Originally Posted by coolasafanman

Alexa is far from perfect, but it's a good gauge of who's making money. I'd say a site with buyer related traffic in the 60k range and lower on alexa is usually making serious money, and a site with bulk traffic in the 20k and lower range is probably doing very well too. By the time someone gets to that level, they usually know what they're doing and how to make money on the Internet. Granted there are also a lot of sites with alexa ratings in the 6 figure range that get decent traffic, which just isn't tracked properly, and who are doing well. Lastly, there are those who are experts at word of mouth advertising, which results in low traffic but high conversions. It's like anything else - you get what you put in.

I can't disclose proprietary information, but we have quite a few affiliates who do very well with us. It's definitely possible that one affiliate might make 7 figures from one program but I have to agree that the best solution is to promote multiple programs with good conversions.

A common methodology is to promote programs with either very high payouts or very high conversions heavily, followed up by moderate programs and sending the people who don't buy anything to a pay-per-click page where you can at least make a couple cents per visitor. You can also prequalify someone after they make a purchase and promote a free trial or other special deal as an upsell. Using a good strategy is the key to making money.. well, that, traffic and not pissing off a potential customer with overwhelming popups and circle jerks, in my humble opinion.