If you’re new to affiliate marketing, you should consider CPA (or Cost Per Action) marketing. While CPA marketing is certainly not just for newbies, as some CPA affiliates make millions per year, it’s a great type of marketing to get into because you get paid whenever someone (ie your site visitor) performs a certain action, such as submitting an email address.

As an affiliate, you promote different CPA offers. These offers vary in terms of the actions requried to get paid. Let’s take a look at some examples:

1) Email submits – This type of CPA offer requires that the visitor submits their email address in exchange for something like a voucher, entering a contest, getting a discount, a free sample, etc. You as the affiliate would get paid a small amount (let’s say $1) for this email.

2) Zip submits – Similar to email submits, the visitor only has to submit their post code to again, receive something in exchange. These may pay even less than email submits but are about on par with the payments.

3) Free offer that requires a credit card – These types of CPA offers usually pay a lot more, from $10 to $30 and above. The reason being that in order for the visitor to get a free something, e.g. a free bottle of diet pills, they must submit their credit card information because the free gift requires a small shipping fee. Since the company offering the free product now has your site visitors credit card information, they can rebill them for next months shipment therefore you, as an affiliate, get paid a lot more.

Whether a newbie or a pro, you’ll want to focus on getting qualified traffic to your high converting sales/squeeze page. If your traffic is good but conversions aren’t, then focus on improving your site in order to increase conversions. Always track where your visitors are going and if they’ve taken action on the merchant’s website so you can be sure you’re getting paid for every lead you send.

CPA marketing is a great way to begin your affiliate marketing career and if you follow proven steps, you could potentially earn a ton of money.