CPA Marketing: An Ultimate Guide to Generate and Maximize CPA sales (2024 Version)

To run a successful online brand, business owners like yourself rely on web traffic. But here’s the problem: web traffic is challenging enough to generate, and not every user converts. So, let’s introduce CPA marketing.

Some businesses drive a decent amount of web traffic, but this isn’t always consistent. Others don’t achieve their web traffic or conversion goals.

You may be wondering “what is CPA affiliate marketing?” and “Is CPA marketing legit?” – let the statistics tell you. Thanks to affiliate marketing (what CPA marketing pretty much is), your customer revenue can skyrocket by 58%.

Are you intrigued by CPA marketing? Then you’ll want to know that more than 16% of all e-commerce orders in the US are due to affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to be an affiliate marketing genius to start a CPA marketing campaign. This article will reveal the top CPA marketing tools for a lucrative campaign and what CPA advertising can do for your business.

What is CPA marketing?

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) marketing is affiliate-oriented marketing, where you pay your affiliates commission every time users perform a specific action on your website using their affiliate link. These actions include purchasing a product/service, subscribing, or filling out a quote form.

There are three primary types of CPA affiliate marketing:

1. Pay per Action: You’ll pay the affiliate commission for lead generation-based actions. For example, when a user signs up for a free trial or completes a form.
2. Pay per Sale: Affiliates get paid when users purchase through your website using their affiliate link.
3. Recurring Payments: When affiliates consistently get more subscribers to your website, they’ll earn a steady commission per subscriber.

CPA affiliate marketing might sound a little confusing. As you understand which parties are involved, it becomes much clearer. Let’s take a look at this:

1. Affiliate Marketer or Publisher: This is the marketer you pay to drive web traffic to your site and convince users to take your desired action.
2. Business or Website Partner: In this case, this is your brand. You’ll partner up with an affiliate to accomplish your website goals. These goals are often expanding your subscriber list or maximizing your sales.
3. CPA Network: This platform connects the business or website partner with the affiliate marketer or publisher. CPA networks act as a middleman between your business and the affiliate.

 

Although some business owners don’t take this step, you can expand your knowledge of CPA through a free CPA marketing training course. You can find courses like this on Udemy and Coursesity.

5 Benefits of a CPA Marketing Campaign

If you’ve looked at the 4 powerful affiliate marketing programs, you’ll understand the impact of affiliate marketing techniques like CPA marketing. There are multiple reasons why CPA is a fantastic way to maximize your profits and achieve your conversion goals. Let’s go through these benefits.

Setting up a CPA Marketing Campaign is Easy

Once you understand the mechanics of CPA marketing, setting up the campaign is quick and easy. Attending a CPA marketing course before starting your campaign will help, but it’s not compulsory.
You need three components to start your CPA campaigns. The first is a functional website, the second is a CPA offer, and the third is a CPA network. After nailing down these three must-haves, you can start your campaign immediately.

Only Pay for Web Traffic that Converts

If you’ve worked with Google ads before, you know the pain of paying for web traffic that doesn’t convert. Through CPA affiliate marketing, you won’t have this risk. Remember, you’ll only pay the affiliate once a user takes your desired action using the affiliate link.

However, what happens if your affiliates don’t achieve your goals? To solve this, diversify them or choose marketers with higher success rates.

Use Integrated and Better Branded Advertising

Banner ads can leave a distasteful look to your website. CPA offers aren’t as clunky as these ads, and you can easily personalize these offers to your brand. It’s also simple to integrate CPA offers into your website.

Multiply your ROI

Affiliate marketing is highly lucrative for digital businesses. 73% of brands confirm their affiliate marketing programs have met their revenue expectations. Also, according to Uniqodo, affiliate marketing makes up 16% of all online orders.

With so many businesses enjoying the fruits of CPA affiliate marketing, it’s safe to say this is an investment with high returns.

Develop a Larger Audience

The influencers you partner with are motivated to generate as much web traffic as they can. Affiliates need to do this to earn a passive income. Consequently, your business can reach a wider audience and boost brand awareness. This advantage is valuable when trying to engage a new target audience.

6 Steps to Launch a Successful CPA Marketing Campaign

Ok, we’ve answered the question “what is CPA affiliate marketing?” and gone over the benefits of CPA advertising, so now it’s time to look at how to launch your own CPA affiliate marketing campaign!

Launching a CPA campaign is made simple through this step-by-step guide. The challenges you face while doing this will be unique to your business, but this guide will help you start CPA advertising in no time!

