The last couple of months I’ve been speaking with more affiliates that are breaking the affiliate marketing mold.

Seems like these folks are bent on changing the stereotype of affiliates and affiliate marketing.

Gone is the “loose cannon, niche site,…

“How hard is it to start an Ebay home business” is a question I am asked constantly. It’s a legitimate question, but the folks I object to are the ‘whiners’. You can see them everywhere – especially in discussion boards.…

If affiliate marketing is all about a virtual “sales force” then why do marketers choose to maintain active relationships with so many affiliates that work in a vacuum? Even more alarming, we now hear of affiliate managers who lose sleep over pleasing the slugs who refuse to even communicate with them. Shawn Collins recently reported that 36 percent of marketers STILL “auto accept” affiliates and, in fact, fret over affiliates who ignore the most basic of rules and refuse to partake in routine business communications. What’s the point? Everyone from cheats to affiliates who tell marketers “talk to the hand ’cause the face ain’t listening” earn the attention (time=money) of affiliate managers. Meanwhile… outside of the Internet realm… distributors and salespeople who behave this way get the axe. I ask, “Why is Web marketing so retarded?”

In June of 2004, Daniel Akst, a novelist and columnist in Tivoli, New York, offered this year’s crop of college graduates some uncommon advice quite unlike that of most commencement speakers. His article appeared in The Wall Street Journal and…

“Beth, who were all those CPA affiliate networks at Ad Tech?” my VP asked me. She continued, “I never heard of half of them.”

“That makes two of us” I replied, a bit sheepishly, since it’s my job to know…

If you live in the US, you already know that this is our American Thanksgiving. This is a holiday that I personally approve of in a big way. We’ve all read and thought about the excesses that sometimes accompany Christmas…

I have talked about the problems with fraud and with pieces like India’s Secret Army of Online Ad ‘Clickers’ the dangers of full throttle CPC deals become apparent.

Google has filed a lawsuit against Auction Experts International where Google claims the…

WhenU and Aluria continue to stir up controversy and this time it is over Aluria’s decision to certify programs as being “spyware free”. Recently Aluria ratified WhenU was spyware free, but since then alarming evidence has come into play showing…

Affiliates are the traffic signs of the Internet.

But why don’t more affiliates add a toll-booth?

There are many exceptions but it would be fair to say that the majority of affiliate marketers essentially move search-based traffic to advertisers.

The…

Friday I got an email message that was supposedly from PayPal. The message was “confirming” a payment for $278.99 that I supposedly made: