CPA Explained - Why Using CPA Networks Is A ‘Win-Win’ For Advertisers And Publishers

How To Pay Pennies Promoting CPA Programs Using Google Adwords
We’ve established that the quickest and most precise way of getting from ‘Point A to Point B’ when executing Internet Marketing is by using PPC advertising. But if not done properly, it can become an extremely expensive and time consuming task. This is because you are required to practice, test and tweak ‘online and live’. You have to test your PPC ads using real money on real search engines to see if they convert or not. So there is a significant risk for any new advertiser considering using PPC advertising for promoting affiliate products, CPA programs or their own business, service or products.

In addition to poorly written ads, the advertiser for any PPC campaign has to fight against the dreaded ‘Click Fraud’, where some estimate can occur up to 20% of the time. So 1 out of 5 clicks can be complete duds, regardless of how good your ad or product is. This obviously is a crucial killer to your CTR (Click Thru Rate).

Introducing The CPA Business Model
The CPA advertising model operates on the basis that website visitors are required to perform a certain required ‘task or action’, before the website publisher is paid. This required action can be as simple as submitting an email address or zip code or it can be as complicated as filling out 4 or 5 pages of questionnaires disclosing personal information. The beauty and ease of the CPA advertising model for the advertiser is that the risk is geared 100% towards the website publisher, and virtually no risk on them as the advertiser.

For The Advertiser: With conventional PPC advertising, the advertiser usually pays for every time the PPC ad is clicked and viewed, (fraudulent or not). So irregardless of how many people click through on their PPC ad to their Landing Page, even if that visitor chooses not to buy or submit information, they are charged for the ad. The costs can begin to add up quickly.

For The Publisher: If the website visitor fails to undertake the required task that the CPA advertiser has predetermined to pay for, then the publisher who drove that visitor to the advertisers site does not get paid for it, its that simple.

How To Pay Pennies Promoting CPA Programs Using Google Adwords

Advantage For The CPA (Cost Per Action) Advertiser
The primary and biggest benefit for the advertiser using a CPA model to promote their business or service is quite obvious, they get exactly what they pay for. It is also equally as obvious why an advertiser is likely to prefer and use CPA advertising as opposed to say using PPC advertising themselves. Using the CPA business model, they pass the entire risk and cost of advertising to the website publisher. They effectively eliminate the hassles of the ‘hit and miss’ nature of advertising and pay only for qualified visitors for their product.

In a common CPA business scenario, the CPA advertiser will pay a specified ’share’ percentage to the website publisher, only when they accurately drive a qualified visitor to their website landing page. This ‘qualified’ visitor, who then, in turn, has performed the required task, will only be paid. This task can involve filling out a simple form, a detailed questionnaire, or submit info such as a mailing address for a ‘Free Trial’ to try out a promotional product.

Although the required ‘action’ the CPA advertiser needs a visitor to perform is entirely up to them, the advertiser will only pay the website publisher for just the customer ‘leads’, that are generated for the advertiser through the website publishers site or advertising efforts.

This is generally a ‘Win-Win’ situation as the CPA advertiser only pays for qualified customers and the publisher can earn substantial income for simply sending visitors to a pre-made landing page.

How To Pay Pennies Promoting CPA Programs Using Google Adwords

Why CPA Works For The Publisher
First and foremost there is… No Risk. For the website publisher, CPA marketing can be a sweet and simple method to generate significant income, with virtually no risk other than advertising dollars or maintaining and promoting a website or blog. Obviously if you operate websites, it is not as easy or as attractive as using say, Google AdSense, but CPA is the next best thing.

There are however some precautions, the most obvious being the financial risk that is carried by the CPA publisher, especially if they choose to use the CPA model and combine it with Pay Per Click advertising. If the CPA advertising campaign is a failure, meaning the ad campaign does not generate response from the visitors that are sent to the CPA advertiser’s landing page, he or she will still be charged with the PPC costs, but will not receive any payment from the CPA advertiser. This irregardless of how much time and effort they put into promoting the CPA program, all for the benefit of generating targeted visitors for the advertiser.

It can also at times be difficult for the CPA publisher to immediately and effectively track the exact number of visitor ‘actions’ that their marketing efforts has resulted in, in regards to how much their advertising dollars has actually generated into actual CPA conversions. The publisher in most cases are only reliant on the CPA advertiser’s exclusive figures when they try to track how successful their advertising ratios have been.

The end result of course is that for any website owner, publishing any type of third-party CPA advertising is determined on how ’skilled’ they are, as well as how much money, time and effort they invest.

In addition to placing CPA advertisements on their websites that requires a site visitor to take any type of action, it also carries the risk that the ‘ad’ may not be very well designed. The ‘ad’ being either the CPA’s Landing Page or Advertisers PPC ads. It is often difficult to pinpoint who is at fault, where the source of the poor results stem from, is it the website publisher or the CPA advertiser. The end result being a lot of testing is required to determine why the promotion failed. What is the reason why the visitor does not perform what you or the CPA advertiser wants them to do.

CPA at this point is still in the developmental stages as an ‘perfected’ online advertising model. As this process matures, it is quite obvious to suggest that Google and its other Search Engine brothers will soon actively play a large part in how this CPA business market develops.

But without a doubt, given the size and revenue generated by these various CPA advertising networks, its not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’ Google will eventually launch their own interpretation of a CPA advertising model, then the market will convert and change almost overnight.

eBay, who’s primarily business is connecting people and bringing them together, has also recently started to actively promote their own CPA based affiliate program. To have such a prominent ‘brand name’ starting to utilize their own CPA advertising vehicle to promote their services, it is quite obviously that the CPA model is an excellent way to monetizing websites and generating income, if done properly.

How To Pay Pennies Promoting CPA Programs Using Google Adwords