Think of the web as a marketplace, not a technology medium.
why on Earth should I presume you're someone trustworthy that will actually pay me? You'll have control of the technology, you'll have control over the statistical reporting, the products, refunds, everything.
GRML (Blog Title)
GRML (Blog Date)
GRML (Blog Size)
GRML (Blog Company)
For a super-affiliate who knows he can throw 10,000 people a day onto your site, perhaps he can accurately predict conversions and tell if something is wrong. For most normal humans that doesn't apply - at what point do I decide that the sales seem too low and figure you're only paying me 1 in 5 or 1 in 3?
Webrings revisited
Avoid FREE website submissions
Directories and web presence
Link Quality vs. Link Quantity
Starting a Link Campaign
I have no way of trusting you. Even if you ARE with a network, when I see you're running a stand-alone affiliate system as well, I walk away. If you're presenting me with a different business model depending upon how I enter your site, you've already proven to me that you're a slippery character, saying what I want to hear, not the full truth.
Building backlinks
Using images to increase link popularity
Reciprocal Link Exchange
Link Sharing Focus
Search Engine Tactics (SEO)
One network, for example, changed their set-up so that merchants cannot offer 0% for 'social' products, forcing a minimum of 1%. Too many were gaining affiliates then re-setting the commission rate to 0, now the affiliate notices a $0.25 commission and realises what the merchant has done. Bye bye merchant.
Researching Links
What to avoid in a link request
Maximizing site linking
Managing outbound links
Staying on-topic
Personally I feel the rate should be locked, period.
Being able to trust the merchant is, to me, THE most important part. Like I said, why should I trust some website floating in space?
Linking for commerce sites
Buying text links
Experiences with webrings
Linking power in the crawl
Ethics in cross-linking
So the question is, do you wish to spread your product wide and deep into the net, reaching nooks and crannies, or do you want to bang out large volumes quickly and then, once the flow has peaked and is dropping, be dumped by the super-affiliates who'll move on to the next fresh product/s?
The next Amazon or flavour of the quarter? You primarily hear from the big guys, these people here will track everything and dump you in a heartbeat if their ROI drops below their average or what they could earn from a rival.
Little guys like me will stick to you like glue if you're giving me a profit each month. Think of it like cooking, do you want the outside seared and crispy quick, or cook it slowly all the way through?
Your call.