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 In the Company of Good and Evil (by Winn & Power)

February 21, 2002 — Last October, I praised an extraordinary book called Dot.Bomb, an entertaining chronicle of the rise and fall of Value America by J. David Kuo. At that time, I wished for more information about Value America’s technology, and a more detailed account of the pre-IPO days. Be careful what you wish for. Read more »

Comments Off on Dot.Con (John Cassidy): Worthless

February 10, 2002 — Late last year, I read a truly awful book: Stephan Paternot’s A Very Public Offering, a poorly-written account of the rise and fall of TheGlobe.com.  The company has consistently been cited by critics as one of the worst/best examples of absurd internet-stock mania, but this book by the company’s founder offered no real apologies, and provided very little insight.  I don’t blame Paternot, a young man who was willingly manipulated by “market makers,” and who clearly is not a professional writer.

But John Cassidy can make no such excuses for Dot.Con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Cassidy offers no insight, and even fails to identify the “con” promised by the book’s title. And his sloppy writing, riddled with factual and typographical errors, insures that the book can’t be accepted even as a “digest” of the events he reports. Read more »

Comments Off on Two More Business Books (Godin & Locke)

“Survival is Not Enough” and “Gonzo Marketing”

(February 3, 2002 — Over the past two months, during a lull in my consulting work, I’ve read more non-fiction books than I’ve probably read in the past year. I’ve had some good luck, with fun titles like The MouseDriver Chronicles and thought-provoking books like Republic.com.

Alas, I have also suffered through several mediocre business books, which manage to stretch a few interesting ideas wastefully into book length. Read more »

Comments Off on The MouseDriver Chronicles (Lusk & Harrison)

Another “Must Read” Book for Entrepreneurs, and a “Good Read” for the Rest of Us Read more »

Comments Off on The AT&T @Home Fiasco: A New Business School Case

December 2, 2001 — This story comes in several parts. Read more »