Observations : What to look for in affiliate programs

After having successfully launched a handful of profitable review style affiliate sale websites, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to affiliate programs. There are six major factors I take into account when choosing an affiliate partner.

Commission Rate
What percentage of each sale you generate do you earn? This varies greatly from program to program but generally anything around 10% is about right. Look at the average price of products being sold and see what you would make per sale, then decide if the amount of traffic you are sending is worth what you are making, or could you monetize it better with adsense or other forms of income?

Cookie Length
Some affiliate programs only give credit for sales made if your visitor instantly buys something upon reaching the buy page. Others set a cookie for the visitor to make sure that if they return within a certain number of days and make a purchase that the affiliate still gets their commission. This is very important, as a large portion of purchases are made after the visitor returns to the merchant's multiple times during the decision making process, 30-day cookies are ideal and should really help maximize your sales.

Link Options
Does the affiliate allow you to directly link to product pages? Some affiliates do not have the appropriate scripting done to allow you to link to any specific page on the site. Does the affiliate allow you to ad link descriptors in your outbound links to help track individual link conversions?

Statistics
Does the affiliate system allow you to track individual link and campaign success? This can help you focus on what products to promote, how to format links, where to place links, and more.

Ad Creative
Do they provide good banners and text links? Do they have multiple sizes to help accommodate several different site layout styles? Good banners do help get hight CTR and can make or break your campaign, if the banner doesn't sell the visitor on clicking, then you won't be able to sell them on buying the product.

Payment Policies
Read into the fine print of payments, how you are paid, when you are paid, payment thresholds and tax information.