Google CPA Network being Tested

Google is currently busy testing a CPA (cost per action) advertising network on a invite basis. The CPA model means that advertisers will only have to pay once a visitor on your site clicks on the ad AND performs a certain action (such as buying a product or registering on the advertiser's site). This is a good step in the eyes of advertisers, seeing as click-fraud shouldn't be a problem. They will also get a much better ROI by running CPA campaigns.

The test has sparked some rumours that the CPC/CPM Adsense ads will come to an end. This is not true. The CPA ads will be run on a seperate network (the Content Referral Network) and won't compete with normal CPC ads. Basically it seems that this will be a new "ad unit" that publishers will be able to place on their site to earn more revenue.

At this time there isn't much information available about revenue generated by this method. If normal CPA advertiser networks are anything to go by, there is alot of revenue potential for publishers, provided that they have high quality, interested visitors.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. Nobody can say that Adsense isn't at the forefront of constantly offering something new.