This is the first post of a long series, I hope. It has been a long time I am thinking of expressing about Digital Marketing So, here we are!
I am a digital marketing analyst for a Pay-Per-click affiliate company. I concretely run PPC campaigns for affiliate merchants. It is quite a competitive market, as we can be several affiliates promoting the same merchant (competition with keyworders affiliates, PPC agencies AND merchants themselves!). It quickly can become war on the search ad space and I actually saw some dirty things on search engines. I actually recommend an article from PPC Blog which goes more in depth on that topic: Flaunting Affiliate Network Rules with Black Hat PPC.
Although it can be hard, PPC Affiliate is the best training you can actually have on Pay-Per-Click as simple as the only money you receive relies on the success of your campaigns. I truly believe CPA should be the business model to adopt by agencies. Management fees model (% on clicks spends) is becoming less interesting for company who are paying for clicks which do not convert. Would you pay for something without guaranteeing a correct conversion? No thanks! What about paying a rate PER conversion? Sounds fair… Is it not what is Internet about? Paying on results delivered and measurable success?
I am actually surprised agencies are not all choosing this way to invoice clients. I bet the CPA model is going to be more and more proposed by confident PPC agencies, and I hope companies will also ask to be invoiced that way.