• by Masha Geller , October 5, 2001

And the CPMs have it. I counted up the responses to yesterday's minute on the pros and cons of Cost per Action (CPA) pricing models and so far it looks like the age-old method of buying impressions by the thousand is preferred by our readers (or at least those who took the time to weigh in on the issue).

Interestingly enough, most of the responses I got were from web publishers. Not a single advertiser - and we've been told time and time again that advertisers LOVE performance-based pricing models - went to bat for the technique.

Everyone seems to agree with Phil Hulett from Clear Channel, whom I quoted yesterday as saying "CPC, CPA and other phrases are simply euphemisms for free advertising."

Another argument against CPA was that it doesn't exist in traditional media and therefore has no place online. To quote one email marketing professional, "Can you imagine calling Sports Illustrated and saying, 'I need a full page, 4-color ad and I will pay you for every sale I make from this ad.' They would laugh you out of their office."

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Darin Honey, VP Business Development at Tribal Fusion, Inc., adds: "Hopefully other publishers and networks will recognize the value of their own product and stop giving it away to marketers that are preying on desperate site owners."

The one seemingly compelling argument in favor of performance pricing came from Irv Brechner, Chief Business Development Officer at Direct Net Advertising.net and Editor of their recently launched Successful Performance Marketing Report. He said advertisers "pay the bills and they're going to spend it where they want to. Taking a stand against performance marketing will have one simple result: advertisers will go elsewhere where performance marketing flourishes. If you're a web entity with traffic, weigh this issue carefully, because, according to Forrester Research, 53% of all online advertising will be performance based, by 2004."

Of course, it should be noted that Direct Net Advertising is a performance-based marketing company.