CPA

Online Marketing with CPA: How to Use It Effectively

Featured image by Glen Carrie from Unsplash

Social media has changed the way people do things on the internet, that’s a given by now. However, one of the most important changes relates to the way we advertise online. Business owners no longer buy advertisement spaces, like banners, because they now use social media marketing. A great example of this strategy is CPA, or cost per action, with online advertisements.

They now campaign by choosing exactly who they want their message to reach, and where and when they want it to appear. This naturally saves advertisers money and enables smaller players to enter the playground. But it also means you need to learn how to do things the new way.

RELATED ARTICLE: START BLOGGING FOR A LUCRATIVE SECOND CAREER

Social Media Advertising

One of the most prominent characteristics of campaign advertising on social media is the ability to choose what’s called ‘the billing method’. This means you get to tell your platform (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) exactly what you want to be charged for, and there are a few options:

●    CPM – Cost per 1,000 impressions. You pay for every 1,000 people who see your ad online, whether they regard it or not. This may suit advertisers who are just trying to raise awareness but does not usually bring direct purchases.

●    CPC – Cost per click. This means you pay for each person who sees your ad online and clicks on it. It does not secure a purchase, just a referral to another landing page.

●    CPA – Cost per action. This is more popular nowadays, since it lets advertisers decide what the action that they want to be charged for is. It can be filling out a form, making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, etc.

More and more marketers are choosing to go the CPA way, since it guarantees you a desired action for your money. However, as with all other advertising strategies, it’s very easy to go wrong here. Here are a few guidelines to maximizing the results of your CPA campaign.

RELATED ARTICLE: 7 ELEMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES FOR BUSINESS

Choose the Right CPA for You

The base of using the CPA advertising method is picking the right action that will serve your goals. This may seem like it goes without saying, but it’s not as obvious as you’d think. The tendency is to prefer to be charged when someone makes a purchase from you, guaranteeing a sort of ‘money for money’ system. But will that really get you any purchases?

The platform you use naturally wants to make money. No doubt about that. So, when you tell it you want to be charged for every purchase made from you, it will show your ad only to people it estimates have a high probability of making that purchase. The result? Your ad will most likely only be viewed by a selected few.

Form Filling

The solution? Think of another action that may benefit you as well without limiting your ad’s exposure so much. A good example would be form filling. This means that you add a form to your ad and the platform charges you every time a user decides to fill it out. 

The form should include means of contact, so you can later get in touch with the potential client. In the industry of online advertising, this is called lead generation. You pay for information that will help you close a sale on your terms.

RELATED ARTICLE: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A DIGITAL MARKETER