What Is CPA Marketing?
Cost Per Action Marketing
What Is CPA?
It’s almost like a bad joke:
Question: “What did the CPA marketer earn?”
Answer: “Two dollars and thirty-seven cents.”
Question: “What did the CPA marketer spend to get it?”
Answer: “Five hundred and fifty dollars.”
It’s happened this way, more than people like to admit – but it doesn’t have to be this way. The most common causes of CPA disappointment are:
- Insufficient market research
- Failure to track daily expenses
- Lack of basic business knowledge
If you’re shuddering because you’re afraid this would be you, well, that’s what this report is here to do – help you avoid heartbreaking CPA mistakes, and experience genuine, solid CPA success!
“Will I Be Rich?”
Let’s get something out the way, straight away: Unless you’re a marketing genius with incredible intuition, you are not likely to become a millionaire within weeks or perhaps even months off CPA marketing alone. It’s rather like niche blogging: You will need to run multiple CPA pages in order to let the small amount of positive income each incurs add up to a nice little sum at the end of the month.
Question: “If it’s so Mickey-Mouse peanuts, why should I bother with it?”
Answer: “Because, properly done, it actually can bring in a nice supplemental income! And there are offers you can find that really will bring in more money than the average CPA marketer receives. And properly done, you can tap into high offers that easily bring you as much as $50, instead of 2 or 3.”
Let’s focus on the best way to reach this goal, as quickly as possible…
The Basics of CPA Marketing
Most people know that CPA means “cost per action”.
With regular affiliate marketing, your site visitor actually has to buy the product in order for you to get paid: The beauty of CPA marketing is that, while sales conversions do apply in some cases, your site visitor usually has to take a lesser action. He has to perform one of the following:
- Simply click through
- Provide a zip code
- Provide an email address
- Provide a name and email address
…Or any other combination of contact details.
In an age where online security is at the forefront of peoples’ thinking, and most internet users are both jaded with advertising and savvy to spurious offers, how do you get your site visitor to part with his jealously guarded information?
Answer: You make him want to click on that link, or give up his contact detail. You make it harder to refuse than it is to comply. You show him how easy it is just to enter a zip code. And there’s only one way to do that..
You must provide him with an enticing reason – one he can’t resist. You must let him see clearly that the benefit of giving up that email address or zip code is five times greater than ignoring it. (And part of this involves getting him to trust you.)
And it should feel totally natural, as in it’s the next logical step. (The only logical next step!)
Usually, you only have to inspire your reader to perform an action – he doesn’t have to buy.
The key to doing this every single time? Research, of course. But there’s a specific way the best and most successful marketers go about performing this – and it isn’t the way most newer marketers think.
Mistake # 1 – Keyword Research
This is where most newer marketers eagerly start, armed with the latest edition of Market Samurai or Micro Niche Finder, or whatever hot keyword research program they’ve discovered.
Keyword research is very important – but not at this stage!
Market research only starts with identifying your demographic. Next, you have to put a face to him, and single him out. You have to pluck up the courage, and say hello to him, one on one, in the school parking lot.
Mistake # 2 – Thinking a demographic is your target customer
A demographic is simply a generic group, based on statistics – not a person. Yet this is where most people stop, when initially researching their market.
But what happens in real life? Could you even present a suggestion to that particular man in the parking lot at this point, let alone sell him something? What do you think the reaction would be?
“Sir, would you like to fill in this form with your full name, address and phone number?”
He’s likely to stare at you suspiciously and snap: “Sorry. Don’t have time right now.” And dash off, not making further eye contact. (He’ll avoid you, in future.)
Yet that’s the equivalent of what happens when the average person “researches” a target market, and says, “Right. 30-something. Caucasian. Looks like he dresses okay. He’s in a school parking lot, so he’s probably dropped off a kid. That’s my unique customer…” And dashes off a minisite based on that information alone.
The end result? It feels as natural as one of those screaming commercials on TV. The ones that appear between 3 a.m. and 6 in the morning. But let’s take a deep breath, and rewind…We’re going back to that school parking lot…
