do you still need to get ads that are relevant to your content? For example, let say you are a member of a satilite TV affliate, but your site is related to hiking? I know it sounds like an easy question, but I see people making claims that they are making $1000s through affliates that have no revelance to any site I own.
The big money that's made is by affiliates with sites that match the target market of the affiliate program. You COULD make a sattelite dish sale, or get a car loan lead or even sell a pair of shoes ONCE IN A BLUE MOON on your hiking site, since everyone needs those things. But the key is to get consumers while they are in the middle or tail end of the actual buying cycle or to show your visitors products you know for sure they would be interested in based on your demographics. For your hiking site there are lots of good outdoor affiliate programs. www.Bentgear.com used to be one of my clients and they have a really good affiliate program on ShareAsale. They have a whole hiking/camping section of products. You may not make a TON of money like you could with a targeted site for financial products or sat dishes but you should be able to make a nice steady stream of sales. If you really want to make money with SAT TV - check out www.revenueallies.com They sell both DirecTv and Dish network and have the highest payouts. Build a new site or start a blog about Sat TV and focus on that market. Gregory the affiliate manager will give you some tips to get you started on the right track.
You're more likely to make a sale if there is a way you can make a product relevant to your visitors. It may be marginally related but if you can connect it to your site, even with a few sentences of text that helps. You also need to look at commissions. If a relevant offer pays $2 and 1/500visitors buy it, you make $4 per 1000 visitors, if a less relevant offer pays $50 and 1/5,000 visitors buy it, you make $50 per 5,000 visitors which is $5 per 1,000 visitors. So in this hypothetical example you will still make more money with a less relevant item that pays much more than a more relevant item. Test different offers and see how they work for you. I can tell you that our products, credit cards may not be directly relevant but they pay well. Many affiliates that sell books for example make more from us than they do from being book affiliates because books via Amazon pay 5-7% on $100 sale it's only $5-7. I hope you understand the logic. It works both ways. Good luck.