CPA Marketing: Introductory Guide for Gambling Businesses

The issue of CPA marketing is one of the most actual in the contemporary advertising world. As this approach combines multiple beneficial elements of modern marketing, it is effective for all sides of the process. Login Casino continues to follow the most interesting business daily publications, explaining the important topic for the gambling sector.

What is the Cost Per Acquisition approach?

As one can assume, Cost Per Acquisition refers to the abbreviation CPA, which is, however, can be deciphered as Cost Per Action. When people discuss marketing business, the words ‘acquisition’ and ‘action’ have a similar sense as the positive action means acquisition. Though CPA’s abbreviation can be decoded in both ways and they can be interchangeably used. One can even meet the PPL (pay per lead) abbreviation that also means the same in a particular context.

Compared to the traditional marketing strategies, CPA’s model is more precise. While most people know that paying for ads is not in vain action, this approach outgrew into paying for useful things only. It means that marketers have enough instruments to measure the effectiveness of every campaign. There is no need to pay for media buying or other advertising that hasn’t brought any clients (even potential ones), and CPA marketing is all about that.

To define the term, let’s say that CPA marketing is the advertising approach that assumes paying for only converted or commission-based results. Interestingly, but the conversion targets can be different in the digital sector:

enter the phone number (request a callback);
register email;
download the application;
link a social media account with an app or website;
visit the needed landing page;
confirm a free trial;
buy a product or subscription.

That is not the full list of possible ‘actions’ that can be made to consider them as ‘acquisitions’ because digital marketing creates infinite opportunities to activate clients.

One can admit that entering a phone number or email is far from being the purchasing action. However, recent marketing tactics have already switched to smooth and warming-up purchases. It means that effective and stable sales can be achieved via few-step strategies – to interest the person, explain the issue, and only then suggest a suitable product.

Of course, that is a conventional scheme as some people aren’t purchasing products even if the second stage was rather successful. At the same time, there are ‘hot clients’ who are ready to purchase some goods even without the first two stages, but it just means that those two stages were accomplished by other people or some time ago. Even though human psychology is still a mysterious sphere, marketers are the people that apply knowledge in practice and usually try to find the needed hooks. Thus, it is a good idea to focus on the person who left the contact info. In that case, it means that the person is interested in the product and requires additional consultations, and persuading such a ‘warm’ client is a much easier process.

Involved sides

Among the basic things that should be explained in more detail are the involved sides in CPA marketing. All three components can be interested in this type of sales because it is more precise and fair as concrete numbers can be defined or agreed upon.

Affiliate side

That is a person, website, or marketplace that has a stable audience, whose interests can be predicted. For instance, a famous football YouTuber can be interested in promoting sports betting firms as a huge portion of his stable audience is wagering on football. A beauty-blogger can be aimed at those who want to promote cosmetics or beauty salons.

Business side

The other side of the marketing process is the firms that want more clients. Bookmakers, beauty salons, car washing stations, door manufacturers – all those businesses want more customers and sales, so are aiming for a target audience and ready to pay for it.

CPA network

That is actually the intermediate between those two sides or just a platform where both can meet and agree. However, CPA networks are not only the meeting or exchange places that require brokers or traders to facilitate the deal. Googling about CPA networks will bring an individual to the articles about the businesses that are made on such platforms. In this case, the person who wants to earn should have a website or be able to create landing pages that can be sold as traffic-bringing sources. The issue of CPA networks will be discussed in more detail a bit later in this article.

Advantages and drawbacks of CPA marketing

Even though this text’s introductory part is almost a complimentary one, it’s worth noting that CPA marketing is an approach with both strong and weak sides. Most businesses have to know both before the campaign is launched, and we’ll start with the benefits:

Quick launch. If you need to advertise the product or bring target traffic, relying on CPA marketing allows you to start the process rather quickly. As this sector is growing in terms of both a number of networks and interested affiliates, there will be enough suggestions.
Clear paying structure. After determining which of the aforementioned conversion targets you need, the paying structure becomes easy and fair enough as accomplished after the business gets clients.
Lower risks. That is the outcome of the previous item as money is always a cornerstone for business. If the publisher failed his or her part of the requirements and didn’t generate leads, the business wouldn’t pay for this.
Reliable ROI. According to the reports, the return of investment (ROI) is much higher for CPA marketing campaigns as the publishers are using quite reliable sources of bringing leads.
Ability to scale. As the number of affiliates and CPA networks is steadily growing, every business can easily increase the number of requests and partnership deals without thinking about market readiness.

