If you’ve been hanging out on a webmaster or internet marketing related forum for any period of time in the year you probably could not have not managed to miss the hum about this magical new system for generating endless amounts of cash called CPA. 

But what is CPA? 

CPA stands for Cost Per Action and it is not a new concept, simply a new name and being hyped up by a lot of marketers as a better alternative option to AdSense.  It used to go by the name of Pay Per Lead, which possibly explains the concept better corporations are prepared to pay, often massive amounts, you to generate leads from them.  Most offers that you will be in a position to promote will ask visitors for some private info which ranges from a zip to full contact information.  Other offers will attempt to get visitors to sign up to websites and ultimately you have offers that let the user order free samples if they pay for postage and packing. 

The amount you can earn from CPA offers range between $1 to as much as $50, but you may be pondering where the firms get the money from to pay you for promoting what are ‘free’ offers.  A company will look at your lead as a long-term prospect, the visitor was interested and galvanized enough to provide some ( or a large amount of ) private info and the company can now chase up on this lead to attempt to convert them in to a paying purchaser.  Sometimes the company will sell the details to other agencies, so if this makes you fee worried you must definitely discover what the company does with the private information before advertising it. 

Allegedly this strategy works because even the biggest firms and largest web firms in the world are using it to generate leads.  They’re fundamentally leveraging the power of the web to become their sales rep. 

while acknowledging that, is CPA worth the buzz and hype that it has been generating?  Probably not, it’s no different from the AdSense hype from a couple of years ago when the likes of Joel Comm revealed that he was making $15,000 or more each month and soon afterwards waves of AdSense ‘how to’ guides followed.  Today, AdSense has become the simplest way to earn money online, but CPA is new ( or at least the term is ) and is so tempting the eye of thousands of people. 

As with most ways of earning profits online, CPA is relatively straight forward, put offers on your site or promote them thru some pay per click ad network ( like AdWords ) and make cash.  It differs because it is far more time comprehensive and requires a lot more testing and enhancing than other money making techniques.  Infact, newbie are likely to find that they earn more cash with AdSense than CPA offers. 

So in conclusion, CPA offers can be very lucrative, more so than AdSense or promoting products as an affiliate, but it’s's possibly not worth all of the hype that surrounds it as it’s not going to be for everyone.