Recently I've been very interested in the concept of cost per action advertising.  I believe it could be a mechanism for sustaining the progressive blogosphere.  Briefly, cost per action (CPA) is an advertising model whereby advertisers pay publishers (e.g., blog owners) a certain cost for each time readers take some action.  In the world of online sales, CPA is extremely advantageous for stores, who can guarantee that their advertising dollars will result in a net profit - a store only needs to take care to set the cost for each sale to be less than the profit that sale yields, and it can guarantee something left over from each sale.  The advertising budget is completely self-sustaining.

In a highly action-oriented environment like the blogosphere, cost per action seems like an ideal model for both advertisers and bloggers.  Progressive bloggers are already exhorting their readers to take some action or another; why not get money for each action the readers take?  Of course, there are some limits on what kinds of activities CPA should not reward.  CPA shouldn't be used to incentivize people to register to vote or to actually vote, as that kind of activity will probably be considered illegal vote-buying; similarly, CPA shouldn't be used to incentivize any illegal or harmful activity.

Beyond those restrictions, there's a wide variety of political activities which cost per action could cover, if the proper mechanisms exist.  The most obvious ones are financial political activities, like donating to a campaign, buying something from a progressive company, buying progressive political merchandise, etc.  In these cases, the value derived from the action covers the cost of the ad, and the campaign, progressive company, or progressive organization always nets a profit.  Moreover, these kinds of transactions are completed online via a credit card transaction, so the advertiser gets immediate gratification.

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