Let’s get one thing out of the way:
Most of what you’ve heard about negotiating CPA (cost per acquisition) in affiliate lending is noise.
Every new entrant wants to channel their inner Chris Voss—anchoring, countering, “tactical empathy.”
The reality: If you treat CPA like a chess match, you’re playing the wrong game.
It’s not about outwitting your partner. It’s about understanding the math (from the publisher’s perspective).
So, here’s a few things you need to know about CPA negotiations. Nine lessons from the field, not the classroom.
1. Negotiating CPA Is Overrated (For Most)
For most organizations, haggling over CPA is a gigantic waste of time.
You get what you pay for. Pay more, get more. Pay less, get less.
Why?
Because affiliates aren’t running on hope—they’re optimizing for revenue per impression (RPI), revenue per click (RPC), or some close cousin. Usually, there’s a relevance or conversion metric in the background, but it all boils down to one thing: how well your product monetizes as an affiliate partner, not your negotiation skills.
Your funnel—served ad impression to funded customer—is what drives their economics. CPA is just one input.
If your downstream funnel isn’t competitive, no amount of clever negotiation will save you.
Pro tip: Ask the publisher, “What’s a competitive RPI (or RPC or conversion funnel) on your platform in my product category?” They’ll usually tell you. If you hit or exceed it, you’ll see volume. If you don’t, you won’t. They have every incentive to be honest—if you deliver, it’s better for their customers and their bottom line.
2. New Entrants: You’ll Need to Pay Up
Coming into a marketplace as a new lender?
You are not on a level playing field with the incumbents.
They’ve tuned their funnels for years. Their ad position is better. Their conversion rates are better.
If you come in cheap, you’ll compound your disadvantage. The affiliate will rationally place you at or near the bottom of the list until the data convinces them otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent.
My advice: Come in slightly or materially above market. Buy your way into the conversation.
That higher CPA helps you make up for the deficiencies you’re likely to have—lower conversion, worse ad position, no track record.
You can always optimize down later—if your conversion funnel proves it deserves to be there.
3. It’s nice being at the top of the food chain
If you’re a top-three or top-five brand in your category, affiliates want you.
You’re table stakes for their marketplace.
That means you can flex—maybe even negotiate CPA down.
The quick pulse check: if your product is well-known, if customers expect to see it in the marketplace, if your absence would make the affiliate look incomplete—you have leverage.
But if you’re an unknown fintech? Forget it. You’ll pay at or above market. Unless you’re covering a segment nobody else serves, or you’re bringing a truly unique offer, it’s unlikely the revenue you generate for a publisher will be incremental (at least in the early years of your partnership).
4. Smaller Affiliates = Lower CPAs (Usually)
Obvious, but worth stating:
Smaller affiliates usually take lower CPAs than the big names.
It’s just market power.
Don’t overthink it.
But, remember this. If you pay a smaller affiliate “big affiliate” CPAs, you might find yourself climbing the ranking and securing more volume. I see fintechs deploying this strategy today with great success. They’re stealing the market share that the incumbents aren’t watching (or protecting) very closely.
5. Using CPA as a Margin Lever? Dangerous Game
I’ve seen plenty of performance marketers pat themselves on the back for negotiating a lower CPA.
But here’s the catch:
Those vintages can end up being lower quality, and in smaller quantity, than the ones booked at a higher CPA.
It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you “won” a deal—only to realize later that your best cohorts came from periods when you paid more.
Watch your quality metrics like a hawk if you’re playing with CPA as a margin lever.
You might “win” on price and lose on volume and quality.
6. Watch Your Rank Like It’s Your P&L
If your ad position or rank is slipping, CPA is your fastest lever to pull.
But don’t confuse the symptom for the disease.
If your marketing funnel (click-through X app rate X approval rate) is weak, raising CPA is a band-aid, not a cure.
Still, in a pinch, a quick CPA bump can buy you time to fix what’s broken downstream.
But you won’t know when to pull it unless you’re watching your rank, placement, and volume closely—weekly, if not daily.
7. Lowball Bids Get Lowball Results
Affiliates will accept almost any CPA above their minimum, but if you come in too low—intentionally or out of ignorance—don’t expect much.
Your placements will be uncompetitive, your funnel will get adverse selection, and you’ll end up with scraps.
Again: Do your homework. Know what “market” looks like before you walk in the door.
If you’re not competitive, you’ll get what you paid for—less volume, lower quality, and a seat at the kids’ table.
8. Beware the FP&A “Just Cut CPA” Mirage
Here’s a classic:
FP&A wants to lower your blended CAC, so they tell you to “just cut CPA” by 10-20%.
And sure, affiliates will “accept” it. But unlike your direct mail vendor or your SEM partner, affiliates rarely deliver the same for less.
In direct mail, you earn your CAC through performance. In affiliate, it’s tempting to think you can just instruct your partners to lower the rate and call it a win.
But affiliate partners don’t play by those rules. They’ll adjust your placement, your volume, your quality—sometimes subtly, sometimes not.
Pull in your credit risk officers and veteran marketers before you let a spreadsheet from the finance team dictate your partner strategy.
Otherwise, you’ll save pennies to lose dollars.
9. Don’t Be Afraid To Call Some Bluffs
Lenders and affiliates still play games with CPA.
You might get an email to the tune of: “Raise your CPA by 60% or lose your top ranking.”
Here’s a real story: A lender gets that email—nicely worded, threatening a big increase with a short timeline, but vague on consequences.
But it’s from a person they’ve never met, at an affiliate with little market power, and a CPA ask that makes the lender’s economics unworkable.
What happened? The lender ignored it, kept a close eye on rankings, and… nothing changed. The due date came and went. Only months later did the lender slip slightly in position, to a spot that still didn’t merit a renegotiation.
So, take these “urgent” asks with a grain of salt—especially when they’re coming from partners who aren’t critical to your mix.
Don’t let yourself get played.
But also—don’t be the one playing games for the sake of it. The best relationships are built on math, transparency, and mutual upside—not bluffs and posturing.
The Bottom Line: Setting CPAs is a Math Problem, Not a Negotiation
If you approach CPA as a quantitative research project—backing into a competitive RPI/RPC, knowing your funnel data, understanding your real leverage—you’ll land in the right place.
If you treat it like a negotiation game from B-school, you’ll waste time, lose focus, and probably miss the big levers.
The real game is increasing the efficiency of your whole marketing funnel, not just the payout at the end.
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Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders.
Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.
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Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.
Nick Madrid the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.