Step One: Create a Website for Your Business

Assuming you haven’t already, create a website for your brand. A website is fundamental, as you can’t start a CPA marketing campaign without it. If you have little to no knowledge of web development and design, hire a freelancer or agency to help you.

When developing your website, ensure your website is:

• Functional
• Easy to navigate
• Mobile-friendly
• SEO-optimized

Any successful CPA marketing website has the above features!

Step Two: Decide on a Niche for Your Website

Before choosing a CPA offer, you need to pick a niche so your offer can appeal to your audience. Taking this step allows you to personalize your marketing efforts according to your audiences’ pain points and needs. Base your niche on your target audience, website content, and mission statement.

For example, let’s say your ideal buyer persona is a gym rat. You also offer health advice through your CPA marketing website content, and your mission statement is to help people live healthier lives, your niche may be wellness.

Step Three: Choose a CPA Offer

Now that you have a niche, you can start looking for an offer you’d like to promote. These are factors to consider for your CPA offer:

• Commission types
• Restrictions
• If the offer is incentive or non-incentive
• Traffic types
• Availability in your country
• Legitimacy of the company proposing the offer

You can use tools like OfferValut and oDigger to find CPA offers.

Take a look at how you can find a CPA offer with OfferVault:

• Using the search box, enter a term related to your niche. For example, if your niche is wellness, you can search, for “diet”.

• You’ll notice a long list of search results. Look at the columns, ‘Payout”, “Countries” and “Network”. You can only choose a CPA offer available in your country. Research the CPA network before considering their offer to avoid scammers.
• Click on a listing read the description. Reading information gives you an idea of the restrictions and requirements of the CPA offer you want. If the CPA offer looks legitimate, continue to the next step.

• Click the button “Full Landing Page Preview”. Preview the landing page as this is what your web visitors will see when considering your CPA offer. The landing page must be professional, attractive, and geared toward conversion. Steer clear from landing pages that make you feel uncertain. Your web visitors will most likely feel that way too.

• If you’re happy with the landing page then you can go proceed to step four!

Step Four: Join a CPA Network

When you’ve found a CPA offer join the relevant network providing that offer. CPA networks are convenient as you don’t have to find affiliates that will sell your product. These networks will match your business with the most appropriate influencer. Some of these networks include Maxbounty and CPATrend. We’ll speak about these networks and more later.

Joining a CPA network isn’t as seamless as it sounds. Many have rigorous application processes to determine whether your business is real. You’ll have to complete an online application before joining a CPA network. Use these tips to boost your chances of joining a CPA network:

• Call the CPA network before they contact you. Doing this shows your business is the real Mccoy, and you’re serious about CPA marketing.
• Be transparent about your past experiences. If you have no, or bad experiences with CPA campaigns, be honest about it. The last thing a CPA network wants is to bring on a new business that could be a risk.
• Ensure your site’s address and your mailing address match. CPA networks do check this.

Step Five: Style Your Website Around Your CPA Offer

Remember we spoke about how easy it is to integrate your CPA offer into your website? That’s what you’ll be doing in this step! You can add your CPA offer to a landing or website page.

Here are some pro tips for merging your CPA offer into your website:

• Don’t forget to add a Call to Action (CTA) button.
• Ensure the web or landing page is aesthetically pleasing and clear for web visitors to understand.
• Highlight your CPA offer, so web visitors notice it from the get-go.
• Try to avoid banner advertising as this makes your web or landing page look too “salesy” and invasive.
• Integrate your CPA offer as much as possible through the site’s design or contextual links.

While the tips above can help you secure high conversions for your CPA offer, stick to practices that are personal to your brand and website. If a banner ad has worked for you, there’s no harm in trying it out!

Step Six: Start Generating Web Traffic

Web traffic is paramount so people can see your CPA offer. You can generate web traffic in three ways:

1.SEO

Many CPA marketers rely on SEO to drive web traffic as SEO is a proven tactic. An SEO strategy that achieves the results you want takes time to develop. However, once you get the hang of it, you can maintain healthy web traffic.

