Before starting, I want to let you know that CPA affiliate marketing is the best and quickest way to monetize. You can make a lot of money in record time. It just takes a small investment, but I guarantee you will start for free.
This post is like a crash course in which you will learn how to start CPA or EPL affiliate marketing for free in 2022.
Sounds great? Let's start with the basics first.
And then, I'll jump into the 3-step how-to tutorial.
What is CPA Marketing?
CPA marketing is a type of affiliate marketing in which you earn a commission for a specific action that a person takes. It's also known as pay per action (PPA), cost per acquisition (CPA), and cost per conversion (CPC) marketing.
CPA stands for cost per action. So that's a cost a business owner pays you to get an action or task done.
The action may be anything like:
- Filling out a form.
- Enter an email address.
- Buying something.
- Getting a quote.
- Subscribing to a newsletter.
- Downloading an app or software.
- Signing up for a trial.
And the list goes on. The action or task is usually the basis for revenue for any business. For example, a company paying you to get people to enter their email addresses is interested in:
- Talking to them about their products or services.
- Convincing them to buy their products or services.
- And ultimately making more sales.
CPA marketing is the most efficient way to monetize your traffic as a blogger, advertiser, or publisher. Why?
Let me explain why!
Why CPA: Top 5 Benefits of CPA Marketing
CPA marketing has more benefits than any other type of online marketing. Here are the top 10 reasons to start CPA marketing today:
1/ Get Paid for Every Action
The biggest advantage of CPA marketing is that you get paid for every action a person takes. That means if someone fills out a form, you get paid. If someone enters their email address, you get paid.
And if someone buys something, you get paid. There is no risk involved, and you don't have to worry about making a sale.
2/ Don't Worry About Conversion
With CPA marketing, you don't need to spend time converting a visitor into a customer for someone else. You're simply getting paid for an action that someone takes. The action required may be a sale!
But you don't necessarily need to worry about it. You send a person to a business who completes a task. And then the business convinces him or her to buy.
3/ Enjoy High Return on Investment (ROI)
Don't worry; I'll walk you through a CPA affiliate marketing tutorial that will help you start for free. But then you'll eventually need to invest some money.
The good news is that CPA marketing has a very high ROI. It's one of the highest ROIs in any form of marketing. That means you can quickly make back your investment and start making profits in no time.
You make money with CPA marketing, even with less traffic.
4/ Scale Quickly and Make More Money
CPA marketing is extremely scalable. You can quickly make more money by increasing your organic or paid traffic. Once you know the cost per action, it's very easy to scale up your CPA marketing campaigns.
5/ Get Paid Over and Over Again Passively
With CPA marketing, you usually just get paid one time.
But if you do it right, you can get paid repeatedly.
For example, if someone fills out a form or enters their email address, you can get paid for email, trial, and sale.
Some businesses offer recurring payments for their products or services. So you can get paid every month for the same action. Click on the image below to learn about the top recurring affiliate platforms:
And if you have a blog or website that sends people to a business's site consistently, you can generate passive income.
Do these reasons make you interested in CPA marketing? If yes, let's head to the top CPA marketing networks.
Top CPA Marketing Networks, Programs & Platforms in 2022
There are tons of CPA networks and platforms out there. Let me share most of them with high-paying offers, and then I'll write about my favorites. Alright?
- MaxBounty
- oDigger
- CrakRevenue
- ClickDealer
- CPALead
- AdmitAd
- CPAGrip
- CPAMatica
- Toro Advertising
- AdWork Media
- Peerlfy
- Madrivo
- GlobalWide Media
- Adscend
- Mobidea
- AdCombo
- RevenueAds
- Panthera Network
- Digital Media Solutions
- Convert2Media
- Affiliati Network
- Lemonads
- PerformCB
- Adsterra
Choosing the right networks and programs is a secret sauce in CPA marketing. Let me give you my top 5 CPA networks that I've personally worked with. They're great for beginners and have high-paying offers.
1/ MaxBounty
MaxBounty is one of the most popular affiliate networks, with thousands of programs in almost every industry. They have been in business since 2004 and have a great reputation as a fair and honest company.
And the programs listed on the network are good at converting traffic into leads and sales. You can also find programs that pay you recurring income.
MaxBounty is my top pick for the best CPA network for beginners. They have great support and training resources. And they're very friendly to new affiliates.
Plus, they have a lot of offers with high payouts.
