Comparing Lead Generation And Cost Per Action
Are you looking for ways to make more money with your website? If you built a website for the purpose of making money, then you’ve probably tried several different ways to monetize the traffic that you receive. You certainly have a wide range of options to choose from. One recent hot trend is the move toward cost per action. This is sometimes called pay per lead or a flat fee affiliate program. For some, cost per action marketing has been more profitable than programs like Google Adsense or Amazon affiliate programs. But before you jump onto the cost per action bandwagon, here are a few reasons why you might want to think about building a lead generation website instead.
Cost per action, or CPA, is attractive because of its simplicity. To implement CPA on your website, you sign up with CPA network. They provide you with a landing page and the sign-up form. Then it’s your job to send traffic to that landing page. You can either pay for the traffic by starting a Google Adwords or similar cost per click campaign, or you can optimize your site to attract visitors from the search engines. If the visitors that you send complete the action — like filling out the form — you’re credited with a flat fee.
Website owners who have been struggling to make affiliate sales get excited about cost per action because conversion is easier. You’re not asking visitors to make a purchase, they simply have to fill out a form and provide some information. And if you’ve been disappointed with meager Adsense earnings, then cost per action is attractive because the payouts can be from $5 to $20 or more for each action. Once you’ve established your average click through rate and your average conversion rate, it’s a pretty simple matter to predict your income.
So what’s the problem with cost per action and pay per lead? The problem is that cost per action simply isn’t stable enough to base your future income on. You really have very little control over any part of the process. If the search engines change their algorithms and your site drops out of the top results, the traffic you can send may decline. The CPA network could choose to change their terms at any time. The companies ultimately paying for the action may decide to change their payouts or stop altogether. Plus, since cost per action is still relatively new and growing quickly, no one is quite sure how the dynamics of the strategy will change as more people jump on board.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why companies are willing to pay so much for each lead? It’s because each lead represents even greater value to them. Once companies own that lead, they can either use it to develop their business or they can resell the lead to other businesses. So wouldn’t it be much more profitable for you to own the lead instead?
Lead generation is not a new business model. In fact, the only thing that’s really new about lead generation today is the way you can use the Internet as a powerful and cost-effective tool. By developing your own lead generation business, you can begin to build your own inventory of leads and serve them up to a hungry market. The best thing about building your own lead generation website is that it puts you back in control. You’re building a business of your own based on a time tested and proven model that will provide an increasing income for years into the future. Now isn’t that something worth working for?
Published by Traffic Tips
