martinibuster - 5:02 pm on Aug 26, 2012 (gmt 0)

I used to do good business with CJ and suddenly the money vanished altogether. Traffic was strong, impressions strong, click thrus normal, just no sales recorded.

I've had similar issues. However I've had positive experiences with affiliate programs as well, like with shareasale. The help staff there try hard to fix things but they're as smart or non-smart as workers anywhere else, they're not exceptional.

It's not set it and forget it
The thing with affiliate work is that you really do need to keep an eye on sales and links to make sure all links are going to valid landing pages, test that the landing pages are converting, that all links are up to date, etc. It's not set and forget it. However with affiliate programs you do have a little more freedom in how and where you place links and ads. It's more work than AdSense because once you set it you can't walk away and forget it.