How CPA Affiliate Networks Bring In The Money
- The main principles
Firstly, we need to clarify what the CPA term actually means. CPA or Cost-Per-Action is a model of online advertising based on tracking and paying for each action performed on the publishers’ websites with the advertiser’s material. Everything from subscription to mobile service, subscription to a real service with card payment to filling in the questionnaire, registration on the site, buying in the store, subscription to the newsletter, – can be counted as an ‘action’ depending on the particular affiliate program. The idea of CPA is very simple: an advertiser does not need to pay for a vague advertising campaign when he or she pays for particular results. The most amazing thing is that people continues to trust in paid online and mobile advertisements for over years that makes CPA affiliate programs a powerful engine of global marketing machine. The Nielsen Global Trust Advertising Report has shown that the trust to these two types of advertising remains strong since 2013. That is why companies need to use CPA to grow and raise their revenues, and publishers need CPA affiliate programs to monetize their traffic, while affiliate networks connect advertisers and publishers, provide a platform for tracking and securing their campaigns, provide technical support, mediate their transactions and optimize time expenses.
Thus, in the Thought Leadership Paper published by the Forrester Consulting in February 2016, it is stated that  advertisers who are involved in an affiliate program in 2016, searched and made connections with publishers through their affiliate network, either by searching within affiliate network
dashboards or through affiliate-sponsored events.
Moreover, according to this survey, advertiser and publisher investment in affiliate marketing is high as more than 80 percent of advertisers and 84 percent of publishers ran an affiliate program.
While now over 80 percent of advertisers, spend more than 10 percent of their marketing budget to affiliate marketing using it at all stages of the customer journey: 83 percent targeted consumers during the discovery and awareness phase, 79 percent during conversion or purchase and 79 percent to create ongoing customer engagement.
Due to the tracking and analytics provided by affiliate networks placed in the middle of advertiser-customer-publisher crossroad, advertisers and publishers increasingly understand how customers decide to purchase. As the survey has shown, 80 percent of marketers tracked desktop and mobile sales, 66 percent tracked catalog-driven sales and 57 percent tracked those from traditional offline businesses.
Thus, in general, we can see that affiliate marketing continue to grow as an industry in line with growing public online engagement and global ubiquitous digitalisation of our daily routine.
- The main components of every CPA affiliate network on the example of admitad.com
In order to understand how CPA affiliate network brings money, everyone, firstly, needs to see, which components constitute this system and how do they connect with each other.
The main components of any CPA system usually include:
1) advertisers who have a need to advertise something online and expand their businesses activity on new GEOs and markets;
2) publishers who need to monetize their traffic from their own websites, social networks and groups, through contextual advertising, mass e-mail blasts, coupon sites, YouTube channels, hostings and others;
3) Internet users who browse desktop or mobile traffic;
4) an affiliate network that provides a platform for affiliate programs, logs targeted actions of visitors, and pays publishers royalties for those actions.
The sense of communication between these four elements we would discover on the example of the real affiliate network – admitad.com
admitad.com as a live example of a CPA affiliate program
Let’s closely look at the affiliate network admitad.com
Currently it is a global network of Cost-Per-Action affiliate programs, which provides advertisers with verified sources of sales and publishers with new business models to monetize traffic. Though their continued focus on innovation and desire to deliver a clear ROI for each and every client, they are currently dealing with over 1300 widely recognized international brands and more than 540 000 active publishers. Launched in 2010, this Germany-based network with its headquarters in Heilbronn already boasts seven offices across the globe. The network has leveraged its global scale to secure exclusive partnerships worldwide with internationally recognized brands, propelling it to six consecutive periods of year-over-year revenue growth exceeding 100%.  admitad.com is collaborating with such giants as Aliexpress, Booking.com, Citibank, eBay, Target Microsoft,  Nike, Adidas and others. The strongest geo by volume of admitad includes Russia, USA, Western Europe, the UK, and India. Thus, it goes without question, that it is worth to try and join this network. So, let’s look closerly, what exactly should a publisher do to make money there.
How can publisher earn money in the online games segment starting to work in CPA with admitad?
Looking closely to the online games marketing segment a publisher see that this field can bring good revenues for a long-term perspective. As a publisher for dealing with admitad offers you may use various types of Internet sites:
- Hostings that integrate various games for downloading by users;
- Aggregators of online games;
- Groups in social networks;
- Forums;
- Channels with reviews and broadcasts of games in Youtube;
- Text blogs about games;
- other types of thematic websites with target content.
All these types of publishers can drive traffic to offers of admitad advertisers and earn money due their visitors’ actions.
