Glossary

CPA network

A CPA network is a business that sits between advertisers who pay for completed actions (CPA — cost per action) and affiliates who send the traffic. The network runs the tracking, sets affiliate payouts below advertiser rates, polices traffic quality, and earns the margin in between.

How it works

Advertisers list offers with the network at an agreed rate per conversion. The network republishes those offers to its affiliates at a lower payout, keeping the spread. Every click runs through the network's tracking platform, which attributes conversions via postbacks, applies approval rules, and aggregates the numbers both sides get paid on.

The operational core of a CPA network is its tracking stack: an ad server or tracker with offer management, click and conversion logging, payout rules per affiliate and geo, and postback forwarding to affiliates' own trackers.

In practice

Modern CPA networks rarely build this stack from scratch — they launch on a white-label platform, plug in their offers and partners, and focus on the commercial side: recruiting affiliates, negotiating rates, and controlling traffic quality.

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