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CPA Marketing: The Ultimate Guide (Updated)

Brian Dean

Written by Brian Dean

CPA Marketing: The Ultimate Guide (Updated)

When it comes to monetization, I’ve tried it all.

I started with Adsense… but was let down by the low CPCs.

Then I promoted affiliate products… but I couldn’t get the traffic to convert.

Then I tried CPA marketing… and quickly realized that it was THE best way to monetize.

(In fact, CPA helped one of my sites go from 0 to $10k/month in record time)

Revenue-Growth

And in this post I’m going to show you everything you need to know about CPA marketing.

What Is CPA Marketing?

Cost Per Action (CPA) Marketing is a affiliate model where a commission is paid when a user takes a specific action. These actions include filling out a form, getting a quote, signing up for a trial, or making a purchase.

what is CPA marketing visual

Why CPA?

There are two main reasons that I prefer CPA over banner ads, Adsense, and most other affiliate marketing strategies.

1. Higher on the Value Chain

To make the most money from your site, you want to get high up on the value chain.

Here is what the value chain looks like for digital products (using a $100 course as an example):

As you can see, Adsense, banner ads, and CPC/CPM put you at the bottom of the value chain.

On the other hand, selling your own product, being an affiliate, and CPA put you higher up on the chain.

Keep in mind that physical products have 2-10x more hands in the pot (distributors, warehouses, suppliers etc.). That’s why Amazon Associates only make 100 bucks when someone buys a $2500 laptop.

To be clear:

I’m not saying that you should avoid promoting physical products.

Just remember that physical product commissions tend to be A LOT less than with digital products.

2. Integrated Advertising

The other nice thing about CPA is that you don’t need to disfigure your site with ugly Adsense blocks or banner ads.

As you’ll see later, you can seamlessly integrate CPA offers into your site.

This means you run a legit branded site… while benefiting from out-of-this-world CTR and commissions.

Step #1: Find an Offer

Your first step is to find an offer to promote.

The question is:

How do you find the perfect offer for your site?

That’s easy: use oDigger and OfferVault.com.

Side-By-Side

They’re like the Google of CPA: they aggregate thousands of offers from reputable CPA networks.

And you can search based on keyword, price, category or network.

For example…

Let’s say that you run a site in the health space.

Head over to Offer Vault and type “weight loss” into the search field:

OfferVault – Weight loss search

And you’ll get a list of results, like this:

OfferVault – "weight loss" results

Here are the common terms you’ll come across during your search:

___ Only: You can only use a certain traffic source, like email or organic search.

Display: This includes text links and banner ads.

Lead: The most common “action” in the CPA marketing world. Usually someone submitting their name, email, phone, address etc.

Email/Zip Submit: The most simple CPA offer. Good for untargeted traffic. User gives their email and zip code only.

Incent: Short for “incentivized”. Incent means that you can “bribe” users with a free product or download.

Pay Per Call: You’re paid when someone makes a call after clicking on your affiliate link.

Download/Install: You get paid when someone downloads or installs a piece of software.

Publisher: The person that promotes the offer (you).

Trial: When user signs up for a free trial of a product or service.

“Pixel Fires”: This is what happens when someone clicks on your link (they become a lead).

US/FR/CA: Offer only valid in that specific country.

AM: Stands for “Affiliate Manager”. Your AM is your go-to person in the network

Sale or Rev Share: You get a cut of every sale (one-time or recurring).

When you see an offer that looks good, click on the listing:

OfferVault – Click on listing

Then, check out the details. The listing will usually give you key information on the offer, like what the user needs to do and what type of traffic is allowed:

OfferVault listing details

If the offer looks good, hit the “Full Landing Page Preview” button. This will show you the page that users will see when they click on your link:

OfferVault landing page preview

So:

What should you look for in a landing page?

First, you want a landing page that looks clean and professional.

If it looks shady to you, it’ll look shady to your traffic too… and it won’t convert.

Also, the more fields a page has, the lower your conversion rate is going to be.

That said:

More fields also mean higher commissions.

So don’t be automatically turned off by a page like this that requires 6 steps:

Example page with many steps

If the traffic is motivated enough (for example, they your traffic comes from people searching in Google for “best online degrees”), I’ve found that they’ll fill out just about anything.

