Direct response advertisers believe that cost per action is the best way to purchase online advertising because cost per action allows the advertiser to only pay for the ad when the desired action has been fulfilled. An action in this case can be a product being purchased, a form to be filled out and submitted, or a service to be rendered. It is important to remember that with cost per action the wanted action to be done is determined by the advertiser. In addition, it is also crucial to know that the cost per action can be determined by many different factors depending on where the online advertising supplies are being bought.

There is a fee structure for paid inclusion. The fee structure for paid inclusion has two basic functions. The fee structure is both a filter against not needed submissions and a money maker. The fee covers a yearly subscription for one webpage which will be automatically catalogued and updated regularly. People who wish to use paid inclusion must also be aware that a per click fee may apply because each search engine is different.

Many search engines such as Yahoo like to mix it up a bit by combining paid inclusion with their results from web crawling. People who dislike paid inclusion claim that it causes searches to base their results on what is economically best for the website instead of what are in the best interest the users of that website.