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• Primary Factors Considered by Affiliates: When a prospective affiliate is considering which merchants’ programs to join and promote, the affiliate may consider a wide range of factors. Many affiliates rely only on one or a few of these factors in making decisions; none consider all factors. Read more »

Comments Off on Public vs. Private Affiliate Programs

1. Should your affiliate program be public or private?
   • Public: Most affiliate programs are “public,” so that any member of the general public can learn about the merchant’s affiliate program (by using a link on the merchant’s site, by viewing a list of merchants on an affiliate network, or by finding a listing for the merchant in an “affiliate directory” site).
   • Private: However, several thousand merchants offer “private” or “secret” affiliate programs, which are available by “invitation only.” Read more »

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As a consultant, I earn much of my income by advising merchants who seek to add an “affiliate program” (also called an “associate program,” “referral program,” or “partner program”). However, not all merchants should have affiliate programs, and even those who can benefit from an affiliate program should be aware of certain “drawbacks.” Read more »

Comments Off on What’s an Affiliate Program?

An “affiliate program” is an advertising arrangement between advertisers (merchants) and publishers (affiliates). Read more »

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The term “Affiliate Arbitrage” is used to describe a variety of strategies, nearly all involving “Pay Per Click Search” and “Affiliate Programs.” In this article, I attempt to explain many of these “strategies,” and why they might or might not work for you. Read more »

Comments Off on Should We Buy “Guaranteed Traffic” or “50,000 visitors”?

It really is “too good to be true.”  Several dozen web sites promise to deliver 10,000 to 100,000 visitors to your web site, for a low fee — much less than one cent per visitor, which is the cheapest you could ever draw traffic through Google’s AdWords program.

Paying for “guaranteed traffic” is a complete waste of money: Read more »

Comments Off on Combatting Click Fraud – Effective PPC Marketing

Combatting Click Fraud

September 1, 2005 (DRAFT) — I’m going to share some strategies for “effective pay-per-click search marketing,” including strategies for combatting “click fraud.” Read more »

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My 2005 list of Affiliate Program Directories was quite dated and useless, so I’ve updated the list and assigned it a special page on my site: http://markwelchblog.com/affiliate-program-directories/

Comments Off on E-Commerce Business: Focus, Focus, Focus

October 29, 2001 — Last week, when I read the book Dot.Bomb (by J. David Kuo), one amusing recurring theme was quite familiar. It seemed that every few pages, Kuo’s CEO would “announce” (or another employee would “suggest”) a drastic new direction for Value America, which was started as an internet retailer. Read more »

Comments Off on Idiot Clicks: Why You Should Pay LESS for #1 PPC-Search Position

The Idiot Click: Why You Should Spend LESS Money for Top Position than #2 position at Google AdWords, Yahoo Internet Marketing (Overture), and MSN AdCenter (Bing).

> So to sum up: we could profitably pay up to 43 cents per click for ANY position other than #1, but we could only pay up to 33 cents per click for the #1 position. <

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