“What If I Can’t Find an Offer?”

Depending on your niche, you may not be able to find an offer that fits your site’s topic.

If that’s the case, you want to look for CPA offers that appeal to your traffic’s demographic.

Let me illustrate what I mean with a real life example…

I used to run a site in the “dating” niche that was getting 2,000 visitors per day.

I put “dating” in quotes because it was comprised mostly of 9th graders wondering how to talk to Sally that sits in the back.

(Not the type of stuff that’s easy to monetize)

Despite the fact that I tested about 20 different themes and ad placements, I wasn’t making ANY money with Adsense.

And when I looked at the ads Adsense was putting on my site, I realized that they weren’t dating related at all.

Instead, they were targeted based on demographics.

That’s when I decided to switch out Adsense for an email/zip submit offer for a free Xbox 360.

And just like, that I started to make significantly more money than I was making from Adsense.

Step #2: Join a Network

If the offer looks good, it’s time to join the network that runs the offer. You can apply by clicking on the “Join Network” link on the offer page:

OfferVault – Join network

When you do, you’ll see an application like this:

MaxBounty – Affiliate signup

I should point something out:

You’ll be asked to provide a phone number… which they will call.

This is a stumbling block for a lot of people. As affiliate marketers we’re accustomed to making money online without having to talk to anyone.

But the reality of CPA is this:

If you want to join a CPA network, you’ll need to talk to someone on the phone. You may have to even fill out some actual paperwork. It’s no big deal.

How to Get Accepted By Any Network

Remember that CPA networks aren’t trying to make things difficult. They just want to make sure that you’re a legit business that will send them real leads (which you are).

So it’s just a matter of being transparent.

Here are some tips that will help you get accepted:

  • Call Them Before They Call You: Shady affiliates try to fly under the radar screen. So give the network a call right after you apply. This shows you’re the real deal. I was accepted into one network literally 10 minutes after applying. How? I picked up the phone and called.
  • Check Your Whois: Some networks check to see if your site’s whois address matches your mailing address.
  • Be Honest: Most applications have a section to learn more about your online marketing experience:
    MaxBounty application – Experience

Remember: you don’t need to be an internet marketing rockstar to get accepted.

In fact, I joined my first affiliate network when I was making about $20/day from Adsense. They just want you to put honest answers into these fields.

So if you’re new to affiliate marketing, it’s OK to tell them that.

Step #3: Design Your Site Around CPA

Once you’ve joined a network and have a CPA offer ready to go, it’s time to integrate it into your site.

One of the things I love about CPA is that you can make your site look Fortune 500… even if you promote $1.25 email/zip submits.

In other words:

Don’t waste the opportunity to make your site look legit by slapping up a nasty banner.

Bad banner example

Believe it or not, but you don’t need in-your-face advertising to make money from your site.

In fact, I’ve found that the more you integrate your advertising, the higher your conversions.

For example, I own a site that’s 100% monetized with CPA. Most of the affiliate links are either contextual links or integrated into the site’s design.

It has very little banner advertising.

Despite the lack of obvious advertising, the site has a 26.4% CTR.

(If I had that kind of CTR with Adsense, Google would probably ban my account!)

Here are two examples of big brand sites that have done such an amazing job with integration that you can hardly tell they’re promoting CPA offers:

Big Brand CPA #1: MoneySupermarket.com

MoneySupermarket

This is a big brand financial site in the UK.

(How big? They’re publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange)

And their business model is almost 100% CPA.

But you couldn’t tell my looking at it. The site’s CPA offers are seamlessly integrated into the site.

MoneySupermarket CPA

Big Brand CPA #2: NerdWallet.com

NerdWallet

NerdWallet.com is a rapidly growing personal finance site. Like MoneySupermarket.com, they integrate their CPA offers into useful tools.

NerdWallet CPA

This seamless ad integration blows away the CTR and conversion rate that they’d get from banner ads.

Just to be clear: you can do well with traditional banner ads and contextual links.

But I HIGHLY recommend using a custom design that makes your site look legit.

