Grease to ease the transition of newbies into the fascinating world of
Cost-Per-Action (CPA) advertising
First appeared in San Jose Mercury News Forums, Nov 18, 2006.
Consider the following ad, the likes of which we are all only too
used to routing promptly into our spam buckets.
"The sex of your baby predicted CHEEP! Guaranteed Results. 150% REFUND
for wrong predictions"
There you have it - a simple and sweet business plan if ever there was
one. But people who ponder can promptly peer past its imposturous
garb. This is just gambling in disguise. Suppose the service costs
$1.00 and a thousand naive couples paid for it. On average, five
hundred of them will receive a refund of $1.50; the rest will
presumably be happy to have been told the sex of their baby. Despite
the refunds, however, the service provider is $250 better off than she
was before, and for no more effort than flipping a coin for each
customer. Immediately, one can tell that the scheme is a rip-off,
aimed at defrauding innocent parents-to-be of precious
baby-dollars.
To the uninitiated, that is exactly how CPA advertising is being
framed by ad-networks steeped in profiting from traditional methods:
"Give us your ads. We'll show them. You only pay for ads that result
in a sale, but not a cent on the rest." On the surface, yes; this
does look like a scam. But fortunately, this is not what CPA is
about. In fact, CPA represents the exact opposite. CPA ad-networks
don't just flip a coin to show an ad. Considerable effort and
investment go into determining where each ad is most likely to appeal,
and, of course, web real-estate on which to show ads does not come
free either. A CPA network will actually "lose" money if you don't
make it and therefore it is in their best interest to make sure you
are successful.
Continue reading "The CPA Nube Lube Tube" »