A Comprehensive Guide to CPA Marketing in 2024 (Cost Per Acquisition Marketing)

If you’ve ever been involved in affiliate marketing, you might have already heard of CPA marketing. But what is it and how can it help you elevate your brand to new heights? 

CPA marketing, or Cost Per Acquisition marketing, is a powerful strategy that focuses on driving specific actions, such as sales or sign-ups, rather than just clicks or impressions. It offers a win-win scenario for both advertisers and affiliates, ensuring that you only pay for tangible results.

By mastering CPA marketing, you can effectively optimize your advertising budget, increase your return on investment, and ultimately, grow your business to new heights. In this guide, we'll delve into the essentials of CPA marketing, explore its benefits, and provide actionable tips to get you started.

What is CPA Marketing?

CPA, otherwise known as cost per action or cost per acquisition, is an advertising or affiliate marketing model that involves paying your CPA partners a determined commission after a sale occurs or a desired action is completed. With the right affiliates and the right audience, CPA marketing can effectively deliver results. Instead of just driving impressions and clicks, CPA marketing can generate leads and push conversions, enabling businesses to scale up. 

For affiliates, CPA marketing can expand their potential to earn through advertising. Most affiliate marketers partner with different companies in order to diversify their content and CPA offers, which allows them to provide options for their followers or site visitors and various solutions to their distinct pain points. 

CPA marketing has three main categories:

1. Pay per Sale

As the term suggests, pay per sale is when you, the marketer, are paid when a visitor uses your affiliate link and makes a purchase through your partner website.

2. Pay per Action

Affiliates get paid for the leads they’ve generated. Pay per action involves a set of actions that a visitor must perform or complete, such as watching a video, filling out a form, or signing up for a free trial.

3. Recurring Payments

If you can regularly attract new subscribers to your partner website, you’d be able to get regular commissions from the monthly subscription fees.

CPA Networks

CPA networks act as a bridge that links advertisers and publishers. They specialize in implementing cost-per-action campaigns and are the agencies that determine whether or not you’re a legitimate business that can send qualified leads to them. 

Because the premise of making money online without necessarily selling something is so appealing, CPA marketing tends to be exploited. Because of their strict criteria and requirements, joining CPA networks can be challenging. However, it’s not impossible. The key here is to be transparent and take proactive measures that can help you get accepted.

CPA networks aren’t just for experienced affiliate marketers. They’re great for beginners as well. And while joining one can be a bit tricky, it does have a lot of benefits, including:

• ✅  Relatively high payouts
• ✅  Low barrier to entry—affiliate marketers can start with little to no upfront investment
• ✅  A wealth of CPA offers
• ✅  Listings that you can filter according to your expertise or niche

If you’re planning on joining a CPA network, here are some of the best networks for advertisers and publishers. Some of these networks have a minimum payment threshold ranging from $35 to $100:

1. MaxBounty

2. CrakRevenue

3. ClickDealer

4. AdWorkMedia

5. CPAlead

3 Tips on How to Get Accepted by a CPA Network as an Affiliate Marketer

1. Create a website

If you don’t have a website yet, now is the best time to create one. Construct a website that reflects your brand and your skills and experience as an affiliate marketer. You can use WordPress, which is an open source and easy to use CMS platform. Alternatively, you can hire someone else to create and design your website. 

2. Use your domain name in your email

You might also want to consider creating an email that includes your domain name and looks like this: “[email protected]”. Some CPA networks might instantly reject applications that use a free email address, as these are easy to create and don’t provide verification that you actually own the website. 

3. Start with your local CPA networks

If you’re just starting out, it’s a good idea to start applying to local or smaller CPA networks. You can apply for the bigger and more popular ones once you’ve gained enough experience with CPA marketing. Bigger CPA networks also typically receive a large number of applications, which can make it more grueling for you to get in. 

Once you get accepted to a CPA network, you can start browsing for offers that fit your niche. After selecting the offers, you can start promoting them on your website.

CPA Niches

Whether you’re starting a blog or selling on Amazon, focusing on a niche is one of the most effective ways to gain organic traffic while establishing yourself as a subject matter expert. 

