AFF - CPA Networks - What Are They?

Actually, what you may really want to ask at this point is: What is CPA Affiliate Marketing? It's really not too complicated. CPA Advertising refers to a strategy called "Cost Per Action" marketing. What actually happens is that an affiliate is paid a commission each time a person follows the link they have provided to the company's website and takes some specified action. Typically, this might involve providing some sort of personal date (perhaps Name, email address, and zip code) into a registration form. Another example might be one in which the prospect must download a toolbar to their browser, or accept a free trial of a product.

In today's highly competitive marketplace, companies need a lot of advertising exposure to remain competitive. The primary idea is to have widespread exposure and to have contact with a large group of potential customers. When this is accomplished, the audience for the business is established, and the marketing efforts can begin in earnest.

CPA advertising is rapidly becoming one of the most desirable ways to advertise online. CPA (sometimes also known as PPA, or pay per action) sets up a situation in which the marketer earns a commission each time a visitor completes a particular action specified by the client company.

The business itself must decide what type of action it wants its potential customers to take. The action could, in some instances, be purchasing a trial product or introductory service from the company. More often, it could involve filling in a short form to obtain information about the product or services provided by the company, or just signing up with the company's website. Based on the action, the advertising costs (or commissions paid to the affiliate) will vary.

When it initiates a CPA campaign, a company agrees to pay out a specific commission each time a new person visits the company's website and takes a specified action while on that site. The exact details of that required action are specified in the details of the campaign. By setting the ground rules in this manner, the business is able to collect a list of highly qualified prospects for its business, while only paying for the visitors who actually seem, at least, to have some interest in what the company has to offer. This list of highly qualified prospects can then make all that much easier to complete the actual sales at a later time.

By establishing an advertising campaign using CPA, a company can generate large amounts of traffic for its website, but under the terms of the campaign, it will only pay a commission when a prospective customer completes the desired action while at the website. This is the probable future for Internet affiliate marketing - or at least a much larger part of it. It amounts to to paying only for results, not just traffic - results which are much more likely to bring in real business.

For an affiliate participating in this type of program, there is one major advantage over conventional sales affiliate marketing: In sales, the affiliate won't receive the commission unless someone spends money and buys something - and then they have to worry about returns. For the affiliate who is running a CPA campaign, however, the barrier to be cleared to earn his or her commission is much easier: the prospect simply has to to agree to provide the requested information, or accept a free trial offer, or download some free software, and the commission is received by the affiliate.