europeforvisitors - 6:27 pm on Mar 12, 2005 (gmt 0)

What does it take to be a successful affiliate marketer?

Depends on what you mean by "affiliate marketer." Some of us are publishers who use affiliate marketing the way it was envisioned at its conception in the mid-1990s: as a form of advertising on an editorial or content site. That approach can work well for some topics, if you've got the right kind of audience and enough traffic. It works especially well in combination with a contextual ad network like Google's AdSense, which helps to "fill the gaps" by generating revenues from content pages that don't send traffic and buyers to relevant affiliate partners. It requires a different set of skills than most full-time affiliate marketers have, though: Technical and SEO abilities are less important than editorial and publishing experience.