CPA marketing also referred to as cost per action marketing, is a sort of the affiliate marketing model that gives a commission to the affiliate when a selected action is completed.
The lead actors are often anything from making a sale to getting a quote, watching a video, or filling out a form.
How Does CPA Marketing Work?
The CPA model may be a simple concept once you break down into how it works and who’s involved.
Affiliate or Publisher: The influencer (blogger, brand, business) that promotes a business or product so as to drive traffic to the eCommerce site and make a selected conversion.
Business or Advertiser: The brand that desires a partnership with an affiliate to drive quality traffic to the business’ website and increase sales, generate leads, or boost conversions.
CPA Network: The platform that brings together the affiliate who wants to form money by promoting products and therefore the businesses that want their products promoted.
Let’s say a well-liked cooking blogger named Lisa (our affiliate during this story) features a healthy following of YouTube subscribers and blog readers.
She learned the way to start a blog to form living in her kitchen—trying new recipes and recommending specific brands and products to her audience.
After developing a guest blogging strategy, increasing web traffic, and building a cult following, her cooking crowd is keen to shop for subsequent kitchen gadgets she recommends.
Easy Cooking manufactures high-quality kitchen gadgets – from cutting boards and measuring cups, to professional mixers and food processors. They’re looking to expand their marketing reach and would like to cash in of Lisa’s audience of budding chefs.
CPA Network Terminology
CPA network terminology isn’t complicated, but there are a couple of key terms you ought to know as you launch.
Affiliate Manager: an individual who manages an affiliate program for a merchant. they’re liable for recruiting, engaging with affiliates, and generating revenue for the merchant.
Category: The niche that the CPA offer applies (sports, fashion, beauty, health, etc).
Chargeback: When a purchase “falls through” for an action an affiliate has already purchased. Since the sale was never finalized or an item was returned. The previously given commission is deducted back to the advertiser’s account.
Commission: The payment an affiliate receives—either a flat rate or percentage—once a successful conversion is tracked.
Contextual link: A text link placed within an affiliate website that links to the advertiser’s website.
Conversion rate: the share rate at which a specific action is performed. In other words, the number of successful conversions divided by the entire traffic.
Cookies: In affiliate marketing, cookies are wont to assign a singular ID to a user who has clicked the affiliate link to an advertiser’s site for a selected duration. The affiliate will receive credit for the conversion during this predefined window, typically 30-90 days.
Cost per action (CPA): a web advertising strategy that permits an advertiser to buy a specified action from a target customer.
Earnings per click (EPC): the typical amount an affiliate earns whenever a user clicks an affiliate link.
Offer page: The webpage where the conversion occurs after a visitor takes the specified action.
Return on investment (ROI): Refers to the quantity of cash made with a campaign.
The advantages of CPA Marketing
CPA marketing is extremely profitable once you target the proper audience (as an affiliate) and connect with quality influencers (as a business).
Compared to other e-commerce marketing channels, the value per action formula offers a variety of advantages, including:
1. Easy to line up
CPA marketing is straightforward to launch: you simply need an internet site and a CPA network.
It takes little or no capital upfront to use this marketing technique.
y using your own website and selecting a CPA offer, you’ll begin getting traffic from affiliate sites soon.
2. Pay After the Sale
You’re not paying for traffic that doesn’t convert. If an affiliate’s referrals continuously offer low-rate conversions, diversify your affiliates and shift your focus to a more successful influencer.
3. Low Risk
Because no payment is formed to the publisher unless a referred visitor converts to a customer or completes a selected task, the danger is low for eCommerce businesses.
4. High ROI
Affiliate marketing generates 16 percent of all online marketing. CJ by Conversant’s Affiliate Customer Insights reveals that customers spend extra money when making a sale off an affiliate’s recommendation.
This means these sorts of marketing campaigns drive a far better quality of traffic and offer a far better value than most traffic sources.
Affiliate marketing produces:
58% higher average customer revenue.
31% higher per customer order average.
21% higher average order value (AOV).
Plus, the more sales you drive, the upper your commissions are often. as an example, the BigCommerce affiliate program starts at a 200% bounty payment and goes higher supported sales volume.
5. Expand Marketing Reach
CPA marketing gives you scale and distribution. You get to scale your brand message faster and more consistently to the most important possible audience.
Whether your brand is in fashion, electronics, home and garden, pet supplies, beauty, or almost anything, most business verticals use CPA marketing.
Take Bliss, a skincare and wonder line, for instance.
Their affiliate program provides a tenth CPA payout on all sales.
Now beauty influencers, bloggers, and media sites have the tools to simply promote them, receive a tenth commission on all sales, and expand their affiliate marketing reach.
In every vertical, there’s nearly always an affiliate website available for partnerships through a CPA affiliate network.
Spread your brand awareness by reaching the affiliate’s audience—a group you’ll haven’t otherwise reached.
CPA Marketing Tips & Best Practices
CPA affiliate marketing isn’t a “set it and forget it” method.
You must invest the time to cultivate a relationship together with your CPA affiliates to make a robust conversion funnel to stay improving your conversion rates.
CPA Marketing Trends
Following the most well-liked CPA marketing trends. In 2020 will increase your revenue and help create a strategic approach for next year’s digital marketing plan.
CPA marketing is predicted to expand to developing countries in 2020 and beyond.
CPA marketing should have attention on the copy instead of pop-ups and headlines.
Influencer marketing will begin to overlap into CPA marketing. Giving many new e-commerce businesses even more reason to hitch CPA affiliate networks.
Ecommerce businesses will shift some of their budgets from traditional marketing (PPC, social media, and banner ads) to affiliate and performance marketing.
Reliable CPA affiliate marketing networks will still increase transparency and offer the data-driven information that clients demand.