Offer Types

Run CPL, CPA, CPC, RevShare and CPM offers through one tracker, one conversion lifecycle and one set of reports.

Offer Types: CPL, CPA, CPC, RevShare, and CPM

An offer type answers one question: what event do you actually pay for? Offer Capsule supports five of them - CPL, CPA, CPC, RevShare, and CPM - and the type you set on an offer decides which event the tracker counts as a conversion and how the payout on that conversion is calculated. Everything downstream is the same whichever you pick: the same encrypted tracking links, the same fraud gates, the same Pending to Approved lifecycle, the same reports and the same affiliate postbacks. You are choosing a pricing model, not a separate product.

CPL - cost per lead

A CPL offer pays a flat amount for a submitted lead. Leads arrive on their own tracker endpoint, are recorded against the originating click, and carry the same lifecycle columns as any other conversion - status, hold window, and the frozen payout and revenue snapshots. CPL leads get their own admin review queue, separate from the conversion queue, so lead quality can be scrubbed on its own terms before anything funds.

CPA - cost per action

A CPA offer pays a flat amount when the advertiser confirms a completed action - a sale, a signup, an application. The advertiser fires either the server-to-server trackback post or the generated pixel at the moment the action completes, and Offer Capsule matches it back to the click that produced it. This is the most common shape, and it is the one the conversion tracking methods are built around.

CPC - cost per click

A CPC offer pays for the click itself, so there is nothing for the advertiser to fire. The conversion is recorded automatically at click time, on the same request that logs the click, with the payout taken from the offer's payout price. Fraud screening matters more here than anywhere else, because the billable event and the traffic event are the same event - see fraud protection.

RevShare - revenue share

A RevShare offer carries a payout percentage rather than a flat price. Conversions on these offers capture the order id and the order amount the advertiser reports, so the value of the sale travels with the conversion record instead of being reconciled by hand later. Both fields are available in reports and can be substituted into the affiliate's postback URL as macros, so your affiliates see the order value on their own side too.

CPM - cost per thousand impressions

A CPM offer pays per thousand impressions rather than per click or per action. Offer Capsule tracks impressions and serves ads for these offers, and each offer can carry its own CPM rate. Billing works off a watermark of impressions already billed, so a completed thousand-impression block bills exactly once even when impressions are arriving concurrently - the mechanics are covered on billing and payouts.

Choosing a type

The rule of thumb is how much risk you want to hold. CPC and CPM put the risk on the advertiser and are easy for affiliates to run at volume. CPL and CPA put the risk on the affiliate and are where hold windows and review queues earn their keep. RevShare shares the risk and needs an advertiser willing to report order amounts back. Many networks run several types at once, and nothing stops one advertiser from having a CPL offer and a CPA offer side by side.

One pipeline for all five

Whichever type an offer is, it is created the same way, gets the same per-affiliate encrypted link, screens clicks through the same geo and fraud gates, records conversions into the same status machine, and lands in the same clicks, conversions, performance, and sub id reports. That means you can change how an offer prices without changing how anyone integrates with it.

Next, see how an offer is configured on offer setup, how the conversion is captured on conversion tracking, and what happens to it afterwards on the conversion lifecycle.