The Emerging CPA Industry

In these tough economic times, there are countless numbers of people in a personal financial crisis and searching for ways to supplement their income online. CPA marketing has several benefits that other online business models do not and many opportunities available with brand name advertisers. Here are a few reasons that CPA marketing might be a good idea for you:

No actual sales pitching (or even actual sales)
With CPA offers, you don't have to be pushy or even create a long sales page that convinces
people of anything. You can make money by offering something in exchange for information
as simple as their zip code. The best part about that is, you're not even responsible for
delivering the promised reward - the advertiser is.

People love deals and freebies
Internet users are skeptical by nature, but they tend to let their guards down a bit when they see a deal or a freebie. This is especially true when all they have to do in exchange is give up their zip code or email. This makes conversions for you not nearly as much work as a bigger campaign to sell your own product or other bigger type of sale. It's easy money in comparison to many other types of affiliate marketing as well. The visitors don't have to spend any money for you
to make money which is a huge advantage in getting increased conversions.

Deal with big businesses
Although you're not dealing with the advertisers directly, you are in fact an affiliate of huge advertisers such as Apple, who's offers include iPods, Macbooks and other great products.

You don't need a website
CPA offers can be promoted via social networking, email, and other means that don't require you own website. For instance, most CPA networks will include landing pages that you can just copy and use online without having to actually build an original one yourself. Nevertheless, to join most CPA networks you will need to enter a web site. What you should do is go out and
create an affiliate blog. You can create a free blog at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. CPA
networks look favourably on affiliate blogs because they think you are an authority in the
affiliate world. So it's pretty easy to get started, which makes CPA marketing very enticing.

Choosing Your Target Audience For Each Offer

The way to big profits with CPA marketing is knowing your target audience well and choosing
offers that they will respond to. Many marketers who are new to promoting CPA offers
tend to make the mistake of focusing more on the offer itself and end up losing potential
profit by not matching the offer with the right audience. Be very sure to focus on choosing the right offer for your target audience:

Test, Test, And Then Do Some Testing
Please do not guess what your target audience will respond to. First research your demographic and then find a CPA offer that makes sense to them. A good way to test for free is to
send it out to your friends and family. To get an honest opinion, don't tell them it's something your trying to promote to make money.

Never Stick With One offer at first
Always split test with a few in case your research was off the mark. Rotate several offers for a while and remove the ones with the lowest percentage of conversion rates. Add new ones to the rotation and keep doing that until you find one that has killer conversions. You should be able to see decent results quickly if you have done research and discovered what type of people your audience is, what pushes their buttons, and what that market needs.

Statistics And Tracking
CPA marketing is a numbers game just like most online ventures and aside from matching the perfect offer with the right target audience, it's extremely important to keep testing and pay attention to the statistics and track your results, making necessary changes as you go this will definitely pay off in the end.

How To Become A CPA Advertiser

Being a good Internet marketer will mean that you are always progressing, learning new things, and expanding your online business. One day you might want to introduce your own product to affiliates through a CPA network. To get started out on the right foot here are a few tips that will definitely lead you in the right direction:

Always Start With A High Quality Product/Offer
The first thing you're going to produce before you think about anything else is a high quality
product to sell. Most reputable CPA networks are strict when accepting products so the one
you are offering must be something new to the market and have the potential for mass appeal.
It's a good idea to read over the product guidelines to see if your product fits well into the network before you apply.

Apply For A Merhcant (Or Advertiser) Account
Once you have a product that you would like to offer, then you will need to apply as an advertiser or merchant at a CPA network so that you can start to have affiliates promote it for you. In addition to an application, there will likely be a telephone interview as well to as you about your company and background.

Payments And Fees
You will have to have a payment system in place for your product and will also likely have to
make a deposit for your advertisements in the CPA network. The amount can vary greatly
depending on the network's requirements, and the amount of your offer's payout.

Tracking
Once your offer is active in the CPA network and affiliates are promoting it, you will want
to be able to track where the traffic is coming from and how well the offer is doing overall.
Most reputable CPA networks will provide you with tools that track the process for you in
real time (or close to real time).

3 CPA Marketing Tactics

Once you have joined a CPA network and chosen an offer that you'd like to build a campaign
around, it is crucial that you promote it in the way to maximize profits and continued success.