Not every niche has the potential to be profitable. As an affiliate marketer, you have to find a lucrative niche where you can excel at. Here are some of the top CPA marketing niches that are worth considering:

• Mobile apps
• Health
• Finance
• Relationship
• Jobs or Career

Given that these are broad categories, you can opt to choose smaller sub-niches to create more personalized content. For example, if you’ve chosen the health niche, you can focus on sub-niches such as weight loss, fitness, or skincare. 

Finding Your Niche

With the variety of niches available, how can you find the best one for your brand? Aside from picking a niche based on your expertise, you also have to consider fields of interest that have a big audience and are evergreen. 

1. Research is key

Research is imperative when finding niches. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools you can use, such as Quantcast and Google AdWords. These can help you generate statistics and analytics that you can use to gain more insight on the market. 

2. Use Google AdWords

Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner lets you filter niche keywords, as well as check their performance and potential profitability through their cost per click. 

3. Find CPA offers

You can explore third-party sites, like OfferVault, to find relevant offers under your niche. These platforms enable you to filter results by traffic sources and payment models. Given the wealth of offers on these sites, it’s best to choose projects that are reputable to avoid the risk of visitors leaving your site. 

4. Join a CPA network

CPA networks, such as Amazon Associates, give you access to a wealth of offers and some even offer generous commissions. Many CPA offers require you to join their parental network. While joining one can be rewarding for affiliate marketers, getting in isn’t always easy. 

CPA Marketing vs. Affiliate Marketing

While both CPA marketing and affiliate marketing are performance-based strategies, they differ in how affiliates earn their commissions.

In CPA marketing, you get paid every time a specific action is completed, such as generating a lead, filling out a form, or signing up for a service. This model does not require the visitor to make a purchase, making it easier to earn commissions.

On the other hand, traditional affiliate marketing only rewards you when a sale is made through your referral link, which often requires more effort to convert visitors into buyers.

How Does CPA Marketing Work?

We’ve already established that CPA marketing operates on a cost per action basis. As the marketer, you’re free to choose which offers you want to promote, which can either be cost-per-sale (CPS) offers or cost-per-lead (CPL) offers. 

The process itself is pretty straightforward:

• You sign up for a CPA affiliate network where you’ll find CPA offers from advertisers or vendors.
• You’ll then select the type of offer you want to promote, which could either be CPS or CPL.
• You’ll then create a landing page to which you’ll be sending traffic.
• When a visitors clicks on the affiliate link on your landing page, they’ll be redirected to the original CPA offer page.
• The affiliate marketer will earn money once a visitor completes a desired set of actions, which could include purchasing a product, signing up for a free trial, or completing a form.

The Benefits of CPA Marketing

The benefits of CPA marketing include the following:

• Connecting brands with customers and generating sales
• Increasing brand visibility 
• Being a relatively low-risk marketing strategy

Aside from these, CPA marketing also offers other benefits for businesses, including:

1. Ease of set up

CPA marketing technically requires only two things: a website and a CPA network. Once you’ve set up your website, you can join a CPA network and start looking for offers within your niche. 

2. No upfront payment

With CPA marketing, there’s no need to pay affiliate marketers upfront or pay them for site visits that don’t turn into conversions. 

3. Potential to earn a higher ROI

It has a low barrier to entry and is more affordable in the long run. Instead of focusing on digital ad campaigns for impressions or clicks, which won’t necessarily guarantee conversions, you can instead zero in on CPA marketing. 

4. Expanding your reach

CPA marketing has the potential to expand your audience. By partnering with influencers, you’d essentially be getting your products in front of more people. Many influencers have already built up a huge following on their social media platforms. This allows you to diversify your distribution, which, in turn, can help your business scale up faster. 

How is CPA Calculated?

Your CPA lets you determine how much it costs to acquire a new conversion. It’s essentially the value of one acquisition on the basis of your paid ads and can apply to other sales and marketing campaigns, such as sales calls and Google Ads PPC. 