2/ Peerfly
Peerfly is the fastest growing affiliate network with a high-end Affiliate Manager, custom tracking, and over 2000 offers. Furthermore, they offer fast payment options, rewards, and contests.
They offer a lot of high-paying CPA and other affiliate marketing programs in many niches. And they offer free training and tools to help increase your CPA marketing income.
3/ CPAlead
If you're interested in Cost Per Install (CPI) marketing, CPAlead is the place to join. They have a lot of mobile and desktop offers that pay you per install. So you earn money each time a person you refer installs an app.
With over 1,750,000 publishers, CPAlead is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. In addition, they also have a very good support team to help new affiliates get started.
4/ CPAGrip
CPAGrip is a content locking and incentive affiliate network perfect for sophisticated CPA marketers. Dedicated staff, tech tools, and fast payments are some of its great features.
It's one of the oldest CPA networks with a good reputation in the industry. And they have a lot of high-paying offers, especially in the email marketing and zip submit niche.
5/ AdmitAd
If you're looking for opportunities to develop long-term partnerships with brands, AdmitAd is the right CPA network for you. It has a lot of programs in different niches with exclusive offers from software and tool niches.
And they're very good at working with affiliates to help them grow their businesses.
With over 30,000 advertisers, AdmitAd is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. They're also very good at providing instant payouts.
So these were my favorite CPA networks. Now, let's discuss the terminology used in these CPA affiliate marketing platforms.
Bonus: H-Supertools Affiliate Programs Table for Digital Marking
I keep updating the top affiliate programs on the table. So you can always come back and check out the top-performing programs. The table helps you know the programs' earnings, category, and cookie duration.
Common Terms in CPA Marketing Networks
You need to be familiar with the following terms before working with any CPA marketing network. Makes sense? Let's start.
1/ CPA Offer
An offer is a product or service you promote to earn a commission. For example, if you're promoting a weight loss product, the offer would be the product itself.
2/ CPA Affiliate Agreement
The affiliate agreement is a contract between you and the advertiser. It outlines the terms and conditions of your relationship.
For example, it will say how much commission you will earn for each sale, how you should bring in the traffic, and where.
3/ CPA Network
A CPA network is an intermediary between advertisers and CPA affiliates. They provide offers for affiliates to promote and may take care of the payments.
4/ CPA Commission or Rev Share
The commission is the amount of money you earn for each action that you make. And revenue share is a cut for every sale you make.
5/ Chargeback
A chargeback is when customers ask for a refund for a purchase. It is when your commission is deducted if paid or processed.
6/ Cookies
Cookies are small text files placed on your audience's computer by websites you visit. They're used to track their online activity.
7/ Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the desired action.
For example, if you're promoting a weight loss product and 100 people visit your landing page, but only 2 people buy the product, your conversion rate would be 2%.
8/ Cost Per Action (CPA)
CPA is the advertising cost of the desired action.
9/ Offer Page
The offer page is where people are taken to after clicking on your affiliate link. And for that, you may create a sales funnel.
10/ Sales Funnel or Landing Page
A sales funnel is a process that takes people from awareness to purchase.
A landing page is a single page on your website where people are taken after clicking on an ad or affiliate link.
11/ Traffic Source
The traffic source is where your traffic comes from. For example, it could be Facebook ads, Google Ads, and more.
12/ Traffic Location
Traffic location is the geographical location of your traffic. Many CPA offers are valid for countries like the US, UK, or Canada.
13/ Publisher
A publisher is someone who promotes CPA offers. That is you.
CPA Marketing Guide: How to Start With No Audience or Budget
This guide is for those ready to take action and learn CPA marketing from scratch. I will show you how to start your CPA marketing journey for free with no budget, website, or existing audience.
And with this method, you can make up to $500 within the next 30 days.
Remember that we'll focus on action, not selling the product or service. You will still pick a product, promote it, and start making money. Easy? No!
You need to put a lot of effort into making this work. This isn't for you if you're looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.
With that said, let's get rolling.
Step 1: Find the Best CPA Offers
The first step is to find an offer that you can promote. And for that, you need to join a CPA network. It's an intermediary between advertisers and affiliates like you. I have listed some of the popular CPA networks you can join.
Let me share an example where Sendinblue offers 5 euros for each free account only.
Once you're in, take some time to look around.
A perfect CPA offer:
- Pays well.
- Has low competition.
- Is legit and niche-relevant.
- And maximum cookie duration (Aim for 30 days).
The best way to find such an offer is to use the search function and filter the results.
