Are you interested in going into CPA Marketing? Have you been wondering how to go about it? Finally, you found the right guide. CPA Marketing, which is known as cost per action/acquisition marketing is an affiliate marketing style and model which pays commission to an affiliate when the affiliate facilitate or carry out the completion of a specific action.
It is a performance based marketing model where the affiliate is rewarded for his or her marketing efforts of bringing customers to a business by the business. The lead action in CPA Marketing process may include but not limited to any of getting a quote, making a purchase, filling out a form, signing up for a free trial, watching a video and so on.
The business pays commissions on leads that are successfully converted. If you are a newbie in the ad publishing business, then CPA platforms are the best for you to kick off.
The internet Affiliate Marketing concept was pioneered by the founder of PC flowers and Gifts, William Tobin. Even though PC Flowers and Gifts was launched in 1989, it started the payment of commission on sales in 1998 as the company started to pay Prodigy Networks commission on sales. CPA Marketing has evolved over the years with many other businesses all over the world also adopting the model.
How CPA Marketing Works
How does the CPA Marketing process work? We will find out in this section.
The CPA process is a very simple and straightforward one, as long as the stakeholders and terminologies involved in the CPA are well understood. Before explaining the CPA process in order, we will first take a look at some important terminologies and stakeholders involved in the Affiliate Marketing process. The specific target audience of an affiliate’s marketing efforts is determined by the product type, brand, and the suitable consumers.
An Affiliate/Advertiser/Publisher: An affiliate is an individual or a company who promotes a product, brand or business through online means (Youtube videos, blogs, social media,) or offline means (fliers, designed T-shirt, posters, business cards, and face caps, classified newspaper Ads, word of mouth,) for the purpose of pulling traffic to patronize the product or service of the promoted business. The affiliate gets to earn revenue when the consumer makes purchase of the product or service promoted by the affiliate. An affiliate may be a blogger, content producer,
The Business/Seller/Product Creator: Also called merchant, the business or seller in an affiliate process is the vendor, the maker of the product or service to be marketed. This product or service can be online or physical items such as household things, office goods, tutorials, books, software, and so on.
The Customer/Consumer/Buyer: The CPA chain will not be completed without the consumer. The customer can be tagged the king of the CPA cycle as the customer is the one to do the purchase. A CPA process without the customer is a failed nonexistent one.
Commission/Affiliate Payment: This is the payment that the affiliate receives from each confirmed successful conversion. This payment may be in form of a particular percentage or a flat rate charge.
Chargeback: Chargeback normally occurs when a sale that has already been paid for by an affiliate falls through, fails to get finalized, or the purchased item got returned. The advertiser gets back the previously paid commission.
CPA Affiliate Network: This is the platform that connects the affiliate marketer with the business whose products or services are to be promoted.
EPC (Earnings per click): Earnings per click is the amount earned by an affiliate every time an affiliate link is clicked by a user.
Conversion Rate: Conversion rate is the amount or percentage of the visitor traffic that are successfully converted to customers/buyer.
CPS (Cost-per-Sale)
CPL (Cost-per-lead)
A Breakdown Of How The Process Works
There are offers such as Cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale on CPA affiliate network platforms from vendors or advertisers.
As an affiliate, you select the offer you want to promote and then proceed to create a landing page where you will be sending traffic. A visitor will get redirected to the original Cost-per-action (CPA) offer page any time they click on the affiliate link placed on your landing page.
A set of actions that can fetch more earnings for the affiliate marketer when the visitor concludes them includes any of; signing up for a free trial, filling a form, downloading a video or product purchase.
CPA Marketing Networks with Instant Approval
A CPA network is the platform that connects the affiliate who promotes businesses, products and services to earn money and the businesses that wants promotion for their products or services.
For example, you as an affiliate or a potential one, a blogger or a social media influencer with large perks of following on YouTube and the likes, a business with desire for market expansion and product promotion would definitely wish to have someone like you recommending their product to your large cult-like following.
They will like you to send your audience to their website while you make commission on every sale made by the audience you sent.
Where the CPA network comes in in this process is that it is the CPA network platform that will bring you the affiliate and the business whose product or service is to be promoted together. They are platforms for advertising which give ads for acquiring of apps downloads, business leads, sale of products and services, business sign up and so on.
There are certain defined criteria to qualify an affiliate for acceptance into a CPA network. The networks set up the qualifications for brand protection in order to erase risk of frauds. Almost all CPA networks will expect that you have your own blog or website already as an affiliate before you can be granted approval.
Other qualifications that may be requested for approval on CPA platforms include Youtube channel, another network earning proof, and email list.
