What does CPA, CPL, CPM, CPS or CPC mean?

Affiliate offers pay in a variety of ways, the terminology of payouts can be quite confusing at first. We break down some of the most common payout models for affiliate offers below.

CPA – Cost Per Action. Affiliates are paid for a specific action. This can very a lot depending on the campaign. Some common payable actions for affiliates are a trial sign up, a deposit on a gambling site or a booking. Due to the open-ended nature of this payout model, a CPA offer may also fall under another payout model as well.

CPL – Cost Per Lead. Affiliate is paid for each lead they deliver. A lead might be a newsletter sign up, website registration or a sales enquiry. Many networks may not differentiate between CPL and CPA offers.

CPI – Cost Per Install. The affiliate is paid for each install they deliver to the advertiser. Often this is a mobile app install campaign. For example, you would be paid when you get a visitor to install a mobile app on their device.

CPC – Cost Per Click. The affiliate is paid for each click they send to the advertiser website.

CPS – Cost Per Sale. Affiliate earns commission for every sale they manage to send to the offer.

CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions. The affiliate is paid per thousand impressions of the marketing material e.g. a banner ad or email creative.

Interested in promoting these type of affiliate offers? You can use the free WOW TRK Offer Engine to discover new affiliate offers across multiple network networks.