Step #4: Drive Traffic To Your Site

Now that you’ve found an offer and joined a network, it’s time to drive traffic to your site.

There are a million ways to get traffic. But here are the 3 most common traffic strategies that CPA marketers use:

1. SEO

As you might expect, SEO is my go-to traffic strategy.

It takes time to kick-in, but once you rank for your target keywords, you get traffic without needing to do ANYTHING else.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of SEO, I recommend checking out these resources:

Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide

How to Get High Quality Backlinks (7 New Strategies)

On-Page SEO: Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page

2. PPC Ads

PPC ads (like Google Adwords and Facebook ads) are another popular way to get traffic to your CPA offers.

The big plus of PPC advertising is that you can start right away.

(You can literally start getting traffic within an hour or so)

The downside is that you need to funnel money into your ads… Once you stop spending, your revenue goes to zero.

3. Social Media

Facebook. Instragram. YouTube.

These are all platforms that you can use to get your offers in front of the right people.

Like with SEO, it can take time to build up a following on social media. But a popular Instagram profile or Facebook page is an asset that can pay off for YEARS.

Bonus: CPA Pro Tips

Here are a few tricks that I’ve picked up from my experience running offers as a CPA affiliate.

Be Tight With Your Affiliate Manager

Your “AM” is your inside source at the network. Every now and again they’ll call you or email you to get you to run some of their new offers. I’m always nice and professional when they reach out:

Ad Manager (AM) email example

After all, most AMs are cool peeps just doing their job. And it’s a relationship that you can leverage for exclusive deals (as you’ll see next).

How to Get Commission Bumps

One of the perks of having a good relationship with your AM is that you can get commission bumps.

In fact, I have a 100% success rate so far. And it’s because I do two things: a) maintain a good relationship with my AM and b) play one network against another.

Every now and again check to see if the offer you’re promoting is at a competing network.

When I see that another network is running one of my offers at a higher rate, I ask my AM they can match it:

Commission bump email example

They don’t want you to bolt for another affiliate network. So they’ll usually hook you up:

Affiliate manager response

You may have noticed that this is a $.30 bump from what the network was publicly offering.

That may not seem like a lot, but let’s quickly do the math:

Let’s say you’re getting 50 conversions per day.

50 conversions x $.30=$15 extra per day

$15/day x 30 days=$450 extra per month

$450/month x 12 months=$5400 extra per year

Not bad 🙂

Avoid Shady Networks

The dark side of CPA is that there are a lot of shady operations that rip people off. That’s why you need to be VERY careful about joining shady networks.

So before you signup for a network, check the reviews at Odigger.

First, click on the “Network Reviews” tab from the homepage.

Odigger network reviews

And find the network that you’re looking to join.

Steer clear of any network that has really bad reviews.

Odigger bad review example

(Especially if lots of people report they had trouble getting paid)

With that, keep something in mind:

Networks sometimes have legitimate reasons to withhold payment (for example: if someone sent them phony leads).

So if you see a few complainers in an otherwise stellar list of reviews, it’s probably OK to join.

But if you see a sea of negative reviews, you should go with another network (even if the commission is higher with the shady network).

My Recommended Networks

I’ve joined a bunch of CPA networks over the last few years. But I’m most active on two: MaxBounty and Panthera Network. They both have a ton of offers, competitive payouts, and great AMs.

They’re both awesome. But if I had to choose one… I’d probably go with MaxBounty.

The main difference between the two is that MaxBounty offers weekly payments.

Now:

There are lots of other reputable networks out there (for example, I’ve heard good things things about Peerfly and Neverblue). But I can’t recommend them because I haven’t personally worked with them.

Now It’s Your Turn

There you have it: a complete CPA marketing blueprint.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

What’s your experience been with CPA?

Or maybe you’re just getting started.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

229 Comments

  1. Jonathan Mitnick Avatar Jonathan Mitnicksays:

    Aaaah…so this is the CPA article you promised Andrii, Wow!you actually kept your word…I get it…your cool like that.I’m heading over to Maxbounty right now! Do you use CPA on Backlinko?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      I’m a man of my word :-). I haven’t done any CPA with Backlinko (there aren’t many SEO-related offers). Let me know how it goes with Maxbounty.

