Just another thought on choosing affiliate programs.  While more and more businesses are launching affiliate programs, surely some of these will be happy to benefit from your promotional efforts while rewarding you very little, or nothing at all.

Certainly, some companies will pay affiliates whether their customers pay online or off.  But I suspect that many will not pay the person who sent them the customer if they can get away with it.  An offline payment would seem to make this outcome more likely.  So, businesses that are known for having a high percentage of online transactions -- perhaps with discounts for paying this way -- would be most lucrative for marketers. 

Also, in choosing affiliate programs I'd say it's worth finding big businesses that are well-managed and scrutinised.  So, if they say they'll pay their affiliates so much, you can be pretty sure they will.

For these two reasons I think that big online travel agencies may well be a good place to look.  There's also the fact that with the economy booming (at least in Australia) more and more people are travelling interstate and overseas, so the percentage of leads that convert is higher. 

I have been thinking about what section of our economy might be a good source of affiliate programs.  I think education is worth a look, since it is a booming industry and much of it is online nowadays.  There are heaps of course available and if people are happy to enrol online, then chances are they'll pay for the course online, too.  Also, most of these courses do cost a fair bit to join so if you get a per-sale cut, then you might earn pretty good money for each lead that converts. 

With this in mind I've been looking around for some good local programs to promote.  Will post about these as I give each of them a go.