CPA is a payment model in marketing that is used when a user performs certain actions. Recently, this format of cooperation has become very popular as many specialists are looking for an opportunity to make good money on the Internet.
One of the important parties involved in CPA marketing are CPA affiliate programs or CPA networks. Such networks enter into agreements with the owners of advertising platforms and affiliate marketers on the one hand, and advertising companies on the other. Thus, the CPA network acts as an intermediary between those who provide traffic and those who are interested in this traffic.
One of the main advantages of CPA marketing is that the advertiser pays only for a specific targeted action performed by the user. At the same time, the affiliate marketer can receive remuneration in two forms: either a percentage of each transaction, or a fixed rate.
Depending on the target action assigned by the advertiser, there are several most popular types of CPA models:
· CPS (Cost Per Sale) — payment for the sale of a product or service;
· CPI (Cost Per Install) — payment for installing a program or application;
· CPL (Cost Per Lead) — payment for a confirmed lead;
· CPV (Cost Per Visit) — pay per visit to an advertiser’s landing page.
In addition to an effective payment model, affiliate programs are beneficial for businesses in that they allow you to set some rules. For example, a company owner can limit the list of promotion tools and allowed traffic channels. This helps you get better quality traffic that generates more revenue.
There are three parties involved in the CPA model
In CPA affiliate programs, there are several main parties involved and each of them performs important functions.
Advertiser is a business owner or company that sells its products or services online. The goal of the advertiser is to attract the attention of customers to their product and thus increase its sales. In the CPA marketing model, the advertiser signs an agreement with the network and draws up commercial offers with product descriptions, their promotion conditions and offers regarding payment for target actions. When placing an offer, the advertiser also indicates the desired geography as well as allowed and prohibited traffic sources.
Typically, offers from similar categories are combined into verticals. Thus, the most popular verticals of recent years are groups of offers for nutra, e-commerce, dating, betting, finance and other categories that do not lose their relevance among users.
Affiliate marketer is a specialist who drives traffic to the advertiser’s offers. A webmaster can be the owner of an advertising platform (website, blog, community in social networks, media) – in this case, he uses his own resource to attract the attention of the audience and places ads there that lead to the advertiser’s landing page.
The affiliate marketer can also buy traffic through other popular communication channels. At the same time, they have a huge number of tools, combining them in such a way as to get maximum conversions. To effectively redirect traffic, the affiliate marketer must take into account many important factors: the features of the offer, the region where the product is advertised, the popularity of a particular site. But one of the most important factors is the target audience, its demographics, interests, preferences, and problems that can be solved with the product.
Information about the target audience allows you to choose the most effective traffic channels. So, affiliate marketers often use social networks, banners, native and contextual advertising, landing pages, newsletters, notifications and other traffic sources. The main rule in this case is to follow the conditions set by advertisers and not violate the bans on certain traffic channels.
Affiliate network is a platform that acts as an intermediary between advertisers and affiliate marketers. For example, in a commodity affiliate program, the advertiser places their offers and the affiliate marketers select among them offers they agree to promote for a fee set by the business owner. At the same time, the affiliate network receives a percentage of the profit from the product sale.
This is a mutually beneficial format of cooperation, since commodity CPA networks offer affiliate marketers good conditions, provide support from experienced marketers and managers, often have their own call centers for order processing, provide statistics to both parties and guarantee prompt payments to affiliate marketers. Some affiliate CPA programs can also act as direct advertisers. In this case, the number of participants in the traffic driving process is reduced and each of them receives more profit.
What kind of business is affiliate marketing suitable for?
If you have your own business, you should consider promoting your products or services through CPA marketing. This model is used by both large companies and private entrepreneurs, since for some business sectors CPA is a very profitable way to expand the target audience through high-quality traffic from various sources.
Not all companies decide to work directly with affiliate marketers because of the high risk of encountering fraudsters, and CPA affiliate programs guarantee the security of transactions and the quality of traffic.
But such a marketing model will be effective under certain conditions:
1. You must be ready to offer competitive rates, because affiliate marketers’ income depends on them, and an adequate price for the product itself.
2. High efficiency in working with commodity CPA networks is shown by novelty products that have recently appeared on the market, and goods from the mass market category (cosmetics, dietary supplements, electronics and other popular niches).
3. It is desirable that your product be retail-oriented.
4. Good results depend on the range of your target audience.
5. The effectiveness of offers is influenced by various bonuses, discounts and gifts that you are ready to provide to customers.
If we talk about activity areas, the CPA model is most suitable for a business that sells consumer products and deals with online services (dating, betting, games). High performance can be achieved by companies that own online stores, travel agencies and services, banks, financial institutions, mobile application owners.
Benefits of CPA marketing for business
From the point of view of a business owner, cooperation with a CPA network opens up a lot of opportunities for attracting customers. A clear advantage of this model is that the advertiser pays for specific targeted user actions that bring the expected result. Thus, the owner can precisely plan their budget.
Other benefits of CPA marketing for businesses include:
· return on investment;
· quality of incoming traffic;
· delegation of some marketing activities to experienced specialists;
· wider audience of a product or service;
· increased brand awareness and loyalty;
· activation of many traffic channels at once.
How to get started with CPA
If you decide that the CPA model is right for your business, you can move on to the next important step – choosing an affiliate network. There are several factors to pay special attention to:
· Openness of the company. Affiliate programs are a close-knit community where representatives of different networks often know each other. It is great if the selected CPA network is a well-known player in the market with a good reputation. To learn more about the company, first look for information about it on the net, read reviews from affiliate marketers and other advertisers.
· Amount of traffic and cases. If a commodity affiliate program has a lot of offers with high traffic rates, this is a good sign. It is also worth asking about the company’s successful cases. The more successful cases it has, the higher the trust in the network will be.
· Quality control department. It is worth choosing a CPA network that has its own quality control department. This reduces the number of potential risks and guarantees the reliability of the deal.
· Transparent statistics. This is a very important factor influencing the effectiveness of cooperation. Make sure that the affiliate program provides high-quality, transparent and extensive statistics. This helps to analyze traffic, its real volume and quality, and the appropriateness of using audience sources. In addition, transparent statistics reduce the risk of fraud by affiliate marketers.
Today, CPA marketing is a very profitable format of interaction for both the advertiser and the affiliate marketer. The reason for this is the rapid development of online technologies, including advertising.
If you have been looking for an efficient, cost-effective and modern method of promoting your product or service for a long time, choose the CPA model. At the same time, the most convenient format will be working through affiliate programs that guarantee a number of significant advantages for both parties.