    1. william Avatar williamsays:

      brilliant post and i am new to this. just got accepted in ebay partner network and peefly on my first applications lol. guess I’m lucky. but love your tips and will use.

      1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

        Thanks William. I’ve found that you can get into any network on the first try if you’re open and honest. Let me know how CPA marketing works out for you 🙂

  2. Andrii Avatar Andriisays:

    Thanks Brian for keeping your word 🙂

    As usual, you wrote an awesome article.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      My pleasure, Andrii. Glad to hear that it met your expectations.

  3. Phenomenal post, Brian. I love where you say, “call them before they call you.” This kind of assertiveness should be used for all types of business, not just CPA.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Cam! You’re 100% right: you gotta be aggressive if you want to make that money!

  4. Chetan Avatar Chetansays:

    Hey Brian,
    In a short time, I have become a long time fan! The stuff that you share with us is incredible. On top of that, your strategies & points are actionable. These days most of the big SEO companies (kissing up to brands) are putting out stuff in the name of being Whitehat. What they don’t realize is that affiliates don’t read their blogs anymore cuz they dont serve content that helps the little guy. You on the other hand, offer complete balance in terms of white hat, grey hat, blackhat & everything in between! Keep up the great posts coming. Real affiliates will appreciate your blog as everyone else is trying to look good in the eyes of Google & what not. I guess they forgot about the small affiliates who helped them reach the brand level & sadly they only put content out for agencies, corporate brands…
    Best of wishes,
    Chet

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Your comment made my day! It means a lot to hear that my advice is helping you achieve real results. I know that many affiliates feel the same way you do: that SEO professionals abandoned them to go after big fish clients. Thanks for stopping by, Chet!

  5. David A. Avatar David A.says:

    You have a great tutorial on getting started in CPA.
    I have an idea I like to spend was wondering if you could advise. I know of a friend who bought traffic lots of them on credit from trafficvance and redirect them to CPA offers and track them using CPVLAB.

    For newbies who dun have cash to burn, I would like to purchase a .info domain use Google trends to find rising keywords, find matching CPA offers, find long tail keywords with low cpc, redirect traffic to CPA LP and track conversion.
    Is it tooooooo much work?
    I know all the gist of CPA but I’m freeze of strategic planning.
    Pls help.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad to hear you liked the post, David. That sounds like too much work for not a great ROI. Finding keywords, registering domains, setting up sites etc. for a few weeks worth of traffic doesn’t seem worth it. You’re better off building an authority site so when those trending keywords come around you can publish a post and rank for it right away.

  6. Wow, another comprehensive piece by Brian! Well done for writing these awesome KINGlike posts. I just shared and “kingged” it on the IM social site Kingged.com and I left the following comment:

    Brian of Backlinko.com has done it again. I enjoyed his other very comprehensive post on Google Ranking Factors, and now this… awesome!

    I like how he introduced the basic CPA concepts and made it very understandable for newbies to CPA and how he also provided “pro tips” for those who are more advanced.

    Anyone who has always wanted to learn about CPA will certainly find lots of helpful tips in this article… CPA newbies and pro alikes.

    Well written, Brian.

    https://www.kingged.com/cpa-marketing-ultimate-guide/

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks for Kinging another one of my posts, Sunday! I tried to make it the best guide to CPA marketing out there. It looks like I’m on the right track :-).

      1. Sure, you are welcome. Always on the right track!

  7. It sounds like a lot of work.Would it not be a better investment of time to focus on creatinga product, eg:ebook, cds, program all in a bundle and then keep all the profit.
    And build a network of affiliates to promote?
    Regardless your posts are awesome!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      It’s actually not a lot of work once you join a network and have a few proven offers.

      And it’s not always practical to create your own product or service. Let’s say that you’re in the insurance niche. Would you rather create your own insurance company…or send them leads using CPA?

      But you’re right Dom: your own product puts you right at top of the value chain. And having an army of affiliates promoting your product? Even better. So monetizing your own product is definitely something to consider.You can often make more from your own product than from CPA or promoting other people’s products.