Even though the list of CPA marketing advantages looks persuasive, some drawbacks can stop the business from relying on this approach. The list of disadvantages of CPA marketing looks as following:

Misleading content and target audience. While the stable conversion payments are a big advantage, this item becomes the primary drawback of CPA marketing. Some affiliate sides can be aimed at quick results and so create a marketing campaign focused on the needed acquisition by the non-target audience (so-called spammy marketing). Housewives can sign-up for betting firms, but this social stratum cannot be regarded as the stable target audience.
Floating customer base. This item naturally comes and becomes especially important for the firms aimed at a stable clients’ list. Affiliate sides can even generate diverse clients for the needed actions, making it impossible to create a long-lasting strategy for the business. Even if to work with a fixed number of reliable affiliate sides, the next drawback can appear.
Lack of control over the affiliate side. The CPA marketing model assumes that the business finds the needed publisher and waits for conversion while adjusting the advertising tactics is up to the partner. As businesses expect some conversion rates and have experience in marketing their products, out-of-contract suggestions and changes can be denied. While paying for only done acquisitions, some businesses can be disappointed because of the unstable clients’ flow.
Limited market influence. As the CPA marketing industry is growing in all directions, changes are regular and often unpredictable. An online casino can sign a profitable contract for a few months and be happy, but a new marketing approach used by other affiliate sides with competitors may change the emporium’s disposition. Of course, there are plenty of ways of how casinos make money, but NDA contracts or other deals can postpone the adjusting process as the publisher can be unprepared for changes.

There can be some other adverse items in the list like the rupture of the affiliate links, but that is more a technical side of cooperation. So, CPA marketing is still far from being the ideal solution in e-commerce as it assumes limited control over advertising campaigns and requires rather flexible deals between the businesses and affiliate sides.

What to know about the CPA affiliate marketing before using it?

In fact, the phrase ‘CPA affiliate marketing’ means the same as ‘CPA marketing’ because the CPA includes the side that is rewarded. At the same time, one has to understand that ‘affiliate marketing’ is a bit different form of business promotion as it usually assumes payments after the product purchase. Though the publisher is accomplishing the advertising and promotion role, and the abbreviation ‘CPA’ makes the difference between the product purchase and other kinds of actions that are done by the partner side.

Before the businessman is going to try or turn to the CPA marketing model, he or she has to understand the following aspects of the upcoming deal:

Be aware of the trends. As the CPA model is one of the most progressive, one has to know the publishers’ approaches to promote the product. If the partner didn’t know how and why to use native ads to promote the goods of the firm or manufacturer, it’s better to seek another business comrade.
Choose the appropriate affiliate side. The continuation of the previous paragraph, but with widening the cooperative side. Thus, the business has to choose the publisher that will be easy to collaborate with (soft skills are crucial) because one of the cornerstone aspects of modern advertising is regular changes and adjustments.
Synchronize your marketing approach and affiliate’s one. Another outcome of the first item but on a more global scale. The business has to understand what is his or her whole strategy and select a partner that understands the details and the importance of long-lasting plans.
Calculate ROI and conversion rates. It can probably be the first item to do in the CPA model as knowing the cost per action is the basis. Thus, the business person has to know the ROI rates and be aware of conversion proportions on the market. It’s like a business plan before starting your own business, which is a financial core.

Models of CPA digital marketing for the gambling industry

Almost all the variety of the recent CPA marketing approaches are digital as they are easy to count. Even though gambling stocks are rising along with overall digitization, some of its industries are still land-based oriented (like lottery ticket sales), most of the cost per acquisition is made via digital channels. There are three basic methods used in the gambling industry:

Rev-share model. This kind of digital marketing cooperation is especially widespread for online casinos as the affiliate sides receive the fixed share of the spent money by clients. Such a method forces marketing partners to increase the target audience and its involvement as it directly influences income.

CPA approach. In this case, the talk is about the direct ‘cost per acquisition’ model, like receiving a fixed price for every customer that came to the gambling platform and made a needed action (registered, spent some money, downloaded app). Here the affiliate sides can be focused on the number instead of quality. However, this method can be way cheaper for business owners compared to the rev-share variant, while retention practices are under full control of the firm.
Mixed variant. Logically, this a combination of the aforementioned approaches and allows taking the advantages of both. Thus, the partner is interested in both quantity and quality, while the business can vary the proportions between fixed and shared payments.

How to choose CPA networks?

Sooner or later, businesses decide to join one of the CPA networks to find the most appropriate publishers. However, hundreds of platforms are ready to establish deals between affiliate sides and firms that need traffic or additional advertising. As a rule, CPA networks can vary in the following criteria:

Specifics. Some platforms are dedicated to only a particular market niche (like gambling), making it easier to find the best fit.
Scales. Traditionally to the current digital markets, there are propositions with a diverse number of active businesses and affiliates.
Authority. When seeking the best CPA network, both sides face the authority criterion. Thus, new publishers cannot register on reliable platforms, which are carrying about their reputation.
Contract and counting specifics. As every CPA network accomplishes the intermediary’s role, they establish their own terms and conditions in diverse directions. It can be contract types and lengths, the variety of measuring metrics, and so on. So, just be attentive when agreeing on terms and conditions.

Another vital element of choosing the platform for cooperation is to determine the real value of the CPA network. It can be made in two-step tactics: finding feedback and discovering the number of competitors on it. Usually, suchlike digital platforms are sharing successful cases and can allow only experienced publishers to be present on the website (look authority item), but if it is possible to check the feedback from outside sources – it should be done. Finding a huge number of competitors on the CPA affiliate network shouldn’t scarry the business owner as it means he or she found a dedicated location for company promotion.

The best CPA networks to work with

It’s rather hard to form the full list of reliable CPA networks even in one niche as there are dozens of market representatives. However, being focused on the gambling sector, Login Casino can recommend cooperating with the following platforms that confirmed their reputation: