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"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.