth looking into:
Mobile apps
Health
Finance
Relationship
Careers and Jobs
These are broad categories so you may choose to focus on smaller niches in order to create more personal content. If you choose the health niche, for example, you could focus on sub-niches like weight loss, exercise, and skincare.
Finding Your Niche
How can you choose the right niche for your brand among the many available? You should not only choose a niche that is based on your expertise but also consider areas of interest that are popular and long-lasting.
Research are key
When searching for niches, research is essential. There are many tools that you can use to help you find niches, including Quantcast and Google AdWords. These tools can be used to generate statistics and analysis that can be used to gain greater insight into the market.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords Keyword Planner allows you to filter niche keywords and also check their potential profitability via their cost per click.
Search CPA opportunities
To find the best offers in your niche, you can search third-party websites like OfferVault. These sites allow you to filter your results by traffic sources or payment models. These sites offer a wealth of opportunities, so it is important to select reputable projects to minimize the possibility of your visitors leaving.
Sign up for a CPA network
CPA networks such as Amazon Associates give you access and many offer generous commissions. You will need to be a part of their parent network for many CPA offers. Affiliate marketers can reap the rewards of joining a network, but it’s not always easy to get in.
CPA Marketing vs. Affiliate Marketing
CPA marketing is one form of affiliate marketing.
The former pays you a commission every time you generate leads or someone takes an action. This doesn’t mean that a visitor has to purchase anything from your network. Affiliate marketing is where you only get paid if a visitor purchases.
CPA Marketing: How does it work?
CPA marketing is based on the cost per action model. Marketers have the freedom to promote any offer they choose, whether it’s cost-per sale (CPS) or cost-per lead (CPL).
It is quite simple:
Sign up to a CPA affiliate network and you will find CPA offers by vendors or advertisers.
The next step is to choose the type of offer that you wish to promote. This could be CPS, CPL or both.
The landing page will be used to send traffic.
Clicking on an affiliate link from your landing page will redirect the visitor to the original CPA offer webpage.
Affiliate marketers will make money when a visitor takes the desired actions. These could include buying a product or signing up for a trial.
CPA Marketing
We’ve highlighted the benefits of CPA marketing in our article.
Connecting brands and customers, and generating sales
Increase brand visibility
It is a low-risk marketing strategy
CPA marketing offers additional benefits to businesses.
Easy to set up
CPA marketing requires two things, a website and an affiliate network. After you have set up your website, you will be able to join a CPA network so you can start searching for offers in your niche.
No upfront payments
CPA marketing eliminates the need to pay affiliate marketers upfront, or for site visits that don’t convert into conversions.
Possibility to earn a higher return
It is easier to get started and more affordable over the long-term. Instead of focusing solely on impressions and clicks in digital advertising campaigns, which may not guarantee conversions but can be costly, opt for CPA marketing.
Affiliate marketing can bring in 58% more customer revenue. Affiliate marketing can bring in higher average customer orders and an average order value of 31% and 21% , respective.
Expanding Your Reach
CPA marketing can help you expand your reach. Partnering with influencers would essentially get your products in front more people. Many influencers already have a large following on social media. This can allow you to diversify and increase your reach, which in turn can help your business grow faster.
How does CPA work?
You can use your CPA to determine the cost of acquiring a new conversion. It is essentially the cost of one acquisition based on your paid ads. This can also be applied to other sales or marketing campaigns such as sales calls and Google Ads.
The formula for calculating your campaign’s CPA is simple. First, choose the time period and campaign for which you wish to calculate your CPA. Next, calculate the average CPA using Google Ads’ formula
The total advertising expenditure (or total cost of conversions over a particular time period or campaign) the total number of conversions (or acquisitions) for that period and campaign
This formula is only applicable to one channel of marketing. Consider the following factors if you are incorporating multiple channels into your campaigns:
Software to analyze and optimize your ads
Marketing efforts from the outside
Multi-channel campaign equipment and utilities
These can all be combined to greatly increase your overall CPA.
Promotion Methods
There are many ways to promote your CPA campaigns. These are some popular CPA promotion methods that you can use.
Landing page or sales
Your visitors will contact you first at the sales or landing page. This page allows visitors to find out more about the product/service being promoted. Keep your landing page simple and entertaining to engage visitors. This will help you avoid high bounce rates and keep them engaged.
Either you use eye-catching graphics to accompany product information or you can make your landing page more interactive by adding games or quizzes.
Review website
You can also use your website to review products from affiliate partners. Your affiliate partner’s website will be linked to the products being reviewed. Visitors can then complete an action or purchase.
Optimizing Your CPA Costs
How can you optimize your per-acquisition costs and still generate content and ads that will convert more? Your CPA ads should rank well and perform well. Here are some tips to help you reduce your CPA expenses.
Keep your audience interested
It’s not enough just to create engaging landing pages or compelling ads when promoting CPA offers. Your audience’s curiosity is also important. Advertisements should encourage people to click on the link you provide or learn more about the product. You can highlight the product’s advantages with captivating content and eye-catching graphics.
Design a compelling landing page
Landing pages don’t have to be complicated. You can make it simple and powerful. It should help your audience understand what you are promoting, while remaining clear and persuasive.
Don’t focus only on impressions
Although impressions and clicks are great, they don’t guarantee conversions. Focus your efforts on increasing conversions to optimize your CPA. Your goal is to get your audience to take a desired action.
CPA Marketing Best Practices
You might consider working with an affiliate manager
An Affiliate Manager is a great way to make sure your CPA campaigns are successful for brands. They have the following duties:
Analyzing offers and giving insight into which offers are most important
Curating content to promote more effectively
We connect you with the best-performing affiliates
Negotiating contracts for your affiliates
Monitoring your ROI
Track your campaigns
You must monitor your CPA offers and track their performance. To assess the effectiveness of your campaigns, you must monitor the following:
Source of traffic
PPC ads
Conversion-inducing keywords or landing pages
Avoid joining unreliable or shady CPA networks
CPA marketing is a dangerous industry. Do your research to avoid working with such networks. Avoid CPA networks that have poor reviews. CPA network reviews can be found on websites such as or oDigger.
Learn about click fraud and scams
CPA marketing is vulnerable to fraud and other scams. For a simple task, scam offers often pay $1. Avoid promoting online flash games or get-rich-quick promotions when searching for CPA opportunities. Click fraud can adversely affect your CPA by allowing bots to click on invalid links. This could lead to you spending more on your campaigns and receiving a lower return-on-adspend (ROAS). Click fraud prevention software can be used to prevent invalid clicks.
Final Thoughts
Although the idea of CPA marketing can seem daunting at first, it is not impossible to master. Once you have a solid understanding of CPA marketing, and how it works you can join CPA networks and promote your CPA offers.
A successful CPA marketing campaign requires that you stay current. You’ll always be in competition with the latest trends. You can find many resources online to help you understand CPA marketing, and how to address any challenges.