Let’s imagine as we have a website related to online games thematic and want to start earning money with admitad.
How to start and what to do next?
- Start
In order to start earning money with admitad you firstly need to sign-up to admitad by filling in a short form. Registration in admitad is free of charge. Than admitad consultant will help to integrate your site in their in-house platform and will share advertising materials that are also free of charge.
Among multiple suggestions you will be able to choose the most suitable business models to drive traffic from your website. Regardless the way of advertising you choose, – e-mail blast,  contextual advertising or coupons, – admitad consultants will give advice and lead you to the revenue growth by helping with setting up and developing the best business strategy, explaining all technical details and sending to you free advertising materials and banners. You will always get constant feedbacks from them regarding your progress, and statistical data and technical support, when you need it. As admitad team says on their website, their team also helps publishers to choose the most appropriate affiliate programs from the list of more than 1 389! In sum, admitad works with different traffic types and websites, so it’s up to you when to start earning money and boost your revenue.
Helpful tools for earning money
In your online advertising as a publisher you will get a full toolkit for working as effectively as ever. For example, admitad has its own in-house platform which was created with a very convenient interface for work and navigation on their platform. You can easily look for offers, choose them and run your campaign. In this regard, admitad always shares statistics and reports regarding the updates in different types of marketing niches and fluctuations of supply and demand. As an admitad affiliate, you may always request and get free analytics provided by admitad network to help you with taking informed decisions in planning and performing your CPA marketing campaign.
admitad innovative tools for publishers include fingerprint tracking, cross-device tracking, powerful anti fraud technologies, anti-cookie technologies, deep linking options, advertiser toolbox etc. They have even developed some useful apps by themselves or sometimes invest other developers (like GetDirect, DuMedia) to create various modern apps which you can download from Admitad Store and increase your profits staying in line with modernization.
- The first months with admitad network
During the first few months you will learn which advertising materials, offers, products and pictures on the banners or other teasers attract more targeted traffic and bring higher conversions. You will try different ads placements, different ads types, explore your audience and its tastes and will create your personal CPA marketing strategy. admitad, in its turn, will give you an entry to the global market and opportunity to work with globally known brands, will secure your revenues and will give you various tools to optimize your marketing strategy and to track your success with the help of a clear system of analytics and statistical reports.
The admitad company provides a huge range of data in logical, useful form. Moreover, you will be able to add SubID tracking to your links to analyze impressions, clicks and actions in details.
- The first year with admitad
During this period of time you will regularly track the conditions of the chosen offers and  and adapt the content of your website for the offers on time. For example, you could choose an offer related to a certain online game with leprechauns and elves. Thus, you have written a game description and put a certain picture from the ads kit provided by admitad network. In a few months the official banner has been changed to the picture with hobbits, so you need to revise your game description and make sure that it suits to the new picture. And then, you can relax and continue to receive your weekly payments from admitad. All you need is to check how do your track-links work and to adapt your website content to the needs of its target audience in line with the thematics of the chosen offers.
- Work with admitad provides firmness of your revenues
A long-term affiliation brings a lot of benefits because if you work with admitad for a long time and work honestly, your reputation is getting to the higher level. This is not just a notion of prestige, because from the practical site, you are also gaining a lot of perks from the admitad network: personal manager, premium payments, better referrals and many more. You will also increase your profits by adding more websites to your account and developing their design, content and increasing your audience.
Twice a year (in March and September) you will be invited to admitad global events and meet other business owners and entrepreneurs making new connections with them and finding fruitful opportunities and globally known partners: admitad lounge and admitad expert.
Conclusions and advice
Affiliate marketing is a raising sphere of business worldwide. This rise happens naturally as we are more and more connected to the Internet and our lives, comfort and purchases more and more moves online. That is why online advertising become more and more important for the success of any marketing campaign regardless of the size and orientation of the marketer’s business. In this regard, Cost-Per-Action networks play a crucial role because, as a matter of course, they cover multiple industries, countries and engage dozens of publishers. Publishers and advertisers, in turn, receive an unprecedented opportunity to get immediately in the global market and earn as much as they could never before due to the lack of these networks and global connections. Thus, now it is a right time to take the opportunity and raise your revenue together with those who are already earning money in the network. Thus, the idea is simple: do not lose time, affiliate and start  making money, because if not now then when?
Information about the author:
Name: Natalia Novozhilova
Bio: Natalia is a new guest writer for the LiveChat. She is interested in the innovative ways of Internet-marketing and freelance income. She is currently implementing her theories in practice at admitad.com
