Principle 1 – Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket
• Diminishing returns – there is only so much traffic that a few affiliates will have; if you keep hitting that same traffic, you will see a progressively lower response. Advertisers can be pressured by large affiliates to increase commissions, but the result is a higher cost for less return. This is not sustainable for most.
• Loss of competitive advantage – it is likely your top affiliates are also your competitor’s top affiliates. You do not have any real competitive advantage here, unless you perhaps pay more commission, but there are only two winners from that – the publisher and the network.
Principle 2 – Communicate effectively with your affiliates
Principle 3 – Recruit, activate and optimize affiliates all of the time