If you’re looking for a newbies’ guide to mastering the secrets of CPA marketing, you’ve come to the right place. While online sites promise to provide an insider’s guide to CPA marketing profits, there are key factors that they overlook. But don’t worry, we will lay out the unheard-of CPA marketing tips for you.

Whether you’re growing your own online empire or starting as a freelancer, CPA marketing is the perfect way to earn money. Though you can only get as much as you put in. This type of marketing requires consistent effort every month. If you’re lazy and skip a month, you won’t make nearly as much money! Once you’ve worked yourself up, you can miss a few days and still make money. But it takes some dedicated time to get there.

Luckily, there are a variety of tricks that publishers can use to successfully use CPA marketing. From the best practices to how CPA is calculated, keep reading for the best CPA marketing techniques!

What is Affiliate Marketing?

To understand this CPA marketing guide, you need first to understand affiliate marketing. Whenever you see a partnership between a publisher and a business, that’s affiliate marketing. If your favorite influencer is promoting discount codes, that’s affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing has seeped into every type of online advertisement. That’s because it’s one of the easiest ways to make money, passive or active.

When a publisher teams up with a brand, both parties benefit. The affiliate network provides referral links that are unique to a publisher partnering with a particular brand. These links allow affiliates to track how much user traffic each publisher generates.

Once a publisher receives these links, there are a few types of commissions that an affiliate can use. Some of the most popular commission methods include:

  • Cost per click;
  • Cost per thousand impressions;
  • Cost per sale;
  • Cost per action;

 
The oldest affiliate commission type is being paid per click. Whenever a user clicks through on any of your affiliate ads, you’ll be compensated for each click.

Though this method is slowly being replaced by cost per sale.

This is where a publisher is paid every time a customer makes a purchase using their affiliate link. Affiliates can better pay publishers with the sales they receive through this commission.

Cost per action is the commission model that CPA marketing is based on. CPA marketing is a type of affiliate marketing that focuses on cost-per-action income. Within this model, there are a few different actions users can take that can generate income.

What is CPA Marketing?

If you haven’t gotten it yet, CPA marketing is a special type of affiliate marketing. CPA marketing focuses on income generated through Cost Per Action.

This way, the actions that generate income are usually outlined in the description section of an affiliate program.

The most common user actions that generate income are:

  • Filling out contact details;
  • Registering on the affiliate website;
  • Attempting a free trial;
  • Subscribing to any service;
  • Purchasing any product;
  • Signing up for email notifications;
  • Getting a quote.

 
While a publisher can earn more from this type of advertising, it’s a difficult action to track. If a user enters the affiliate site using a referral link, then the publisher can be compensated.

But if someone saw an ad and organically searched for the affiliate, it can’t be tracked back to the publisher. That’s why certain websites ask how you found the website or who recommended it to you.

Different affiliate companies provide different cost-per-action methods.

You could spend the time looking for an affiliate yourself, but you’d be digging through heaps of scams. Using a tool like Admitad Partner Network is the best way to find a trustworthy affiliate. Admitad not only connects you to high-end brands but also mediates mutually beneficial relationships.

Join Partner Network Now!

While your eyes might light up at how quickly CPA marketing can make money, it takes dedicated hard work. You can’t expect to work one month and be set for the rest of the year. You’ll need to promote your affiliate links as much as you can. Consistency is key when it comes to returning customers!

The Benefits of CPA Marketing

At this point, you might be thinking that CPA marketing is more effort than it’s worth. Don’t let the work required scare you away from the potential benefits to you and your business. CPA marketing is useful in many ways, including:

  • Increases your reach;
  • Little to no start-up costs;
  • Low risk of income loss;
  • Easy to implement;
  • Extremely profitable.

 
CPA marketing is one of the few ways to earn money without any initial investments. How many people do you know who make up to $100,000 a year from their jobs? Well, skilled publishers can and do. Maybe the amount varies each month, but is there much difference between 100k and 105k? When your goal is a simple 5k a month, that’s more than you’ll ever need.

The greatest benefit of CPA marketing is that there are few ways to actually lose money. If your ads aren’t generating revenue, your balance will simply stay where it is. Unless you have to pay for extra marketing tools and affiliate subscriptions!

Did you know that joining Admitad Partner Network is totally free of charge! First you join, next you create an ad space, then you promote your links and, finally, you get rewarded. As simple as that!

Join Partner Network Now!

Anyone can start CPA marketing, as long as they’ve got a device and an internet connection. It’s as easy as setting up a social media account and posting pictures. Even teenagers are trying it out to make some pocket money.

The skills needed only depend on the complexity of the products you advertise. As long as you’ve picked a niche you know, you can easily implement CPA marketing! There are thousands of niches available; don’t limit yourself to one you struggle to promote.

Step by Step Guide to CPA Marketing

The best way to approach CPA marketing is step-by-step. You first need to understand how your income is calculated; there’s a special CPA formula.

This shows the potential income you stand to make. Then you’ll need to incorporate CPA marketing best practices. Followed by the amazing opportunities that lie within collaborative efforts. Influencers earn so much because they know when and how to collaborate!

Once you’ve got these in place, you can then use key marketing tools to further expand your audience. Using proper marketing strategies, your CPA marketing will reach your desired revenue goals.

Yes, you can follow all of the following tips to build the best CPA marketing strategies. But if you don’t execute it properly, your income will stay below average.

To utilize these tips to the fullest, you must put in the right amount of effort every day. Plus, honest customer interactions—even after they buy something—make the biggest difference!

