When you are looking at joining an affiliate program what do you look for? Amount paid for customer(Percentage)? One time OR recurring payments? Material available (What type of Material do you like to have? Banners, links, videos, FPA(Full Page ads), one liners, free material you can give away?) Other - Please explain Thanks for the feedback!
How about the networks campaign performance metrics? For example, we use EPC (Earnings Per Click) that can give you a guide to how much a campaign is paying per click it receives. At the end of the day, you need to know what you are earning by performance, rather than just selecting the campaign that SEEMS to have the highest payout.
I look for the amount per sale/lead first and foremost. I then look for a community around the affiliate, a community that provides support and other affiliates to share ideas and ask questions to. Lastly, the payment cycle is important, it needs to be monthly and on time. There is nothing worse than affiliates that have ridiculous minimum payment levels, such as $500 before you get a cheque!
High commissions which are paid on time, affiliate links with high conversion rates, real time reports, free RSS, updated merchant promos.