Every rupee you spend on marketing buys one of three things: attention (impressions), visits (clicks) or customers (sales). The model you choose decides one important thing — who carries the risk when the shopper doesn't buy.
Three ways to pay for growth
Pay per impression (CPM). You pay every time your ad is shown. Good for awareness, but you pay whether anyone cares or not.
Pay per click (CPC). You pay when someone lands on your store. Better — but a click is not a customer. If your product page is slow, the price is wrong or the shopper was just curious, you still pay.
Pay per sale (CPS). You pay a commission only when an order is confirmed. If the shopper doesn't buy, you don't pay. The channel carries the risk.
Why most D2C stores start with clicks
Google and Meta ads are fast to switch on, easy to scale and great for testing which products and messages work. That's why almost every store starts there.
The problem shows up later. As more brands bid for the same shoppers, the cost of each click rises, while your conversion rate stays roughly where it was. The result is a higher cost for every new customer — even though nothing changed in your store. We explain how the shopper you just paid to acquire can end up in a competitor's audience in How Shopify Stores Get New Customers From Their Thank You Page.
When pay-per-sale makes more sense
Pay-per-sale is a strong fit when:
- your margins are fixed and you need a predictable cost per order,
- you're tired of paying for traffic that browses and leaves, or
- you want to add a growth channel without increasing your ad budget.
The trade-off is control over volume. A pay-per-sale channel grows with its network, not with how much money you put in on a given day. That's why it works best alongside paid ads, not as a replacement.
How to compare channels fairly
To compare a CPC channel with a CPS channel, convert both into the same number: cost per new customer.
- For a click-based channel: total spend ÷ new customers it brought in.
- For a sale-based channel: commission per order (the cost is already per sale).
- Count only first-time customers in both, and only delivered orders — returned or cancelled orders were never really customers.
Once both are in the same unit, the decision is simple arithmetic.
What to check before signing up for any pay-per-sale channel
- What counts as a sale? Look for commission on net sales — after cancellations and returns.
- How is it tracked? UTM links plus exclusive coupon codes make every order visible to you.
- Who sees your offer? Make sure you can block competing brands.
- What does it cost to start? Upfront fees defeat the purpose.
How Moby's model works
Moby is a pay-per-sale shopper exchange for Shopify stores. A "Claim Your Gift" button on your Thank You page lets leaving shoppers discover non-competing offers, and your offer is shown to shoppers who completed a purchase at another Shopify store just 5 seconds ago. You pay commission only on net sales Moby drives — never for clicks or impressions. Sales are tracked with UTM links and exclusive coupon codes, and you can block competing brands.
It's free to install, needs no code, and goes live in about 10 minutes. The Free plan is commission-only; paid plans add wider promotion — see the plans and FAQ on our D2C page.
The short answer
Keep clicks for reach and testing. Add pay-per-sale for customers at a known cost. If you want to see where else stores are finding new customers together, read Cross-Brand Partnerships for Shopify Stores.