How To Make Money Online With CPA Advertising

By now, I will have to assume that many of you are affiliates and actively utilizing some form of advertising on your blog. If not, you should be.

There are simply too many resources and types of advertising we can implement to earn more online.

In this tutorial, we will examine CPA advertising, its relevance to you, how to control the reader’s movement, and how to effectively make the most out of your relationship with your affiliate.

What is CPA Advertising?

CPA advertising, or Cost-Per-Action advertising, (sometimes referred to as Cost-Per-Acquisition or PPA / Pay Per Action) differs greatly from traditional forms of online advertising such as the Cost-Per-Impression (CPM) or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) models. It is strictly performance based advertising; instead of the advertiser having to pay the publisher for every ad impression or for every click-through to a website and hoping for a conversion to a lead or a sale, the advertiser gets the traffic for free and only pays for the results.

Control of your Reader

You can do this. You are in complete control of your advertising and the layout of your site. You should have a clear objective of what you want your reader to do each time he visits your site. Do you?

Once a user arrives on your page, having searched on a keyword term, you can then funnel that visitor to a desired action, such as filling out a form, creating an account or making a purchase. The trick is to get as many qualified users to your site as possible, to take the most number of desired actions, at the least cost per user.

Control of your Affiliate (CPA Advertising)

CPA advertisers are different than other online advertising models because the goal for them is solely sales conversions and leads. They are not in a campaign for brand marketing or to gain exposure.

Ultimately, the most money you can make online is when you convert a visitor who clicks on a link or graphic, and is lead to your affiliate’s site and makes a purchase. Most CPA advertising will not pay for your reader clicking on the link, doing a little window shopping, and leaving without paying for…something. (Although some do pay you for leads.)

What are leads? Leads are when you have driven a visitor to the affiliate’s site, and although does not buy anything, does disclose their personal information in order to be approached for futire solicitation. Since you facilitated that exchange, you should be paid for it. That personal information is of great value to your affiliate.

The goal of your affiliate is to help you make money for them. When this works, it is a true “win-win” proposition for both of you.

Your Affiliate Checklist

1) Let me ask you, have you ever contacted your affiliate directly? Has he/she reached out and made themselves receptive to answering your questions or seeking advice? How comfortable are you that all links and banners that have been on your blog for several months are still all valid links?

2) Is information on the product you are selling easily available and informative enough for you to fully comprehend what you are marketing to your readers?

3) Have you visited the landing page of the affiliate? Is it easy to navigate with easy flow to what your reader was seeking to purchase? Does the customer feel encouraged to buy? And most importantly, do they ask for the sale?

4) Are there barriers preventing the sale? Is the shopping cart/check-out function easy to operate?

5) And last, but far from least, how reputable is the affiliate you are working with? Do you trust that they are properly recording any and all sales and lead conversions with you?

My fellow bloggers, if the answer is no to these questions, I recommend you contact your affiliate representative immediately. If any of you answered no to #5, drop that affiliate! It is too hard to do what we do to not receive fair compensation for the volume of traffic we are sending to them. We have already done the work and qualified the lead, making their job easy.

The days of adding code to your blog and sitting back, waiting on the money train to roll in are done. As bloggers, we have to be more proactive when it comes to the styles and type of advertising we offer on our blogs. We have to be receptive to exploring a multitude of different advertisers who can connect with our reader demographic in order to attain desired outcomes.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that there is not real money to be made by blogging though. And it’s never too late to take your share. If you don’t, “they” will.

Isn’t it about time you told your affiliates to… “Cut The Check?!”