      1. Al Simon Avatar Al Simonsays:

        Quick point to add here is that the CPA model enables you to test different offers to your audience to clarify what it is that they want – as per Brians comment about promoting the Xbox offer to his audience.
        Once you’ve nailed the right offer you can follow up and start researching that offer in more detail to find what buyers like, want more of, etc. Then create your product to deliver on the ‘message-to-market- match’ that you’ve identified.
        Or in other words take an existing offer, that you know is working and apply the skyscraper technique to it.

  8. carl Avatar carlsays:

    Thanks for this post. I signed up with CPA networks and I have not been active for a while due to cash flow as I use 7 search and bidvertiser to promote some offers, I didnt make back the amount i invested i must say and a times some of the traffic they want are US based and am in Europe. How can I set up a site that will only focus on US traffic, is there a way to do this?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      My pleasure, Carl. Most sites get a mix of US and international traffic. But if you host your site in the US and use a US TLD (.com, .net, .org) you’ll naturally attract US-based search traffic.

      1. carl Avatar carlsays:

        thanks Brian.

  9. Mostafa Elwy Avatar Mostafa Elwysays:

    thanks alot for this quick tutorial … i’m a cpa marketer for a 2 years and it’s a great and profitble bussnise

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      My pleasure, Mostafa. I’m also a big fan 🙂

  10. Angela W Avatar Angela Wsays:

    Hey Brian, I’ve learned more from your site than the two wso’s I paid for. I think I’ve found an offer but I’m confused about the difference between the “type which says (Lead)” and the “Category (email submits)”. Why are both listed, I thought it would be one or the other not both.
    Thanks in advance, Angela

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks so much, Angela! They’re more or less the same. The difference is this: “leads” often have several fields to fill out and email submits are generally just name, email (and sometimes) zip code.

  11. Les Avatar Lessays:

    Hi, Brian. You say “I own a site that’s 100% monetized with CPA. Most of the affiliate links are either contextual links or integrated into the site’s design.” I’m relatively new to CPA and would like to know more about this strategy. Do you have anything published that gives more details on how to achieve this integration?
    For a relative newbie, even these simple concepts can be dangerously stress-inducing!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hey Les. There isn’t any article or tutorial on how do to this (you need to hire a designer and coder to make it work). I’d check out the two example sites in the post to get a better idea of what I mean when I say integrated advertising.

      1. Les Avatar Lessays:

        Thanks, Brian.
        Busy going through your Advanced Guide to Link Building, co-authored with Neil Patel. Looks good!

        1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

          Thanks Les! Neil and I worked really hard on it to make it something special.

  12. Drew Avatar Drewsays:

    The real task would be driving traffic to your website right?

    Picking offers in niches like Education or Finance or any other competitive ones make it extremely tough to get good organic traffic to even see your site.

    Would you just drive traffic via SEO?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      That’s right Drew: traffic is critical. In this guide I was assuming that you already had a site (or niche in mind). But you can start with CPA to find a niche that you can monetize when you get traffic later down the road. I wouldn’t rely SEO for 100% of my traffic, but for certain niches there isn’t any other viable option.

      1. chris Avatar chrissays:

        My only concern with using SEO for CPA offers is that CPA offers tend not to hang around that long. So by the time your SEO rankings kick in, the offer will have gone?

        1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

          Very true. That’s why I recommend creating a site that ranks for topic keywords vs. specific offers.

  13. Awesome stuff. I found your site through the video interview you did with internetmarketing. You’re posts are some of the best stuff I’ve seen on seo. Very helpful to someone new to this stuff. Thanks.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks for your kind words, Betty! Let me know if you have any questions about SEO.

  14. Brian,

    Yet another extremely helpful guide. I also read your guide to building back links- which is an excellent resource. I just wanted to say thanks for sharing such useful info and encourage you to keep it up.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you enjoyed it Pete and thanks for your kind words 🙂

  15. Hi Brian,
    Great article. I am looking to try my hands on CPA marketing, and I couldn’t get a better article than this. The only think which I did not find was how do we promote our CPA product? How do you drive traffic to it?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Kunal! That’s a good question. Just like any site, you can drive traffic to a CPA-monetized sites from PPC, SEO, media buys, content marketing, guest posting etc.

