Pay per action advertising is a kind of advertising in which you only pay when a user carries out a specified action. Actions can include subscribing to a newsletter, visiting a webpage, purchasing a product, or other notable events in a purchasing journey.

Pay per action advertising is similar to pay per click advertising, in which the marketer would pay for each click an ad gets. While a click can be considered an action, the difference between the two is the pay per action advertising can focus on conversion events.