These are the SEO components you want to consider for driving web traffic:

1. Keyword Research: Think about keywords relating to your CPA offer. SEO tools like UberSuggest can help you research those keywords. Pick keywords with high search volume and low to moderate competition. After finding your primary keyword, brainstorm 4 to 6 additional keywords. The secondary keywords appear once or twice each throughout your text. Your primary keyword appears much more. The secondary keywords strengthen your primary keyword as Google will have better context on your web page. Avoid using your primary keyword too many times, as Google doesn’t respond well to keyword stuffing.
2. Backlinks: Establishing a successful backlink strategy takes longer to execute than other SEO components. You need to develop good relationships with publications and blogs with high domain authority. A pre-existing relationship makes it easier to approach them and request a link from their site to yours. Also, ensure your product delivery and value proposition are impressive enough for bloggers and influencers to link back to it without you asking.
3. Meta Tags: While web visitors don’t see your meta tags, Google does. Your meta tags must be clear and contain your primary keyword. When users search your primary keyword, meta tags help Google find your web or landing page.
4. Content: The content around your CPA offer determines whether web visitors will find your offer. Include keywords in your content, and consider images and videos too. Google can make more sense of the context of your website with pictures and videos. Web users also use the “Images” and “Videos” tabs when searching. So this media can increase your chances of driving web traffic. 

2.Social Media

Get on social media platforms that your audience is active on. More than 53% of the global population uses social media. That’s not all, 73% of marketers say social media is “effective” or “very effective”.
Think about it: social media channels give you access to an audience spread across the globe. Now businesses aren’t solely reliant on search engines. You can put your CPA offer right in front of your target audience.

Want to use social media to generate web traffic? Here are some of the best practices:

1. Don’t exhaust all social media platforms. Start your social media presence on platforms relevant to your target audience.
2. Never post the same content on various channels. Different platforms require different approaches because each channel has a unique user demographic.
3. Do hashtag research to increase the awareness of your social media posts.
4. Develop a social media posting schedule that works for users in your time zone.

3.PPC Advertising

Consider social media ads and Google Adwords to accelerate web traffic. Do your homework on PPC ads first to understand how these ads work. PPC ads aren’t mind-boggling to start, but they do require money. If you’re not willing to spend a significant amount of money, you’ll achieve low to moderate results.

These are a few different PPC ads you can use:

• Facebook ads
• Instagram ads
• LinkedIn ads
• Display ads
• Search ads
• Text ads

5 CPA Networks for Profitable CPA Affiliate Marketing

Now you’re ready to consider which CPA network to join. Some networks welcome CPA marketing experts, and others prefer novices. Here are the best CPA networks for you to pick from.

1.MaxBounty

As a popular and trustworthy CPA network, MaxBounty houses more than 20 000 affiliates. MaxBounty pays out weekly, and they prefer experienced CPA marketers over rookies.
If you manage to join MaxBounty, you’ll have a dedicated affiliate manager. Your affiliate manager will communicate CPA opportunities that are valuable to your brand.

Website: https://www.maxbounty.com/

2.CPATrend

New affiliate marketers can cash out monthly with CPATrend. Once you start increasing your conversions, this reputable CPA network will pay you out weekly or bi-weekly. CPATrend makes it convenient to receive your cash as they support Paypal, cheques, and Payoneer payments. Another beneficial aspect of CPATrend is that they offer 24/7 support!

Website: https://www.cpatrend.com/

3.CPALead

Unlike many CPA networks, CPALead offers advanced geographical targeting, and there is a generous variety of ad forms. To help you maximize your web traffic, CPALead offers pop-ups, banner ads, and much more. CPALead is ideal if you don’t have much CPA experience and want to grow your web traffic quickly.

Website: https://www.cpalead.com/

4.PeerFly.

Although PeerFly is a small CPA network, it has a stellar reputation for CPA offers. You can expect weekly, bi-weekly or monthly payouts with this CPA network. PeerFly isn’t for beginners as you need experience with other networks to join this one.

Website: https://peerfly.com/

5.PeerFly

FireAds is all about providing optimal support to its affiliates. Businesses can cash out any time they please. This CPA network supports PayPal, Payoneer, and many more payment getaways.
FireAds is much larger than the CPA network we looked at before, with over 200 000 affiliates.

Website: https://fireads.org/en

Conclusion

CPA affiliate marketing is a strategic way to establish a worldwide audience, increase your earnings, and so much more. It’s not difficult to start a CPA advertising campaign either, and all you need to start is a CPA marketing website, a niche, a CPA offer, and a CPA network. You’ll also need to interpret your CPA offer into your CPA marketing website and generate web traffic. With this comprehensive guide, you’ll quickly get the hang of CPA marketing for beginners… Or up your game if you’re already in CPA marketing.

References

FirstSiteGuide: Best Affiliate Marketing Stats for 2022

Fetchprofits: Affiliate Marketing Statistics: Embrace The Potential Of Partners

Uniqodo: 15 statistics every affiliate marketer should know in 2020

Hootsuite: TikTok Gains 8 New Users Every Second (And Other Mind-Blowing Stats)

Buffer: State Of Social 2019

MaxBounty

CPATrend

CPALead

PeerFly

FireAds