Cost Per Action- Resource Measurement tool

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Cost per Action – The great online resource measurement tool

Cost Per Action or CPA (sometimes known as Pay per Action or PPA) is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for each specified action by a user, be it a purchase, or form submission etc . This action from the user is a direct result of an advertisement displayed in a website.

Direct response advertisers consider CPA the optimal way to buy online advertising, as an advertiser only pays for the ad when the desired action has occurred. An action can be a product being purchased, a form being filled, etc. (The desired action to be performed is determined by the advertiser.) Google has incorporated this model into their Google Adsense offering while eBay has recently announced a similar pricing called AdContext.

Cost per Acquisition

CPA is sometimes referred to as "Cost per Acquisition". This has to do with the fact that most CPA offers by advertisers are about acquiring something (mostly new customers, prospects or leads). Using the term "Cost Per Acquisition" instead of "Cost per Action" is not incorrect. It is actually more specific. "Cost per Acquisition" is included in "Cost per Action", but not all "Cost per Action" offers can be referred to as "Cost per Acquisition

Google started testing CPA in 2006. In June 2007, Google expanded its beta trial, opening it to users of AdWords.
eBay has moved into CPA advertising with its AdContext system on 2006
Snap.com, CPA pioneer who merged with others to form NBC Internet (NBCi), has long touted the advantages of the CPA model as being helpful in the elimination of click fraud.
ViralyticsMedia.com created the first CPA e-mail marketing network in the fall of 2007.
Jellyfish.com was Internet’s first comparison shopping search engine to operate exclusively on a Cost per Action (CPA) ad model. It has a patent pending on an improvement over CPA, where part of the ad revenue goes to the customer. This has since been bought by Microsoft for integration into their Live Search