CPA
Cost per acquisition. Spend divided by attributed conversions, or an optimization goal that needs a real conversion event.
Published 2026-09-09 · Search job: what is CPA advertising
CPA is cost per acquisition: spend divided by the conversions you chose to count. It is also a campaign optimization idea (bid toward a target CPA) that only means something after events exist.
On Adprime Zero, conversions come from first-party events you create and install. Until an event is linked and has fired, CPA is blank or misleading. Do not compute CPA from exchange clicks. A click is not an acquisition.
The product can show CPA in performance when conversion rollups exist. Live conversion-optimized bidding on production spend is a narrower configuration. Do not assume a pixel turned it on.
CPA needs an honest denominator. Last-click attribution through click tokens or a trusted server campaign id is the MVP model. If you mix remnant clicks that never landed with a server event that always fires, the ratio is theater.
Set the event first. Follow the conversion event checklist. Then read CPA next to click-to-page-view, not instead of it.