The most commonly practiced online marketing methods are CPM, CPC, CPL, and CPA. These methods are related with promoting the ads of the site or product on other sites. They differ as per the calculation of costs of the ads.
CPM is the abbreviation of Cost per Milli or Cost Per thousand. The cost of the ad is determined with respect to 1,000 page impressions that is if a certain page, site or ad is promoted for 1000 times then the publisher gets paid certain amount as decided by the advertiser. For Example, if an advertiser is providing $10 CMP that means for every 1000 views to his site he pays you $10. So, indirectly the publishers make money from selling the CPM ads.
The CPC stands for Cost per Click where the publisher gets paid certain amount of money when a user clicks on the ad which is displayed. The companies selling the ads monitor the ads being clicked and lock the IP address in order to prevent fraudulent clicks. The CPC rates are determined by the advertiser and vary from company and product to be displayed.
Cost per Lead (CPL) is used by companies which want the visitors to sign up for something which is called as “lead“. The ads to be displayed can be text or graphical or both. Now a day’s flash ads are also used for promotion. When the user signs ups for certain program the publisher gets paid a certain amount. The pays rate vary from cents to dollars they are determined on the basis of the sign-ups made and the amount the advertiser is willing to pay.
CPA is abbreviation for Cost per Action. This method is almost similar to the CPL. In CPL method the publisher gets paid when the user does a particular action after arriving on advertiser’s site via publisher. The CPA method also contains text and graphic ads for direct promotion. Depending on the action the rates are decided by the advertiser say if the user downloads certain software or purchases an eBook then the publisher gets paid likewise. The pay rates differ from what type of action is performed by the user.