A user record delivered to an advertiser under a cost-per-action model, billed only when the user completes a defined action.
In cost-per-action (CPA) advertising the advertiser pays for a completed outcome — a registration, a qualified call, or a first deposit — rather than per click (CPC) or per thousand impressions (CPM). A CPA lead is one such record, transmitted over an API with the user's contact and attribution fields.
The advertiser validates the lead and returns a status: accepted, rejected, or pending. Payout accrues only on accepted leads, so rejection rate and hold period directly set the affiliate's effective revenue.
Settlement happens after delivery, so lead-side systems must track each record's status over time and reconcile payouts — unlike click trackers, whose accounting ends at the conversion pixel.