  16. Amit Arora Avatar Amit Arorasays:

    How do I enter in this field at the first place?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Not sure what you mean, Amit. Can you explain?

      1. Ajay Avatar Ajaysays:

        He wants to know how to become a CPA marketer. That question is on my mind too.

  17. udin Avatar udinsays:

    Glad to see this post, from my point of view, this was basic to advanced technique to get into CPA Network, just signup under your referral.

    udin

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you liked the post, Udin. Let me know how CPA marketing works out for you.

  18. Azudi Avatar Azudisays:

    Hi Brian, your statement above:
    “Step #3: Design your site around CPA
    Once you’ve joined a network and have an offer ready to go, it’s time to integrate it into your site”
    Can you explain how to build a site around CPA? Any example of such site for newbies which may enable a newbie to be accepted by the CPA network. Since the site is required in the network application form. Your input will be highly appreciated.Thanks.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Good question, Azudi. I actually give two examples of sites that have integrated CPA into their site in the article (Nerd Wallet and Money Supermarket). But you don’t need to get this set up until after you’ve been accepted by the network. As long as you have a quality site, you can apply right away.

      1. Azudi Avatar Azudisays:

        Thanks Brian for your reply. You said I don’t need to get that kind of site setup as above, but as long as I have a quality site I can apply right away.
        As a newbie I don’t know how a quality site should look like. Is there any example for that? I have an ad-sense site which generates $24 a year. It has nothing to do with CPA and will not qualify.

        1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

          I’d say any made for Adsense site wouldn’t qualify as a quality site. It’s difficult to define. But you can head to AllTop, look at your niche’s category and check out the sites listed there. If they made it, they’re quality.

  19. Hi Brain, Iam very new to CPA world. I have some questions, i hope you clarify them. These are the points you missed in the article.
    1. How to track my sales.
    2. Many people saying this is the best tool. Prosper202 why ? i didnt find even a single article how to use this tool.
    some more questions coming soon. Just started CPA. Accepted by AdworkMedia.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Dinesh, Prosoper202 is really great as a PPC tracking tool. But unless you’re doing a lot of split testing on your site with organic traffic, the tracking that’s build into most networks is good enough.

  20. Thanks Brian for such a content full blog post. I am getting started with the Online World and CPA is one strategy I want to master before going into another. I will get started with the inclusion of the offers within my blog and move from there. You have broken it down into easy to follow steps. Thanks again

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you enjoyed the post, Margaret. Let me know how the CPA offers you run work out or if you have any questions.

  21. Tara Avatar Tarasays:

    Thank you for this article. I thought I knew everything there was to know about CPA…I was so wrong.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you learned something new, Tara 😀

  22. Hey Brian,

    Thanks for the article, great overview of the process. I have a question, do you recommend creating a list for these CPA offers? Would you this be the best way to convert the offers?

    Thanks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you enjoyed it, Long. It depends. Usually creating a list is the best way to convert ANY traffic…but I personally don’t build a list with my CPA-monetized site. The best way to convert them is to either get them on a value-packed email newsletter or to use the integration strategy I talk about in the post.

  23. Irwin Avatar Irwinsays:

    Just wanted to drop a line and say helluva post!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Irwin 🙂

  24. Tim Avatar Timsays:

    Brian,
    This artilce rocks, THANK YOU!!!
    Tim

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Tim. Let me know how CPA marketing works out for you.

  25. My brother referred me this article when i asked him what he is upto these days. He said CPA and i asked what is it. That is how i ended here. It was a great article and now i know what is CPA and i am gonna try this soon.
    Thanks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to hear I could clear that up for you, Ankit 🙂

  26. Hamiz Khan Avatar Hamiz Khansays:

    Wow article ! Thanks man !