For example, if you're in the weight loss niche, you can use keywords like “weight loss” or “diet.”
After that, you need to go to the offer page to confirm that it's not shady or spammy. And you can also check the reviews. Otherwise, your reputation will be at stake.
But don't get turned off if the landing page asks for more than one step.
You can still make good money with multi-step offers.
The next thing that you need to do is to check the competition. The best way to do that is to use Google Keyword Planner and check the CPC of the relevant keyword.
Ensure to go for the maximum difference between CPC you'll spend and CPA you'll get. That's the profit you'll make. It can get tough when you have a general audience or weird niche.
For example, Brian Dean had a dating site that he wanted to monetize. He ran ads by AdSense but made no money. And then he ran CPA offers that asked for email or zip submit. Note that the offer is not related to the niche but the demographics.
The result was exciting. He made significantly more money with CPA offers than Adsense.
Step 2: Create a Sales Funnel or Process
After you've found the right offer, it's time to create a sales funnel for it.
A sales funnel is a process that makes people aware of the offer. Let me share a few ideas you can work on.
- Create a content locker (free lead magnet like an e-book or more).
- Build a website around your offers (NerdWallet, MoneySuperMarket).
- Create viral quizzes or personality tests.
- Start reviewing products or services on your review site.
- Make direct sales pages (If that's allowed by the advertiser)
The idea is to get creative and develop something that works for you. But you can skip creating a page or blog post if you directly advertise a landing page with a referral ID. In either case, you need to promote your offer.
Step 3: Select Your Traffic Source
Now it's time to generate traffic for your offer. The best part about CPA marketing is that there are multiple ways to do that without breaking the bank.
You can use free or paid methods.
Let's first talk about the paid ways to bring relevant traffic to your sales funnel or offer page.
- Paid ads (like Google Search Ads)
- Native ads (Ads that look like the content of your site or media)
- Push ads (With push notifications)
- Video ads (YouTube Ads or other platforms)
- Community Ads (on Quora Ads or Reddit)
You must be careful about your ad spending because it can get out of hand if you're not monitoring it. But if you do it carefully, then paid traffic is the best way.
Now let me share free methods to get traffic because they convert CPA marketing into passive income.
- Podcasting
- Forum marketing
- Influencer marketing
- SEO (Search engine optimization)
- Posting on Medium or Systeme.io Blogs
- Social media (Organic reach on the platforms)
- Content marketing (Blogging)
- Youtube videos and more.
The idea here is to get creative and develop something that works for you. Don’t forget to use these affiliate marketing tools to skyrocket your sales. But these methods can be time taking and expensive.
But I promised that you would get started for free, right?
Let me share a wonderful way to blog for free.
And that is creating a blog with Systeme.io
And here's how to do it:
- Create a free Systeme.io account.
- Go to the ‘Blog' tab and create a blog.
- Modify the pages into blog posts.
- Click on the ‘Create a Blog Post' button to start writing.
You can use the blog posts as a content locker for your CPA offers. Just link to the offer from within the blog post and ask people to complete an action to unlock it.
It's that simple.
You don't have to spend money on WordPress hosting or domain name because Systeme.io takes care of everything.
Now it's time to track your results. The best way to do that is to use Google Analytics. But you can also use other tools like Facebook Pixel.
As a bonus, follow the guide to driving organic traffic and take the course to amp up your affiliate marketing journey.
FAQs for CPA Marketing
Let me answer some frequently asked questions about CPA marketing.
1/ Is CPA marketing legal?
Yes, it is as long as you're not breaking any laws. For example, don't use someone's personal information to promote a CPA offer without consent.
2/ How much money can I make with CPA marketing?
It depends on multiple factors like the offer you're promoting, your traffic source, and your target country. You can generally make anywhere from $1 to $100 per lead or even more. There is no limit to how much you can make with CPA marketing.
3/ Is CPA marketing worth it?
Yes, CPA marketing is worth it. And it's still profitable in 2022. If you can find the right offer and generate enough targeted traffic, you can make a lot of money with CPA marketing.
4/ What is the best CPA network?
There is no one best CPA network. Different networks have different offers, so you'll need to find the one with the right offer. But I recommend using oDigger and OfferVault. They're like Google for CPA marketing offers.
5/ What does CPA stand for in marketing?
CPA stands for Cost Per Action. So you're essentially getting paid for every action that your visitors take. A good CPA depends on many factors like the offer payouts, the traffic source, and your target country.
