So what is this untapped way to monetize your blog? It’s called Cost Per Action (CPA…no, not the tax people!) or Pay Per Action (PPA) or sometimes even Pay Per Lead (PPL). In a way, Adsense is a very basic CPA. You get paid a few cents for an action: your reader clicking on the Adsense ad on your page. But, there is a whole other world for CPA’s out there besides Adsense.

An advertiser decides to set up a CPA campaign, and he contracts with a CPA network to provide his ads. The network signs up affiliates to promote those ads and drive traffic to the advertiser’s offer. Advertisers love this because they only pay when the action they desire is performed. It can be something as simple as a reader entering their zip code or e-mail address. Or, it could be a full blown form for something like an auto loan. The difference between these and Adsense is in the payout. Usually the minimum pay out is $1.00, and it goes up from there.

I’m sure you’ve seen these offers. Sign up for a free cruise….get a year’s worth of diapers free….get a free gift card….the choices are many and varied. You simply join one of the many CPA networks to be able to offer the program. You would search by your keyword within the network to see what they have to offer. We are an affiliate of Linkshare…there is an ad on the right for anyone interested in checking them out. They are not a link exchange company….they provide you an opportunity to offer their ads on your blog. They are also a little different than many CPA networks in that they also have advertisers with actual products for sale similar to Clinkbank.

Here are a few of the major CPA networks:

  • Azoogle Ads- many people think this is the very best of them.
    http://www.azoogleads.com
  • Max Bounty- promoted as the highest paying CPA network.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     http://www.maxbounty.com
  • NeverBlueAds- reported to be very welcoming, and helpful. 
    http://www.neverblueads.com                  

Why would you want to sign up for more than one? To target the offers to your niche better– not every offer is on every network. Your niche may not have any offers at all on one network… several on another. In fact, many of the bigger networks take pride in having exclusive offers. In  business, this makes sense.

There is something of a game to be played when you sign up with these networks. They are selective and don’t take everyone. First of all, you must be able to show them that you have decent traffic to begin with. Sound familiar? Just like any other part of running your blog, you must be promoting and driving readers to your blog to use these networks. They also want to know that you’re a player and serious about driving traffic to their offers. The fastest way to get approved is to tell them you will be using PPC to drive traffic. If you apply and don’t receive a phone call from them within a week, then you call them.

There is one other very large CPA network Hydranetwork. This is where the *gurus* play. I’d recommend, you start with the others and get some experience under your belt before applying there. You’ll be approved much easier.

There  are a few things you can learn from CPA campaigns. They are are not cheap to run. The advertisers pay thousands of dollars to run a campaign for a month. And many campaigns have been running for more than a year. Many of the campaigns have quality creatives…ads, banner graphics, etc. that you simply paste the code on your page. If you find a campaign that has been running for —say 6 or 7 months…you know it is successful. What does this mean to you? You can bet that niche is a money maker. If you have an interest in it, you can build a blog around it and have your first monetization steps ready to go: Adsense and a CPA campaign.

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