A CPA Network is like a processing or clearing house which works as a bridge between the vendor of a product or service and its prospective customers through it affiliates whom we can term CPA affiliates. CPA or "Cost per Action" is an easy tool to earn money online. It is the best and an easy way by which one can turn its website into a money making device or in other words monetize its website. What one has to do for this is to become a CPA affiliate with such a Network. There are number of such Networks available on the net, about 50, and one can register with any of them.

To clarify it further CPA is a network marketing mechanism which involves three parties: a vendor or advertiser of a product or service; a Network on which the vendor places the advertisement along with a form soliciting information about the prospective customers; and you the CPA affiliate. The advertiser places on the Network an advertisement about the product or service it intends to promote along with a form required to be filled by the prospective customer or the visitor to the site. The said Network makes available the landing webpage and form provided by the advertiser to you and other CPA affiliates registered with it who would generate and drive traffic to the landing page. The advertiser pays commission or fees to the Network for placing advertisement and for directing the landing page and form to its affiliates. Affiliates are, in turn, paid commission for generating and driving the traffic to these customized landing pages. This means that whenever a visitor clicks on the link provided on CPA affiliate website for the landing webpage provided by the advertiser and fills up the form placed by it and submits the same, the CPA affiliate gets paid for it. This means a CPA affiliate is getting paid for generating or provided a "lead" to an advertiser or vendor, whether or not such "lead" actually coverts into a sale. So, CPA in effect can be termed a Lead Generation device for marketing a product or service.

Thus a CPA Network can be defined as a platform for a vendor to an advertiser to place its products or services on display e-way. These advertisements are directed to affiliate websites with a direct link for a visitor to connect to the customized landing page provided by the advertiser. Thus the advertiser gets a direct exposure to a huge market by paying relatively much smaller cost as compared to tradition affiliate marketing or other marketing tools. Not only this, since the action involves the ultimate visitor to fill in a form provided by the advertiser, it gets the automatic benefit of genuine and focused leads. Further, the Networks usually allow these advertisers liberty to lay down terms as regards payment for the leads they get. They may want to pay per action, or sign-up or sometimes per sales. Networks accordingly pay the affiliates after ensuring their own profit margin. Such kind of Network advertising and lead generation acts as a market survey because the response and feedback through lead generation helps the vendors to evaluate their products and keep making required changes and avoid making costly mistakes.