Free Internet Advertising with Cost Per Action Offers

The CPA or Cost Per Action model of free internet advertising is preferred by many businesses because they don’t have to pay anything before they see results. It’s not like regular advertising where the money must be paid upfront. If a business pays to advertise in a magazine, newspaper, ezine or online based on impressions (CPM advertising), there is no guarantee that they will get results, even though they have paid money. The CPA model allows you to use free internet advertising to reach a targeted audience and stop wasting money on advertisements that don’t work.

For the CPA advertising model of free internet advertising to work, you need affiliates to promote your offers. How do you reach the affiliates? The easiest way is to join an affiliate network like IncentaClick with thousands of affiliates eager to help you advertise and gain commissions. The affiliates or publishers are the webmasters and website owners that place your ads on their site in the form of text links, banner ads or other ad types or via email marketing. Affiliates are important because they are the ones who drive traffic to your offer.

You’ve probably seen quite a few CPA offers without realizing it. Have you ever seen a banner or ad that encouraged you to visit a site or complete a questionnaire and receive a free gift? Those kinds of advertisements are usually CPA offers. It’s thought of as free internet advertising because you don’t actually pay the affiliates to promote your offer. They’ll list your offer for free in the hopes of receiving a commission when a sale or predefined action is performed. Even if a person doesn’t complete the CPA offer, website visitors will still be exposed to the ad which helps with branding.

How the CPA Method Can Help You

There are three methods of free internet advertising that are considered CPA. The three methods are: pay-per-sale, pay-per-click and pay-per-lead. Here’s a quick explanation of each method:

• Pay-Per-Sale means you only pay a fee if you make a sale as a result of your CPA offer. People can visit your website through an affiliate link but you only pay the affiliate if the visitor makes a purchase.
• Pay-Per-Click means that you pay a fee each time a person clicks your ad. It doesn’t matter if the ad appears on a website or in an email, you’ll be charged a fee each time someone clicks it – even if the click was a mistake. Not surprisingly, this form of free internet advertising can actually cost you a lot of money but, if implemented properly, can yield a lot of sales.
• Pay-Per-Lead means you pay an affiliate for sending qualified leads your way. Maybe you want the visitor to sign-up for a newsletter or join a newsgroup. It doesn’t matter what action you want them to perform. The important thing to know is that you’ll pay a fee each time the desired result is achieved. If the visitor comes to your site but doesn’t complete the offer then you don't pay anything.

Where Do My CPA Ads Appear?

You can find CPA affiliate links all over the place. Since it’s free internet advertising, no one has to pay for the ads to appear. This is one reason why affiliate programs are so attractive. An affiliate can put links to your CPA offer on their website, in an ezine, an online newsletter, or in an email. In fact, email marketing is a popular way to get your CPA offer out there.

The downside is that many spammers also use email marketing, so people are less likely to click the offers. You often have no control over where your CPA free internet advertising appears, so your business could be accused of sending spam when it’s really an affiliate.

If I Pay the Affiliates, Why are CPA Offers Considered Free Internet Advertising?

There are two reasons why CPA offers are thought of as free internet advertising. The number one reason, as already mentioned, is because it doesn’t actually cost anything to have affiliates promote your offer yielding exposure and branding benefits. The second reason is because with most cpa affiliate programs you only pay the affiliate when a sale is made and you make money; therefore, you never really pay for the advertising, only for the sale which you've made money on.

The CPA model of free internet advertising can really help your business. It’s a great alternative to paying upfront costs for advertisement that may not perform at all.