Some CPA networks such as Avazu, Clickdealer might deny the application of a CPA marketing newbie due to lack of CPA experience. However, there are many CPA networks whose acceptance does not take much effort to earn. These networks are not just easy to get into, but they are also trustworthy. The platforms can give you instant approval as an affiliate. If you area a beginner in the field, this is the right pool to choose from:
- CPA Prime
- NeverBlue
- Mylead
- MaxBounty
- CPAlance
- Adtrafico
- B2Be Srl
- CPABeko
- LymeAds
- CPA Smile
- VIPAdsNetwork
- CPAMatica
- Imonetizeit
- CPA Best Dealer
- CPABuild
- Peerfly
- CrackRevenue
- VIPOffers
- AdworkMedia
- AffShark
- CPAHub
- Revenue Allies
- Mobldea
- CPAgrip
12 Reasons A CPA Network May Refuse To Approve Your Account
We have mentioned earlier that a CPA network may refuse to grant approval to your account. There are many possible reasons that can be responsible for this. Sometimes you may not be informed about the exact reason while your account approval was rejected. However, here in this part of this post, you are going to know what the possible rejection reasons are so that you can work on any line you have been crossing.
Reasons for non-approval by a CPA network include;
- Incomplete or inaccurate info on the application form
- Low click rate
- Lack of terms and conditions and distinct on site details display
- Too low conversion rate
- Breach of platform terms and conditions
- Lack of phone number, or Skype account
- Unrecognizable brand
- Adult content issues
- Aesthetics does not match the brand
- Low traffic rate
- Website content issues
- Unethical website promotion method
One or more of the points in the above list is the reason your CPA account may get rejected. If you have been getting rejected by CPA networks and you have been wondering why, now you know. Find out where you are crossing the line in the list and make the necessary adjustment.
Best Sources Of Traffic For CPA Offers
One of the best activities for the growth of CPA marketing is the selection of the best traffic sources for your CPA offers.
There are some parameters to consider in order to make the right choice. These include; the amount of traffic available on the traffic source, the traffic source cost, traffic source quality, traffic source rules and regulations, the target audience niche, and so on.
The traffic sources for CPA marketing can be categorized into 2 groups, and they are Paid Traffic and Organic/Free Traffic:
- Paid Traffic
As the name implies is traffic generated through paid promotions, paid advertisements, and paid campaigns. The ads may be placed within an app, on a website, on social media or on Google. When the keyword is searched for, the advert for your website will come up and the user can click on it.
The payment for this kind of traffic is normally made based on cost per click (CPC). It can be a really expensive traffic campaign to run as the advertiser makes payment depending on how many times the advert is clicked on.
Other forms of paid traffic are; website banners advertisement, CPM (cost per thousand) and PPA (pay per acquisition).
2. Organic/Free Traffic
Organic traffic, also called free traffic is a search traffic does not involve spending money, it is completely free. It is traffic that is generated based on results of efforts on SEO and inbound marketing. Organic traffic may actually give slower, less clear-cut results, but in the long run, it is a very cost-effective.
3. Email Advert Traffic Source
Email advert traffic source is a form of advert where contents about a product, service are marketed to the customer by sending email. Important points involved in this traffic generation method are automated campaigns, management and monitoring of email list, and reporting.
4. Social Media Traffic
With reports revealing that 66.6% of the world population now using smartphones (numbering over 5.22 billion individuals), and over 4.2 billion utilize social media across the globe, Social media ads is one of the best sources for CPA offers. This is because it offers the opportunity to reach large swathes of audience just at our fingertips. Connections, sharing blog articles, and so on are traffic optimization activities that can be done on social media. Social Media traffic sources includes but not limited to; Twitter, Instagram, LlinkedIn, Facebook, Snapchat, and Pinterest.
5. Traffic From Push Notifications
The primary reason for push notifications is to enable the mobile user to get instant notifications on his or her device anytime a new email comes in. However, this has emerged a means by which affiliate marketers generate traffic as it is now being made into a powerful advertisement tool.
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization is acknowledged as the best marketing techniques available, either for attracting of organic or paid traffic to your business. It offers a lot of advantages such as continuous traffic flow, cost effectiveness, business growth, and so on.
7. Other Traffic Sources:
PPV (pay per view)
Native Advert format
CPA Marketing Tools You Will Find Very Helpful
Tools are an important part of every work, and it is common knowledge that without them, work does not get done. Selecting the right tools is also important.
Reading around on the internet may have given you a lot of confusion concerning the right tools you need for your CPA marketing, especially if you are a beginner, complete newbie in the field. But here in this part of this piece, you will get the confusions cleared off.
CPA Marketing tools are classified based on their functions and purpose of usage. Some of these tools are paid tools, while some are available for free. Below are helpful CPA Marketing tools for you.
- Spy Tools
Spy tools always make the top on almost all platforms where CPA Marketing is being discussed. Spy tools are a sort of intelligence tool that help in knowing your competitors, compare network performances, locate the best offers, gives landing page ideas, identify campaign targets and successful ads, analyze results and statistics, and make better marketing decisions.
Examples of good CPA Spy tools are: Anstrx, Powerhouse Affiliate, AdPlexity, Spyover.
- Website Building Tools
CPA website building tools includes web hosting tools and domain names. Using a reputable domain registrar is always the best idea, as it can save you some cash, especially if the need for domain name transfer arises later. The tools with the best offers in quality and product are Bluehost, Cloudways, and Namecheap, SiteGround., WPXHosting, HostGator.
