A CPA (cost-per-action) network means just what its name suggests. It is an Affiliate Network in which a commission of the sale is paid on the actions performed. These actions not only include sales or revenue sharing as in the case of other Affiliate Networks, but also getting a lead such as e-mail address, credit card number, telephone number or getting an order for the product, a sign-up or a download from the website.

CPA Networks have been very popular as a marketing tool. This is because they are more cost effective and successful methods for advertising as they allow you to pay only when a desired action is performed. This actually helps to eliminate the case wherein you spend more money on advertising than you are earning by selling your products. You, as a merchant would have to pay only when the advertising shoes some results. Thus in simple words, the merchant will pay his affiliate only when the website visitor performs a specific action or acquisition.

CPA methods are believed to be a better alternative to the PPC (pay-per-click) or similar methods as in the CPA networks, the businessperson pays the affiliate webmasters only when they perform a specific action, but in the PPC networks, the affiliate webmasters get paid for every click whether or not the desired action is performed by the visitor. As a result, the merchants using the PPC methods always have a risk to run a business in loss as they have to pay the affiliates for a very little or no results. Thus, CPA in comparison to PPC is a much more reliable and practical method of marketing.

Joining the CPA gives you a helping hand that works as a mediator between the merchant and the customer who makes it clear for the merchant that the marketing efforts of the product are set up for best chances of sale.

Just to understand how profitable the CPA network is, let’s just take an example. One of the CPA network requires the user to enter his personal data such as e-mail and his name to collect a free offer and every time someone does so using your link, you get a commission of $5. So if you are able to get 10 of your friends registered to that site, you earn $50 easily. It is really as simple as that to make money through CPA.