TL;DR
Cost Per Action is one of the digital advertising models that is gaining more and more popularity lately. CPA implies that an advertiser pays the publisher, not by the number of clicks, views or period of time, but by the number of conversions the ad has generated. This is a preferred model as it is based on results and not guesswork.
About Cost Per Action
Cost per action is also known as cost per acquisition or cost per order. It is a pricing ad model based on results and it implies that the advertiser will be charged a flat rate or a percentage from the sale, for each time the visitor of the ad is turned into a conversion. So basically the advertiser only pays the publisher when he gets a newsletter subscription, a purchase, registration or any other concrete result from the ad.
What are the advantages of Cost Per Action?
The CPA model has the advantages of being low risk and has a good return on investment (ROI) as the publisher of the ad is only paid after the ad generated conversions. If the platform where the ad is run allows this type of pricing, marketers will always prefer this type of campaign in spite of CPC, CPL or other forms of payment.
