For those advertisers that are looking to promote their product or service and for those web site publishers looking to monetize their web site’s traffic, one of the best resources available are ad networks. There are three main types of products that ad networks offer, they include: CPA, CPC and CPM. While many ad networks offer several of these products, there are a few that specialize in one specific type of advertising.

CPA Ad Networks

CPA stands for Cost per Action. Cost per action means that an advertisers pay when a specific outcome occurs. There are a few types of actions or outcomes that advertisers seek; the most common one is generating a lead. For instance, an advertiser will hire a CPA ad network to have publishers generate leads for it. This may include having web site viewers filling out a form or taking a survey. Another type of action that CPA ad networks can offer is cost per acquisition, meaning a sale. An advertiser can pay a fee or commission every time a publisher makes a sale. The role of the CPA ad network is to broker the deals between both the advertisers and publishers. CPA ad networks are very client focused and offer many services to make sure that advertiser campaign goals can be achieved.

CPC Ad Networks

CPC (cost per click) or sometimes called pay per click (PPC) are one of the most popular ways for advertisers to sell their products and services. Advertisers that join CPC ad networks bid for keywords that are targeted towards viewers that either search for a term on a search engine or are viewing a web site with content that matches specific keywords. CPC has been made famous by Google Adwords and it is generally thought of as the most cost efficient way to target your site or product to a specific market online. Advertisers are charged a fee, based on their bidding every time a viewer clicks on their ad. Once the ad is clicked on either a search engine or publisher’s web page the viewer is automatically sent to the advertiser’s web site where hopefully a sale can be converted.

While advertisers find CPC ad networks to be a great way to market their products, publishers also find CPC ad networks a great resource to monetize their content rich web sites as well. Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publishers Network are two of the top CPC ad networks that help small, medium and large web site publishers monetize their site. CPC ad networks easily bring advertiser and publisher together by feeding ads to each publisher based upon the content of the web page. In addition, many search engines offer CPC, by showing ads that correspond with a person searching for specific keywords.

CPM Ad Networks

CPM stands for Clicks per Thousand (using mille, a Latin term for one thousand). CPM ad networks are one of the first ways many on the Internet advertised, as well as monetized their web sites. However, CPM still remains one of the most effective ways to promote a product, as well as monetize a web site. CPM ad networks bring together advertisers and publishers. A CPM ad networks main goal is to help advertisers buy advertising space on the CPM ad network. Many CPM ad networks have hundreds of high traffic sites in their network that either fall into broad categories or fit into a specific niche making it relatively easy for an advertiser to target a specific market. In most cases, CPM ad networks offer advertising in the form of banner ads, pop up & under ads and side bar ads. Rates are given in per thousand views. Advertisers pay a flat fee for each thousand views and publishers are paid a fee for every thousand visitors to view the ad.