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad you liked it, Hamiz 🙂

  27. Brian Its a Brilliant piece! I have worked with Peerfly although didn’t put ever that much effort required to bring in leads but your post is inspiring me to get back to the CPA world!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Shuvo. I’ve heard good things about Peerfly but haven’t worked with them personally. Let me know how your foray into CPA goes 🙂

  28. Harry Avatar Harrysays:

    Hey Brian. Nice article explaining CPA offers. I wanted to ask your opinion on this – would CPA offers do well on humour niche? If not, could you recommend anything apart from Adsense/CPM that you think would work well?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Harry. That’s a tough niche to monetize. What I’d do is identify what demographic tends to visit your site (for example, a humor
      site targeting men in their early 20s is very different than one that gets traffic from 45 year old women). Then I’d find CPA
      offers that would appeal to that demo.

  29. Tijs Avatar Tijssays:

    This clarified a lot on CPA marketing. Thanks!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to hear that, Tijs! That’s what I set out to do with this post 🙂

  30. Brian,
    This is definitely the ultimate guide for CPA. Filled with great information. I currently use Adsense on my websites but now I see the advantages of CPA.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Definitely give it a shot, Dwayne. In my experience, CPA crushes Adsense.

  31. Faye @ Romantic Movies Reviewer Avatar Faye @ Romantic Movies Reviewersays:

    I haven’t made a red cent of money from CPA offers and find it very difficult to get ranked.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Faye, To do well with CPA (or internet marketing in general), you definitely need traffic first. So I’d consider focusing on that before delving into monetization.

  32. Stephen Avatar Stephensays:

    Do you need a website set up first before contacting the affiliate networks in order to get approved?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Stephen, Not necessarily, but it definitely helps.

  33. Harsh Raichura Avatar Harsh Raichurasays:

    Really Nice Guide For Newbie Blogger Like me because i don’t know what is CPA Marketing so here i got all idea what is it.
    Thanks 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      That was my goal with this post, Harsh. Happy to help 🙂

  34. Pawan Kumar Kukarwal Avatar Pawan Kumar Kukarwalsays:

    Thanks Brian for such guide that can give inspiration to any newbie to join CPA.
    I recently came across few CPA marketers which created an interest to look at the subject.
    I found your guide on Google and thanks a lot for providing this very needed guide 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Cheers, Pawan. Happy to help 🙂

  35. Payman Torkiyan Avatar Payman Torkiyansays:

    Hey Brian,
    Love your work. I’ve read majority of your post, guest posts, and even gone through the Quicksprout videos you did.

    I’ve been an SEO and worked on PPC accounts for the past two years, and have gotten a good deal of knowledge from reading posts in our industry, especially yours.

    Recently, I started thinking about affiliate marketing and using that knowledge to try it out. I’ve been doing research and have joined Share a Sale to promote a product.

    What are the main mistakes other than not quiting “we newbies” make when we start out in affiliate marketing?

    Thanks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Payman 🙂

      This mistakes holds a lot of affiliates back: thinking like an affiliate marketer. If you want to get traffic, you need to act like a big brand. Just because you monetize with affiliate offers doesn’t mean you have to run a mediocre site. Sites like Money Supermarket and Nerd Wallet run the type of affiliate sites that crush it today by providing tons and tons of value.

  36. Payman Torkiyan Avatar Payman Torkiyansays:

    Thanks for the reply.

    Definitely agree with you that you should never run a mediocre site. You have to show that your site can compete with all your competitors in the top 3 search results.

    I know you’ve been really busy for the past year. Are you still in any programs or promoting any products other than your own products?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds like you’re going to rock it as an affiliate, Payman. I still have 2 sites that promote CPA offers, but I don’t work on them much anymore so I can focus on growing Backlinko.

  37. Shakil Avatar Shakilsays:

    Hi Brian,
    Thanks for your awesome article. It’s really very informative and helpful. I have just joined Maxbounty and I don’t have any past experience in CPA marketing. So I need some of ur kind advice. how can I share the campaigns of my MaxBounty account and get the leads. I don’t have the website either but I have Facebook fan page. Pls advise, it would of great help. Thanks in advance.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      My pleasure, Shakil. I definitely recommend creating a website. That’s the best way to get stable traffic.