Calculating your campaign’s CPA follows a simple formula. First, determine which time period and marketing campaign you want to calculate the CPA for. Then, use Google Ads’ formula for getting the average CPA:

Note that this formula relates to one marketing channel. If you’re incorporating multiple channels for your campaigns, you have to consider factors such as:

• ✅  Software used to optimize and analyze your ads
• ✅  External marketing efforts
• ✅  Equipment or utilities used in your multi-channel campaigns

CPA Promotion Methods

There are different ways to promote your CPA campaigns. Here are some of the popular CPA promotional methods you can use:

1. Sales or landing page

The sales or landing page serves as the first point of contact for your visitors. It allows them to learn more about the product or service that’s being promoted. To engage your visitors and to prevent getting high bounce rates, try to keep your landing page fun, simple, and informative. 

You can utilize eye-catching graphics that accompany product information, or you can turn your landing page into something more interactive by adding quizzes or games. 

2. A review website

Alternatively, you can use your website as a review website where you feature products from your affiliate partner. The products reviewed will contain links back to your affiliate partner’s website, where visitors can complete an action or make a purchase. 

Optimizing Your CPA Costs

How can you maximize your per acquisition costs while generating content and ads that can pave the way for more conversions? You want your CPA ads to perform well and rank high. To help you optimize your CPA costs, here are some tips you can follow:

1. Keep your audience curious

When promoting a CPA offer, it’s not enough to just create compelling ads or an engaging landing page. You also need to bank on your audience’s curiosity. Create ads that encourage them to click on your link or know more about the product you’re promoting. Try crafting intriguing content or eye-catching graphics while still highlighting the product’s benefits. 

2. Design a compelling landing page

A landing page doesn’t always have to be elaborate. It can be simple yet powerful. Moreover, it has to help your audience learn more about what you’re promoting while still being clear and convincing. 

3. Don’t just focus on clicks or impressions

Clicks and impressions are good, but they don’t necessarily guarantee conversions. To optimize your CPA, focus your efforts on gaining conversions. Remember that your goal is to encourage your audience to perform a desired action. 

2024 CPA Marketing Best Practices 

Consider working with an Affiliate Manager

For brands, working with an Affiliate Manager can help you make the most out of your CPA campaigns. Their duties include:

• Reviewing offers and providing insight on which offers to prioritize
• Curating content for more effective promotion
• Connecting you with top-performing affiliates
• Negotiating contracts with your affiliates
• Monitoring your ROI

Track your campaigns

After promoting your selected CPA offers, you need to track your campaigns and their performance, along with any issues that may come up. Some of the important factors you need to monitor to assess the effectivity of your campaigns include:

• ✅  Traffic source
• ✅  PPC ads
• ✅  Keywords or landing pages that encourage conversions

Avoid joining unreliable or shady CPA networks

Dubious networks thrive in the world of CPA marketing. To avoid working with these types of networks, do thorough research. Avoid CPA networks with bad reviews. You can check CPA network reviews on sites such as oDigger. 

Be knowledgeable about click fraud and scam offers

Unfortunately, CPA marketing isn’t immune to fraud and scams. Scam offers usually pay as little as $1 for a simple task. When researching for CPA offers, avoid promoting offers such as online flash games and get-rich-quick promos. Regarding click fraud, invalid clicks from bots can negatively affect your CPA. This can result in you spending more for your campaigns while receiving lower return on ad spend (ROAS). To prevent invalid clicks, you can consider using click fraud prevention software. 

Final Thoughts

While the prospect of CPA marketing may be intimidating at first, it doesn’t always have to be. Once you’ve gained a good understanding of CPA marketing and how it works, you can start joining CPA networks and promoting your chosen CPA offers. 

The key to a successful CPA marketing campaign is to always stay updated. Trends are constantly changing, and you’ll always have competition. There are several resources and tools online that can help you learn more about CPA marketing and how you can address the challenges that may arise along the way. 

About the Author

Geri Mileva

Writer

Geri Mileva, an experienced IP network engineer and distinguished writer at Influencer Marketing Hub, specializes in the realms of the Creator Economy, AI, blockchain, and the Metaverse. Her articles, featured in The Huffington Post, Ravishly, and various other respected newspapers and magazines, offer in-depth analysis and insights into these cutting-edge technology domains. Geri's technological background enriches her writing, providing a unique perspective that bridges complex technical concepts with accessible, engaging content for diverse audiences.