That said though, Facebook does have a feature that is somewhat comparable to goals and in fact this can be considered even more powerful.
Specifically, Facebook gives you some basic CPA functionality. CPA stands for ‘Cost Per Action’ and what this means is that you’re no longer paying per click, but are instead paying per action. An action can be anything from someone buying a product (or in Facebook’s case, redeeming a special offer) or subscribing to a mailing list. In essence, this makes Facebook somewhat similar to an affiliate!
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to set up affiliate sales as your action. This means you can’t guarantee ROI by having a situation where you only get charged when someone buys your affiliate product.
That said, this is a very useful tool for building up your mainlining list and effectively means you’re paying X amount per targeted subscriber. Likewise, you can use this as a strategy to increase your Facebook page likes. Either of these can then subsequently be translated into conversions at least theoretically.
There are also a number of CPA sites networks that specialize in this kind of service and are much more flexible as a result. These sites include MaxBounty, Ascend Media, AdWorkMedia and more. While this is a great platform in theory though, the industry isn’t quite as developed as PPC overall, so there’s no one platform that has yet risen to prominence. Most CPA networks are a little tricky to get into to start with and some of them have been associated with dodgy practices.
Still, for the advanced marketer, this is certainly an area to keep an eye on!