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September 24, 2007
CPA vs. CPM
By Jamie Stephenson
Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire
There is a seemingly never ending debate to determine which is better - CPA vs. CPM. Which will generate the best revenue per click?
At the end of the day, there is no absolute answer to that question. Performance hinges on so many variables – offer, marketing medium, payouts, etc. – that what works best in one situation may not be the right choice in another. Instead of trying to find that elusive consistent answer, I would suggest trying to figure out which model is best for you and each of the offers you run as an Affiliate?
You will likely find that the answer varies, depending on your time, traffic, offers, placement and the payout of a specific offer. With this being the case, it is important to stay flexible and be able to adjust and select the right payout model that suits each situation.
In my experience as an Affiliate Manager over the past few years, I have seen a lot of companies in this industry take a “CPM only” attitude after not always experiencing optimum returns on some CPA offers. While not every offer will perform best in a CPA environment, there are many that do. Making a decision to limit yourself to only CPMs will limit your ability to generate the highest returns on all of your campaigns.
Over the last 6 months I’ve had several large CPM sites work with me to test CPAs. Because of the increased conversions, they are now using CPA offers on a regular basis. Does this guarantee you will see the same results with your CPM site? No. Could you see better results? Absolutely.
The key is to keep testing different offers and placements. You might not have luck with 9 out of 10 offers but that 10th one could hit big.
In the constantly evolving Internet marketplace, I don’t believe either the CPA or CPM model will take over completely anytime soon, so use what works best for the time and place, but make sure to keep your options open – and keep testing!
Posted by Tom at September 24, 2007 02:11 AM