  38. Aamir Avatar Aamirsays:

    Thanks Brian for your awesome post, Can you please write a detailed post on how to build authority websites.
    Thanks.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Aamir. And thanks for the suggestion 🙂

      1. Felix Osezua Avatar Felix Osezuasays:

        Thanks for this post, it really helpful to me. I just got an approval to join a CPA network ( salesbloter), as a novice. I don’t know how to go about it. From your post now, I understand that I need a traffic source to get an offer. I presently don’t have a functional website. I only have a Facebook page with a few followers where i write on marital issue. Knowing how CPA works from your post, how possible can i get a good Facebook following to have my offer approved.
        Please help me out if you can.

  39. Julian Strofe Avatar Julian Strofesays:

    Hi Brian how are you? I was wondering would it be a good idea to build lots of backlinks to my landing page to increase pagerank? Now I don’t own the website but I do own the domain names and forward my cpa offers to the correct domains. Should I do this? Thx in advance

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Only if that’s going to help your page rank, Julian.

  40. Harry Avatar Harrysays:

    Hey Brian I am fairly new to this affiliate marketing game and for the most part it’s been a little trial and error, I thoroughly enjoyed your post as I didn’t have a clue about CPA marketing until now! Hopefully in the future I can start making some good money online. Thanks! Harry

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to help, Harry 🙂

  41. The problem is how to get targeted traffics. Without targeted traffics, we won’t make a cash

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      That’s where the rest of this site will help you, Michael 🙂

  42. syedasadsheeraz Avatar syedasadsheerazsays:

    hi
    brian dean i am new to this field, i want to learn how to get conversions,

    Please help out

    syedasadsheeraz

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      That’s something I’ll cover on the blog soon 🙂

  43. Golam Zaman Avatar Golam Zamansays:

    Hey Brian,
    it is really helpful to anyone who want to start CPA. I have just got a call from my AM of maxbounty and got approved my application. Good to hear from you some valued tips about CPA. Well said Brain. I really appreciate it.

    Thanks once again. don’t forget to let me know if anything new about it in your mind.

    Cheers!!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Congrats Golam! Let me know how CPA marketing works out for you.

  44. Golam Zaman Avatar Golam Zamansays:

    Hi Brian,

    Thank you for comment against my post.
    Didn’t you publish my comments? What should I do to see my comments showing here.

    As u know I starting CPA first time so will try my best. I will follow your valued instructions u published here.

    Cheers!!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Good luck with CPA Golam 🙂

  45. Elena Avatar Elenasays:

    Hi Brian. Thank you for your informative article.
    What is your recommendation for mobile traffic companies?
    Thank you

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Elena. I don’t know much about mobile traffic CPA, but most of the big CPA networks have mobile-specific offers now.

  46. Millette Avatar Millettesays:

    Can you have multiple CPA offers on one website? For example if I had a site in the home/garden niche could I write multiple posts about multiple CPA products/offers or is it best to create a site around one offer?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Yes, you definitely want to have several CPA offers on your site. But I wouldn’t create an entire site around one offer. Just make an awesome site around a category and monetize with different offers to see which does best for you.

  47. Ramsay Avatar Ramsaysays:

    Hi Brian,
    Would you know if traffic from CPA would help raise Alexa ranking?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Good question, Ramsay. I’m not 100% sure but I suppose it would help your Alexa.

  48. Mike Avatar Mikesays:

    Hi Brian,

    Great Post! Can i use VS to promote my Local Business?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Mike 🙂
      What’s VS?

  49. Emmanuel Avatar Emmanuelsays:

    Hello Brian, I am new to internet marketing, am wanted to know what is the most cost effective way to promote and jumpstart your niche CPA offers with good traffic and conversions if Maxbounty doesn’t allow you to use freelancers, microjobsites, or guaranteed lead services to Maxbounty?…Your time and knowledge would be greatly appreciated with regard to the above question. Thank You

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Emmanuel, the best thing you can do is create a great site that attracts traffic that will naturally convert on CPA offers. That’s the first step.

  50. Raja Avatar Rajasays:

    Hi Brian,
    Nice post, I don’t have any experience with affiliate marketing so this post should definitely help. I’m currently running a free dating site in the Spanish market, Any tips what would work best for me except for running ads for other dating sites? I was thinking may be weight loss and anti aging products for women…any thoughts?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Raja. Those are good ideas. The only way to know is to test 🙂

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