Definition
Pay per lead, abbreviated PPL and sometimes called CPL as a payout model, pays the affiliate a fixed amount for each qualified contact they deliver — a registration, a form submission, an opt-in — regardless of whether that person later deposits, buys or does anything else of value. It is common for sportsbook and casino registration deals, and it dominates finance, insurance and sweepstakes verticals where the advertiser has its own process to convert leads into customers.
PPL lowers the affiliate's risk and shortens the payment cycle compared with a CPA that only pays on a first deposit: the payable event happens earlier in the funnel, so cash comes back faster and there is no exposure to whether the operator converts the registration. In exchange, the per-action payout is lower, and the affiliate is exposed to lead-quality scrubbing — the advertiser rejects a share of leads as invalid, duplicate, out-of-GEO or fraudulent, and only pays on the rest.
In context
For pricing, the affiliate works from the accepted-lead rate, not the submit count. A $8 payout at an 85% acceptance rate is $6.80 per raw lead; the same payout at 60% is $4.80, which can turn a profitable campaign into a loss.
Affiliates ask for the historical acceptance rate before scaling, agree the validation criteria and dispute window in writing, and reconcile accepted-lead counts against the advertiser's report every payment cycle, treating an unexplained decline in acceptance as equivalent to a hidden payout cut.
PPL works best where the advertiser genuinely has a strong downstream process — a call centre, a nurturing sequence, an underwriting team — that turns leads into customers, because then the advertiser can afford a noisier top of funnel and values the volume PPL delivers. Where the advertiser has no such process and simply hopes leads self-convert, PPL tends to be underpriced relative to the work, and both sides are usually better served by a first-deposit CPA that aligns payment with a real customer.
Worked example
A sportsbook pays $8 per registration lead in Nigeria with an 82% acceptance rate after deduplication and geo checks, giving an effective $6.56 per raw lead. The affiliate accepts the 18% scrub as the cost of a fast, low-risk payment cycle and prices its media buying to acquire raw leads under $4.50.
Frequently asked questions
Browse the full iGaming & affiliate glossary — hundreds of EN/RU terms with examples.
← Back to glossary