Here are three common ways that CPA offers are promoted successfully:
Your Own Blog/Site
If you already have an existing website that is generating traffic in a specific niche, then
this is the perfect place to start testing your new CPA offer. The important thing here (as with any of your CPA marketing) is that you use an offer that is relative to your existing content. For example, you would not want to promote an offer for nail polish on a football site. Remember that CPA offers work best on high quality, relevant, targeted niche sites.

Site Specifically Designed For CPA Offer

Although you have little control over the advertiser’s landing page on the CPA network if you are direct linking, you do have the ability to better pre-sell your prospects with your own landing page. If you know the basics of creating a blog or static website, then you can build one specifically for promoting your CPA offer. Alternatively, you can also have one created by a blog/site design service. However, there are also several templates available that allow you to create your own easily without too much of a learning curve. Once you create a page exclusively promoting your CPA offer, then you will need to drive traffic to it. Often, a one page CPA offer is promoted via PPC (Pay Per Click) services like Google Adwords. Although using PPC can give you tons of visitors within hours or even minutes, it's also a tricky game to play if you are inexperienced. You are paying for each visitor, so you have to convert a certain ratio in order to make a profit or at least break even. It's good to start small if you are going this route and get some PPC knowledge through blogs and ebooks.

Keep in mind that this method also will require a lot of time, at first, monitoring and tracking results until your tests have found a winner that you can put on auto-pilot.

When tracking, you must track everything such as:
• Traffic Source
• Ad Groups
• Keywords
• Ad Variations (CTR and Conversions)
• Type of Ad (Text or Image)
• CPA offers
• Landing Pages

Squeeze Page
You've probably heard the Internet marketing saying "the money is in the list". A squeeze page is a basic page that asks for a user's email address before leading them to the offer automatically after doing do. In this case, you get to build a targeted email list which you can promote to further via email since they opted in.

How To Choose Which CPA Networks To Join

Applying to CPA networks requires an application process by each network. While some CPA networks are extremely easy to get into, it can be difficult to get into some of the major CPA networks if you are new to the CPA marketing game. When filling out an application, do not make it look like you are a newbie or beginner. CPA networks generally do not want people who are new to CPA marketing because newbies generally tax their resources and time. You need to indicate that you can drive a lot of traffic and that you know what you are doing. You need to sell yourself. Consider the application process like a resume. This will go a long way towards helping you get accepted into the CPA network.

There are many successful online marketers who run campaigns from several different CPA
networks, but if you're just starting out, it's a good idea to stick to one or two until you get comfortable with business and get a few successful campaigns running "under one roof" first.

You also don't want to be overwhelmed with having to manage and track results inside several CPA networks when you first start out because you need to focus as much attention as
possible on making money from your promotions.


Use Testimonials And Word Of Mouth To Choose Best CPA Network

Many things have changed in the world since the Internet boom, but good ol' word of mouth still
holds a lot of weight when spreading recommendations to your peers. The first thing you should do is ask around. Use Twitter, or email a couple CPA affiliates that you might now (maybe they have blogs, products, etc.). There is never a 100% guarantee, but a few positive testimonials will definitely be a good sign.

Make Sure They Have Fresh Offers And Promo Tools
You're going to be putting a lot of time and effort into promoting CPA offers. Top notch, cutting edge designs and other promotional material to help you out will increase your chances of making consistent profit. Many CPA networks are in charge of designing the promotional material for the advertisers, so be sure to compare the quality. Also, a big part of CPA marketing is staying on
top of the latest, hottest deals in your target market. A regular rotation of fresh offers is a definite plus when choosing which CPA networks to use. You should try to get accepted by a major corporate CPA network because there are a lot of “mom and pop” type CPA networks that may be too risky to send a lot of traffic to. Smaller “mom and pop” networks don’t have the cash flow or resources to do weekly payouts or even pay on net 5 terms, while the bigger networks have no problems paying you sooner or even in advance.

Payout System
CPA networks generally pay net 30 (30 days after month end) and I would stay away from CPA networks that insist on paying you net 60. If you are paying to send traffic to CPA offers, you want to have a liquid cash flow to keep your profitable CPA offers running like clockwork. A reputable CPA network will have a regular payout schedule and will be on time, every time
without excuses. Any sign of trouble getting paid from your account is a red flag and should be questioned. Also, you may want to check to be sure that the method of payment suits your needs.