Cost Per Acquisition — the total cost of acquiring one paying customer through an affiliate channel.
In Plain English
How much you actually spend — in commissions and management fees — to get one paying customer through your affiliate channel.
How Xark Uses This
Xark calculates blended CPA across all publisher tiers monthly and compares it against paid search and social CPA to demonstrate channel efficiency. For brands entering affiliate, we set a target CPA ceiling before recruiting publishers — this prevents the common mistake of approving high-volume coupon publishers that drive volume at 3× the acceptable CPA. CPA is also the key input for commission rate modeling when onboarding new publisher tiers.
Example
If a brand paid $4,200 in commissions in a month and drove 210 new customers, the affiliate CPA is $20 per customer acquired.
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