CPA Affiliate Marketing: Earn Money without Selling ANYTHING

Several members of Wealthy Affiliate make money online with CPA affiliate marketing.

See 2 quick examples below:

• Earnings Report: Here's How I Made $8,871.03 from Blogging in May 2019
• My Blogs Earned Over $100k Part-Time in 2018

Therefore, I wanted to share in a nutshell what CPA affiliate marketing means and ask your experiences about it.

CPA Affiliate Marketing vs Revenue Share

With "normal affiliate marketing", you'll earn money every single time when someone clicks your link and end up buying a product. For example, 50% of a $100 product => Your share is $50.

We call that a revenue share.

Requirement to earn money with revenue share is:

1. Someone clicks your link.
2. He buys a product online.
3. You earn money.

CPA stands for Cost Per Action.

It works like this:

1. Someone clicks your link.
2. He takes some action (See below).
3. You earn money.

That action can be, for example

• Filling out an email address.
• Sharing a phone number.
• Downloading an app.
• Registering for a trial.
• Or something else.

Why Do Companies Provide CPA Offers?

You may be asking, "Why would anyone pay me for bringing them email addresses (or other actions)?"

The reason is that companies calculate how much money they make for each email address and then they pay you a little bit more than their profit.

Let me give a simplified example.

Let's say that a company makes $200 per sale and they have seen that 2% of the people who submit an email address end buying that product.

Therefore, they earn $4 per email address on average (+they get an email address which can lead to more sales down the road.)

Then they can pay you $2 for that email address and still make a $2 profit themselves.

Benefits of CPA Affiliate Marketing

1) No Sale Required

Getting people to fill out an email address or downloading an app may be much easier than getting people to buy something.

Some people in your audience may be interested in trying something that you offer but they don't want to buy.

With CPA affiliate marketing you can earn money without even selling anything.

2) Possibility to Earn More Than 100% for the "Sale"

There are CPA affiliate programs that pay, for example, when people register for a product trial.

A trial may cost $1 for a customer.

But the company may pay you a $10 reward for bringing that customer. That is a 1,000% commission. However, in some cases, you may not get rewarded for recurring commissions.

You'll need to evaluate whether it's better to get paid with CPA offers or with a revenue share. Oftentimes recurring lifetime commissions end up making more money to your pocket.

Cons of CPA Affiliate Marketing

1) Prior Experience Is Often Required

Most affiliate programs that operate with a revenue share program accept almost everyone who applies.

The company doesn't generally have much risks when they accept new people to the program since they only pay once they make money.

However, with most CPA affiliate marketing programs some experience is often required. Companies need to be sure that you know what you're doing in order to be profitable.

2) Most CPA Programs Are Targeted for the US/UK/Canada/Australia Audience

When you get paid per sale, companies don't generally care where does the customer comes from as long as the company get paid.

However, if they pay you for an action (such as filling out an email address or a phone number), they must be careful in order to make profit.

There's a huge difference between the purchasing power in different countries. Therefore, in most CPA affiliate programs you only get paid once you bring them traffic from specific countries.

The good news is that your location doesn't affect your earnings. You may be enjoying the exotic beaches in the Philippines and still target the US audience because the Internet is worldwide. I just wanted to clarify this because sometimes people ask me, "Does my location affect my earnings?" No, your location doesn't affect your online earnings.

"Can I Just Send Traffic to Earn Money?"

Yes and no.

If you are promoting a CPA offer, you may make money just by sending people to their offer page. However, in most cases, it may be better that you "warm" the audience.

Instead of sending people directly to the offer page, it's better to have a landing page (=separate web page) where you explain the benefits of that offer.

That will lead in most cases into higher conversions than directly sending people to the offer. And if you are doing paid advertising, you are not usually allowed to send people directly to the affiliate link. You'll need to have a landing page before the offer.

Some popular tools for building landing pages are, for example, ClickFunnels, Thrive Themes, Elementor, Builderall, etc.

How to Get Traffic to CPA Offers?

Online course salesmen tell that "all you'll need is a 1-page website, the right ad network and you'll start making money with our new autopilot system." In reality, it requires a little bit more than that.

The truth is that you can use the same traffic methods for CPA affiliate marketing as you would do with revenue share.

• Blogging
• YouTube
• Podcast
• Social Media Networks (TikTok, FB, IG, Pinterest, etc.)
• Paid Ads
• Email Marketing

The best way is to pick one traffic method and focus on that fully instead of trying everything at the same time.

The main training in Wealthy Affiliate focuses on showing how to get traffic with blogging.

Many members, including myself, have got 1,000,000's of traffic over time simply by following the steps that Kyle shows in the training.

In the Wealthy Affiliate community, we have experts in all areas of traffic sources. I've often seen people sharing their tips and results about Pinterest. Some people specialize in paid advertising. Personally, I enjoy using YouTube.

=> There's not only one way to get traffic. Pick one platform and focus on that.

(AND don't believe gurus who'll claim that you can make millions with their "new magic trick to riches" or "autopilot system". They're just scams.)

It's Your Time!

- Roope "Many ways to make money with affiliate marketing" Kiuttu

PS. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

What Are Your Experiences with CPA Affiliate Marketing?

Share with us in the comments below.