How is CPA Calculated?

Both businesses and publishers used a set formula to work out CPA costs. The formula calculates the average cost per action. This is done by dividing the total advertisement costs by the number of conversions. The formula is as follows:

Average CPA = Total Conversion Costs / Number of Conversions

This allows a company to calculate the average cost of advertising. Let’s say they have $6000 marked for advertising. If their publishers brought in 1200 conversions altogether, each action is worth $5.

A publisher can also use this formula to work out their average CPA. If you make two conversions for your affiliate, one worth $8 and one worth $6, then your average cost per action is $7.

While it’s great to know how much you’ll earn per user action, you’ve also got to define which actions are most profitable.

Each affiliate pays based on different user interactions. While an affiliate may offer $20 per viewer who purchases a product, you may only get 3 viewers to do so. While another could be offering $3 per user to sign up purely for email notifications. But you can manage to get 100 people to do that instead.

The first affiliate might be offering a higher CPA, but you’ll only earn $90. This means you’ll miss out on the potential $300 from the alternative affiliate.

It doesn’t matter which actions your affiliate is offering compensation for. As long as it’s something you can get enough viewers for every month. Otherwise, your marketing efforts will come to a dead end!

CPA Best Practices

Whenever someone sets up an online profile—for freelancing or CPA marketing—there are basic practices they all forget about. Some of the most obvious, but most neglected, include:

  • Picking a niche you actually like;
  • Finding an affiliate that you trust;
  • Avoiding network scams and pyramid schemes;
  • Placing more importance on quality over income;
  • Putting your customers’ needs first;
  • Frequently optimizing SEO.

 
The most overlooked practice of CPA marketing is picking a topic you enjoy. Most people go straight for the niches that claim to make publishers a 100K a month. But you’ll almost certainly never get there. Rather, go for products you enjoy marketing.

The worst part of CPA marketing is wading through the endless pyramid schemes. You know, the ones that promise a large payout if you invest a certain amount first? But at the end of the day, you’re left with an empty bank account and two months of wasted time.

That’s why it’s crucial to find a trustworthy affiliate if you want to be paid for the work you do!

The biggest mistake publishers make when advertising is focusing on money over customer needs. At the end of the day, your money comes from the viewers you’re neglecting.

If someone gives you a recommendation or has an issue with the way you’re doing things, listen to them. Online users aren’t always right, but at least take what they have to say into consideration. The more happy customers are, the more they will buy!

The Power of Collaboration

The best secret that this CPA affiliate marketing guide can give you is this: Collaboration is the key to making money online.

While you can put in as much effort as you want to alone, the help others can offer is exponential. Since many publishers advertise the same content, it makes sense that they would team up. Who else would have the same potential audience that you need as your competitors?

The world has been run by sports and competition for a long time. But that doesn’t have to define the way we work. It takes both companies more effort to fight against each other and steal viewers from each other.

The same effort can easily go into joint promotions. This way, both parties can double their audience instead of losing it to the other.

The most common ways publishers, influencers, and businesses collaborate include:

  • Influencer gifting;
  • Giveaways;
  • Competitions;
  • Guest blogging;
  • Account takeovers;
  • Sponsored content.

 
Whatever collaboration route you take, make sure to monetize anything you post through social media. Most platforms have a way for you to monetize your account. Usually by reaching a certain number of views or subscribers on your channel.

However, ConvertSocial is a tool you can use to immediately monetize any account you have. From messaging apps like WhatsApp to professional platforms like LinkedIn, ConvertSocial has you covered!

Any type of collaboration takes a certain level of social skills. If you struggle with communication, rather look at indirect advertising methods. Such as blogging or using display ads.

Marketing Tools and Strategies

Speaking of needing help, there are a bunch of marketing tools at your disposal. Any of the following tools will make your CPA marketing efforts much easier:

Flippa. This website lets you buy an affiliate site, so you don’t have to make one from scratch. Most of the sites have a strong backlink profile, which improves your SEO.

SEMRush. This is great for finding the right keywords for your content. As well as for competitor analysis and SEO optimization.

AHrefs. This is a very similar tool to SEMRush. Though AHrefs places more importance on backlinking than actual on-page SEO.

Using whichever tools you select, you can greatly improve your marketing strategies. The most popular strategies that publishers use online include:

 
Hopefully it has stuck by now, but just in case you need more convincing… Make sure to SEO-optimize every single thing you post.

You’ll thank yourself in the future.

As well as get help.

You can’t advertise all your products by yourself. There are tons of influencers who will happily collaborate with you.

Classic forms of marketing are being overlooked, but they are classics for a reason. They actually work when you implement them properly.

Email marketing is a great example. Those who do still send out emails have lost touch of the email marketing art form. The same goes for newspaper ads, paper flyers, and word-of-mouth.

The most popular advertising strategy of our generation is social media marketing. Since there are so many networks to choose from, anyone can advertise in any way they’d like. They just have to direct that content to users and platforms that will accept it.

Social media allows for the most diverse content. There’s always someone out there who likes how you do something!

Conclusion

CPA marketing can make or break your advertising efforts. If you do it properly, you could stand to triple your revenue. If you mess it up, you could lose your entire audience. Luckily, when it comes to affiliate marketing, you can always start over.

There are so many niches available for everyone to choose from. You can go to a part of the Internet where no one has heard of you before and try again!

As long as you’re willing to keep going, you can make it big with CPA marketing. The only thing standing in your way is your own procrastination and belief that you aren’t capable. But you are more than capable enough. Anyone is capable with the right effort!