Are you launching a display advertising campaign or using Google Ads? Do you want to lower your CPA? Are you looking to optimise your acquisition strategies?

Here's everything you need to know to become a CPA expert, lower your CPA, and optimize the effectiveness of your ads.

What is CPA?

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Le CPA or Cost Per Action

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CPA, or Cost Per Action, in web marketing, like CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Mille), is a billing mode for advertising actions. It allows billing the advertiser based on the results obtained during the advertising campaign, instead of being billed per number of clicks or impressions.

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Thus, CPA is the highlight of your acquisition strategy. The main advantage of this billing mode is that you only pay when the action is completed. Depending on the nature of your activity, the action can be:

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• An order
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• A purchase

• A click
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• A website visit
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• A form to be filled out
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• Downloading or consuming content
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• A contact request.

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The Target CPA

When setting up a paid marketing campaign (such as Google ads), you must first define your target CPA, that is, the price you are willing to pay per conversion, whether it's acquiring a new customer or generating a sale. Therefore, the CPA is one of the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of any acquisition strategy. To define your target Cost Per Action, you need to think ROI (Return on Investment), or profitability.

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For this, you must first list all the costs, i.e., all costs associated with manufacturing your product or setting up your service. Then, set a goal for the margin you wish to achieve.

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For example, if your product or service is sold for 100 euros, the total costs associated with production are 45 euros, and you wish to achieve a minimum margin of 20 euros, your target CPA (target CPA) cannot exceed 35 euros (100-45-20= 35).

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This means that for 1000 sales, generating revenue of 100,000 euros, the budget for your ads cannot exceed 35,000 euros if you want to achieve your margin goal.

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How to Calculate Your Average CPA?

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The average CPA or Average Cost Per Action is calculated by dividing the budget of your ads by the total number of conversions. For example, if you spent a total budget of 10,000 euros on your advertising and made 1000 sales, your average CPA is 10 euros.

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Generally, the average CPA differs from the target CPA, but the latter must remain the cornerstone of your acquisition strategy and guide the campaign optimizations you will perform.

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Infonet explains that CPA depends on three main parties:
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• The affiliate, or publisher, is the person originating the promotion,

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• The company acting as the advertiser,

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• The CPA network is the platform where the affiliate and the company meet.

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How to Lower Your CPA?

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Once you understand how CPA works, you can work on different adjustment variables throughout your marketing campaign to approach your target CPA. Here are the different strategies you can activate if you are launching, for example, a Google Ads campaign (formerly Google Adwords) or a Bing Ads campaign:

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Lower Your CPA by Adjusting Your Ad Schedule
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Adjusting bids according to the time of day can help lower your CPA. It seems obvious, but it’s often overlooked. Sometimes, at the end of the day, there is a spending peak because Google has not shown enough ads during the day. You can block the algorithm at the time of these spending peaks and thus prevent the algorithm from overspending by placing very high bids.

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This will allow you to maximize your conversion by only showing your ads at the most opportune times.

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Lower Your CPA Using Negative Keyword Lists

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When scheduling your marketing campaigns, you must carefully choose your keywords, but you should also think about excluding all irrelevant queries for which you do not want your ads to appear on a search page.

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By entering negative keywords, you can improve the relevance of your ads to internet users' searches. This will ensure that your ads only appear on pages that are relevant to your target audience. As a result, you can achieve more precise targeting, higher quality traffic, and increase your chances of reaching the right audience.

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Lower Your CPA by Using Ad Extensions on Search

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Using ad extensions on Search can obtain better Google quality scores, have more inventory space, and thus better click-through and conversion rates. Working well on the texts of ad extensions is essential to have a high Google quality score and effective ads that best respond to the searches of internet users.

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The more precise your ad, the more you can maximize clicks and thus conversion.

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Lower Your CPA by Adjusting by Device Type

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Monitor your CPC and CPA according to different devices. For example, if mobile is costing you too much, adjust the bids on that particular device type. In any case, observe your acquisition costs, look at the supports that offer the best conversion, and adapt the distribution of your ads to optimize your marketing strategy.
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Lower Your CPA by Optimizing Geographic Areas

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Pour baisser votre CPA, la marche à suivre est simple : restreignez au maximum la diffusion de vos annonces au niveau géographique. Si votre service n’existe qu’en Ile-de-France, veillez à exclure toutes les recherches associées à d’autres zones géographiques.

En effet, si un utilisateur effectue une recherche pour un service en région PACA, vous ne souhaitez pas que votre publicité apparaisse sur la page. Vous obtiendrez ainsi un meilleur taux de conversion, car vous améliorez la pertinence de votre trafic.

Baisser son CPA en travaillant ses audiences

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Travailler ses audiences est essentiel pour maximiser l’impact de vos publicités sur Google Ads. Observez bien les rapports sur l’ensemble des audiences sur le marché, y compris les audiences d’affinités, pour obtenir des performances par type d’audience et ainsi pouvoir ajuster ses dépenses en fonction des audiences.

Si certaines audiences vous coûtent trop d’argent, vous pouvez ajuster vos enchères et ainsi optimiser votre campagne.

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Voilà, vous avez maintenant toutes les informations en main pour faire baisser votre CPA et ainsi améliorer l’efficacité de votre campagne marketing.

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Pour être accompagnés dans cette démarche et n’hésitez pas à faire appel à faire appel aux experts de Spaag.

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