For mobile app marketers, achieving campaign goals often requires them to look beyond the install to cost-per-action (CPA). By focusing on CPA, performance marketers can ensure their budgets will go toward finding quality users who take very specific, desired actions. That’s especially important when budgets are tight, and marketers are risk averse. However, as we explored in a recent blog post, CPA has its own risks and challenges. So, today, we’re learning how to optimize and run a good CPA campaign. 

There’s more to it than you might think. So, let’s get started.

Bringing CPA campaigns to alternative bid channels

One of the main challenges of CPA campaigns is that few mobile advertising channels are priced on a CPA basis. However, that doesn’t have to be a barrier to success. Even channels priced on a cost-per-install (CPI), cost-per-mille (CPM), or cost-per-click (CPC) basis can be an effective way to achieve CPA targets.

With CPI campaigns, advertisers pay only when a user installs their app after clicking on an ad, which means that the cost is directly tied to the number of installs they receive. With CPM campaigns it’s all about impressions, and CPC campaigns have advertisers paying for clicks — whether they ultimately result in a download or another action or not. Additionally, alternative bid campaigns can help advertisers target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and other relevant factors, which can help to improve conversion rates.

However, these campaign types also come with risks like ad fraud. Ad fraud occurs when fraudulent actors, typically publishers or ad networks, create fake clicks on ads in order to artificially inflate their attributed installs. Fraudulent installs can result in wasted ad spend and skewed campaign results. To mitigate the risk of ad fraud, it’s important to work with direct inventory sources or partners that have fraud detection and prevention measures in place that monitor campaign performance for signs of fraud. But let’s get back to CPA…

De-risking CPA campaigns

Right about now, you might be scratching your head, wondering how these alternative bid campaigns can be used to achieve CPA goals.

That’s where we come in!

Through FeedMob media buying, our agency takes on the financial risk of buying ad inventory on a CPM, CPC, or CPI basis and only charges the advertiser on a CPA basis. This means that the advertiser only pays when a specific action is taken, such as a purchase or registration. Ultimately, this reduces the risk for the advertiser because they only pay when they get results — and generally leads to a higher quality user base.

However, advertisers should not always expect all partners to meet CPA targets upon campaign launch. It may take some time and optimization to reach the desired outcomes. Sometimes, a longer term perspective on CPA performance is more beneficial in order to maximize a new channel. As a result, advertisers may want to keep a channel active as long as the CPA is improving over time and the user quality is meeting or exceeding the goals.

The cost formula for the partner may be:

However, the spend formula for the advertiser is always:

The five hallmarks of a good CPA campaign

Here are five things every CPA campaign needs to include in order to be successful.

Overall, CPA campaigns can be an effective way to achieve campaign goals while keeping costs under control, but it’s important to carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits before launching a campaign. By working with reputable partners and closely monitoring campaign performance, advertisers can minimize the risk of ad fraud and achieve better results from their CPA campaigns.