- Outsourcing Tools
Outsourcing tools can come in handy in CPA Marketing. Examples of the most popular ones are Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, and so on. Things you can do with services rendered on outsourcing tools includes but not limited to logo designs, mailing lists, blog post creation, ad creation, and so on.
- Tracking tools
If you desire to minimize you cost per click while at the same time optimizing your ROI, using a professional affiliate tracker to track your campaigns is the way to go. Tracking tools help you to know your conversion rate, understand shifts and changes, analyze results and so on.
Available good tracking tools includes; Bemob, Voluum, REDTRACK, thrivehacker, Binom.
- Email Marketing Tools
For effective email campaigns, there is need for email marketing tools to be utilized in lead capturing, and email campaign management. Best email marketing tools include; Thriveleads, Aweber, Constant Contact, Optimizepress, Getresponse, and so on
- SEO, SEM Tools
Search Engine Optimization tools helps in analyzing and optimization of your website in order to give it better visibility on search engines. Examples of good SEO and SEM tools are SurferSEO, Isigraph, KWfinder, SEMRush and so on.
- Other CPA Marketing Tools;
Apart from the tools listed above, other helpful CPA Marketing tool includes;
Video Creator Tools: such as Tubebody, VidlQ
Spelling Checking Tools: Grammarly, Quilbot, Edubirdie
Grammar Checking Tools: Grammarly, Quilbot, Edubirdie
Having the right CPA Marketing tools is very important on your journey to greatness in the CPA Marketing business. CPA tools offer limitless benefits.
You can select from the pool of tools given in each of the groups above. To know the one that will perfectly suit your plans and pocket among the options, you may want to read about each of the options online before choosing. However, what is sure is that the tools listed here in this piece offer amazing services.
Important Payment Methods And Means for CPA Marketers
It is sure you didn’t plan to labour in vain or do charity when you decide to venture into CPA Marketing. We have dealt with affiliate payment types in some part of this piece. They include pay-per-click, pay-per-view, pay-per-action, pay-per-impression, and so on.
In this part, we want to list the CPA payout methods and show you the means to get your earnings from the business. The payment methods include; gift cards, checks, prepaid debit cards, ACH bank transfer, direct electronic deposit, Paypal, Payoneer, Skrill, and Western Union.
Of these options, one of Payoneer, Paypal, or bank transfer, is highly recommended due to the advantages offered by each of them compared to others. Among CPA Marketers, bank transfer and PayPal are the most commonly used payment methods.
Payoneer offers you the ease of cash withdrawal from any ATM anywhere in the world with its MasterCard service. This is a great advantage that cannot be ignored.
Having highlighted some of the benefits of the best of these payment methods, the ball remains in your court now to choose the one you think is most suitable for you. It is a must for a serious CPA marketer to have good payment method(s).
14 Things to Avoid in Order to Succeed in CPA Marketing
If you want to really make it big in the CPA Marketing field and also desire fast growth, there are some mistakes and messy steps you need to avoid at various stages of the CPA process.
However, before going into the things you must avoid, lets mention a few of the things you must do, which includes but not limited to; good knowledge of your products, creation of solid contents, good visitor engagement, CPA marketing success and effort tracking, tests and improvements, focusing on quality leads, and focusing on conversion rates.
If you want to have a successful outing in the CPA Marketing business, you will need to avoid the following;
- Overreliance on organic traffic only
- Poor website design quality
- Promoting too many services or products
- Too focused on selling instead of helping
- Promotion of the wrong products
- Failure to perform keyword research
- Failure to build an email list
- Failure to carry out effort testing or tracking
- Promoting diverse contradictor niches
- Lack of patience, doing CPA Marketing with the mindset that it is a scheme to get rich quick
- Low quality contents, products, and reviews
- Failure to track website performance
- Failure to learn or try new things out
- Failure to stay focused, getting distracted often.
These are the practices and steps to avoid if you really want to succeed in CPA Marketing. Either written or unwritten, cast in stone or not, every game has its rules, and every field has its ethical guidelines. CPA Marketing is no exception.
Follow the ethics, follow the rules and you will build a good CPA Marketing.
Final Words
Building a successful CPA Marketing business takes a lot of patience and perseverance. It is not a Ponzi scheme or a get rich quick avenue. To be sincere, speeding up the journey a bit requires investment. Sure, free tools are available, but there is a limitation to the power and achievement of free, as far as CPA Marketing is concerned.
For example, the free version of a tool like Grammarly does not do deep grammar check. Therefore, a write up that is certified grammatically correct by the free version is still not free of errors. There are important features that free versions of tools would not offer and would need to be paid for. Therefore, get ready to invest not only time, patience and perseverance, but also money and resources into your CPA Marketing business.
The CPA marketing field is more competitive these days, even though it is now richer in resources. Therefore, it is important that you have a good knowledge of your niche. Also, when getting started, make sure to set a good and lucrative plan, decide which product and niche to promote, and put the right guidelines and rules in place.
Having read this piece to the end, you are ready for your journey to success in CPA Marketing. Get started, and you can always come back to this piece for direction in case things sort of get confusing at any part of the journey. Also, please share this post for wider reach and others’ benefit.