Am I wrong to avoid CPA programs?

[gophergas]

I've been at this for a couple of years now, but I certainly don't claim to know everything about it. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to know.

That having been said, one of the things I've observed is that the CPA programs I've tried... simply haven't produced. It feels like I'm giving away a TON of advertising for absolutely zilch in return. Maybe it's just that I'm not picking the right advertisers, but it seems to me that CPM is a much safer bet. To me, CPA (and, to a lesser extent CPC) is more like playing a lottery. You COULD get a big payoff... but most of the time, you get bupkiss. Heck, even when I tried the low-commission CPA ads, I got next to nothing.

Any thoughts?

[Gladius777]

Exactly right. The only people profiting from CPA and CPC are the advertisers and people selling the campaigns to publishers. Staying away is the only sensible thing.

[Czar]

None of the major performance measurement models are necessarily flawed in and of themselves. Rather, it's a matter of how they are applied that determines whether or not a particular program and/or particular placement exercise will produce results that are beneficial to both parties in the exchange.

Key to ensuring that a CPA program performs well is a matter of placement and selection. As is often noted here, integrating CPA links into related content often works more effectively than simply rotating CPA offers through a standard banner space.

In terms of selection, the following thread provides an incredibly detailed round-up of strengths and weaknesses that you may encounter in evaluating individual CPA programs:
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...threadid=26663

If you hit the balance right, CPA programs can easily outperform the most popular CPM-driven networks in terms of effective CPM returns; often by a large margin, as many of our members will attest. There's no doubt, however, that the CPA format does place more demands on the publisher and does require greater effort to promote effectively.

Hope this helps.

[Yvette Winn]

Maybe it's just that I'm not picking the right advertisers, but it seems to me that CPM is a much safer bet. To me, CPA (and, to a lesser extent CPC) is more like playing a lottery. You COULD get a big payoff...

If you are picking the CPA campaigns off the offer panel with out communication with the Affiliate Manager, that could be your biggest problem. Your Affiliate Managers should be telling you which campaigns convert the best, along with the best converting creative inside that campaign, and also let you know how others are successfully marketing the campaign.

I have managed all three products, CPM, CPC, and CPA and they can all be successful if marketing correctly.

Regards,

Yvette Winn

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[gophergas]

Thanks. This, in part, reaffirms what I originally thought... and encourages me to try some different things. Especially since some folks here are exceeding the revenue they would've gotten with CPM.

I'll check out the board you suggested as well.

[fryman]

The key to success with CPA programs is having a very targeted audience. If you just slap up some banners on your site and expect people to click on them and then fill out a form or do some action, you are going to have a hard time earning any money.

I have a minisite about online education promoting Azooglead's programs. My audience is very targeted, and for each form they fill up I earn 30 bucks. I just started that one, but it is going very well.

Another site promoting smiley central is top ranked at search engines. I am earning over $1,000 a month with that one.

So, believe me, it is possible, but it takes a lot of work.

[Larwee]

gophergas, here are a couple more threads to provide you with a few more things to think about.

This one is about things people hate about CPA programs http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...threadid=26204

This is a thread about things people like about CPA programs http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...threadid=26307

[thegauntlet]

I agree with Fryman. The key is being highly targeted. I used to get CPA offers for credit card campaigns, $80. I slapped those all over my site. Not one converted. Then I joined the CDNOW CPA program, and my site being music related we had a perfect match. I only got I believe 6% and cd's don't really cost much, but on my site it just took a small link reading 'Buy It' and I made up to $200 a week at times. Some other things that have worked great for me are ringtone sales if you have a young audience.

[gophergas]

Highly targeted...

Therein lies a bit of trouble for me, in that my sites are pretty much "shotgun" in terms of audience. Almost exclusively game- and humor-related, so I don't really have a specific demo other than "12 and up."

I suppose that once I get my site redesigned and the newsletter up and running, I can set up some registration protocols that let me get a better idea of who's visiting. But for the most part I expect it to stay very broad in scope.

As such, it sounds like I'd have a bit of a hard time with CPAs unless I can find some good humor- and game-related advertisers. And even then it would probably be a little tough.

Any thoughts?

[Yvette Winn]

As such, it sounds like I'd have a bit of a hard time with CPAs unless I can find some good humor- and game-related advertisers. And even then it would probably be a little tough.

Don't give up hope yet! There are plenty of gaming type offers out there on the CPA market that perform quite well. You might want to also tie in offers such as Ipod, DVD Players and Computers. Gamers are also interested in those products as well.

Regards,
Yvette Winn

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[24x7]

for an experience internet marketer, it shouldn't matter whether you send traffic on cpm, cpc, cpl or cpa, as they should all tie back to the cpm that you require before you move forward with the campaign.

the only difference is that with cpm and cpc the onus is on the merchant for the site to perform, whilst with cpa or cpl, then the risk is on the provider of the traffic.

this has 2 complications:
1. that the site you are sending the traffic to isn't optimised correctly, and so the conversions aren't as high as they should be
2. that you are sending the wrong type of traffic

unfortunately, when doing cpa or cpl, if either one of the things above, is out of sync, then the affiliate loses out, whilst with the first 2 models, the affiliate will get paid (but the relationship will probably be a short term one - unless the merchant simply wants branding or doens't understand net metrics)

[Czar]

Nice response. Welcome to Geek/Talk, Jack.

[Free4MeNetwork]

Hi all, I am the owner of The Free 4 Me Network, a company that makes money soley using CPA programs.

Naturally, people usually do not do offers becuase they want to, which is what I think the problem with many sites is. In order to get people to do them, it is necessary to provide them with some sort of an incentive to do it. Being the owner of a company that works only with CPA programs, I can tell you that as long as you offer an incentive there is a very good shot people will do your offers, even if it is much less than what you make.

For anybody looking for a good CPA program, I would recommend Clickbooth (www.clickbooth.com). They credit everything almost instant, and they pay Net 15 which is a lot better than most of the other companies out there.

Hope that sheds some light on why CPA's really are good. If used in the right way, you can be making a LOT of cash .

[Catalyst]

gophergas,

IMHO humor and game sites are a little bit more difficult to montetize on a CPA basis than content or product sales sites. But it can be done. Freebie offers can work pretty well. I had a lead to a good program I was going to suggest for your site, it was sort of a freebie mall, but it's gone now.

[AhmedF]

From an advertiser point of view, CPA programs are as low ROI as you will go. CPC/CPM has issues like fraudulent click, untargeted traffic, and so forth, in consideration.

To elaborate with a simple example:

Lets say I have a product that I sell for $1000. All expenses (before advertising) are $500. I want to make at least $250 per sale.

With a CPA program, I will offer $250 to the affiliate (assuming no other expenses).

Advertising CPM, it becomes much tricker. Advertising using google adsense, one site may be excellent in terms of targetting, whereas the other might be horrible. In the end, the price I am paying takes into consideration both good site and bad site. So while the bad site is making more than it should, the good site would make *more* using my CPA program.

I hope that was clear - it is inside my head


Wanted to add: As a publisher, my CPA revenues (not being used to feed my own sites) are far far higher than traditional ads.