There are many different “Pay-Per” advertising formats around and Pay-Per-Action is just one of them. The question I often hear is “which format should I use?”.

The answer is can be quite straightforward. The format will nearly always depend on what your goals are and what is being acted upon.

In a simple example, if you are selling products then pay-per-action is a logical format. You only pay when a buyer commits to purchasing. Likewise, for a blog, if a visitor signs up for a newsletter, then you pay for the action - hence the term pay-per-action.

Those examples are straightforward. You have a firm goal. You are looking to advertise with the outcome being a sale or newsletter sign up. If your goals are not so tangible, if you are looking to advertise your information site, then pay-per-action is not going to suit your purpose. After all, there is no action to pay for - at least not a tangible or measurable action. In this situation, pay-per-click advertising may be the only option available to you.

The ideal advertising model would see a combination of both. Pay-per-click to get the visitor onto your site with a further pay-per-action payment if the visitor completes the required action.

Whichever model you select, the click through rate is going remain at around 5%. The take up rate is also likely to be the same. The real difference is the cost to you the advertiser. Pay-per-click advertising is going to cost no matter what the outcome. Pay-per-action only requires a payment once the action has been completed. Obviously the cost for pay-per-action is going to be considerably higher; but then you are guaranteed a result and if results are important - then pay-per-action may be your answer.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Pay-Per-Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.