CPA is short for Cost-Per-Action, and is a form of affiliate marketing where you get paid, only if the surfer performs some sort of action, such as filling out an online form, requesting a free sample or signing up for a free trial, etc.
The big difference between CPA and PPC (Adsense, for example), is that the advertisers only pay you when you have generated a lead or sale, not for every single click. In short, if the traffic you generate to an advertiser does something, you get a commission, if not; you get nothing.
Here is an example on a common CPA lead. A company wants feedback on their new product, which they are going to put on the market. The company creates an offer where they pay you $2 for every e-mail address and zip code you can send them.
The CPA example above is a rather standard type of promotion; others might pay you as much as $40 per lead you generate, but then the lead may require the customer to pay a small payment, as well.
Therefore, all you need to do is generate traffic and send it to a page with the particular offer and watch as the money starts rolling in. Sounds simple, does it not and CPA can be easy, but more often it isn’t.
That is because CPA marketing is so profitable, it’s also majorly competitive. As brand new in the CPA world, you will go head to head with seasoned affiliates that make an impressive amount of money, every day, with their CPA campaigns. Therefore, many that try CPA marketing, gets so frustrated that they just give up.
However, CPA marketing can be very profitable as well, if you do it right from the start, with the right information and tools. As I’m rather new to CPA marketing myself, I will let you know of my own experiences and the tips that I learn, while I get my feet wet in CPA marketing.
In the meantime, you can check out the CPA program from Zero Friction Marketing and see what you think about it.
