A previous post of mine, on affiliate programs that I should not have promoted, got some interesting replies.
Mercutiom says -
Most of my ads are through the commission junction system. With their services I’m able to select companies whose ads match that of my site. My one complaint is that many of the ads are moving .gif images, which do draw the eye, but are really annoying.I’m curious, what affiliate programs or ad servers would you suggest?
If you find that the animated gifs are too much, simply make your own banner! There is no rule that says you cannot use your own creative to promote an affiliate link.
If I don’t find the creative good enough from a company I usually end up designing my own. Sometimes I put more information in the banner, change colors, text, etc…basically whatever I feel like. So I encourage you to do the same if you are up to it. You can use open source image editing software like GIMP and Inkscape to get started, if you don’t have Adobe photoshop and Illustrator.
As for which affiliate programs to promote?
Well, a good sign is what is hot in terms of the news being published on blogs and newspapers on the internet today. If you want to direct people to video download sites, like I am presently doing, it could work beneficially to you. Provided you have the right audience. With the festive season coming up you better start preparing yourself now with notes and check up with popular online stores and see what products they are advertising.
Personally, going forward I think hosting and domain services are going to be a easy way to make some nice affiliate commissions. But right now I’m concentrating on video, online movies and stuff like that.
Also, Soufulow said -
I once got stuck on a Forex education program that promised HUGE commissions per sale. The commissions seems sweet but was never turn into real money as the merchant hardly convert any traffics into customers.
That’s the first point I made in my 5 points to go over before getting into affiliate marketing, Ignore the payout! Glad to see that I was right. 
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About the author
Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.
Zach Dunn on August 25th, 2007
1
Where do you find your affiliate programs? Do you go to individual sites your interested in and see if they have a affiliate program? Or is there a site you use that has a
“marketplace” of affiliate programs similar to
PayPerPost?
Zach Dunn on August 25th, 2007
2
Where do you find your affiliate programs? Do you go to individual sites your interested in and see if they have a affiliate program? Or is there a site you use that has a
“marketplace” of affiliate programs similar to the
PayPerPost marketplace? I’m asking this first because I’m interested in affiliate marketing and second because I noticed that on your TotalVid ad that after you click though to the site, the site does not have an affiliate program page, that you can easily see.
(sorry for commenting twice)
Ali on August 25th, 2007
3
Zach that affiliate program is available through commission junction { http://www.cj.com }.
The reason you couldn’t find an affiliate link on the page you landed on is because the purpose for that landing page was to sign up customers not affiliates. Sometimes a site will not advertise that they accept affiliates, that’s just their choice.
Good luck with affiliate marketing.
soufulow on August 25th, 2007
4
Actually, I don’t entirely agree with your points.
When it comes to considering which aff program to promote, i rather think from the perceptive of that program’s business nature. For example, not much people will pay a few hundreds online for a Forex trading course (or few thousands for a diamond ring) - which makes the high commission payout meaningless.
However, there’re some high payout aff programs that work pretty well for most webmasters - satellite TV, web hosting, credit card, foreclosures, eBay - just to name a few.
Then again, this is based on my personal experience and it might not be true on yours.
Zach Dunn on August 26th, 2007
5
Ok, thanks I’ll check it out.