Curiosity...Feedback on the optimal Affiliate Program...Opinions?

what affiliates want from an affiliate program...

[ShantiShunn]

This is just a general posting. I've been involved with a variety of affiliate programs, and the more I look around, the more differences and similarities I see between all of them.

I figured I'd just inquire with the rest of the community about what are the optimal things that make or break an affiliate program for you all.

I'll start it out:

1) Real-time stats
2) Prompt monthly payouts
3) Flexible ad formats and flexibility in ad formats

What else does everyone prefer to see from an affiliate program?

[CanadianChris]

-An affiliate manager to contact for any information (usually only happens with large sites)

-Content, lots of content :) Some affiliate programs have massive libraries of content on their products that they don't use on their sites, some of which is very useful.

-Good payouts. Doesn't have to be the best in the market, but has to be decent enough to be worth the time/effort.

-Website stability...last week I launched an ad campaign for program I just joined and checked in on the site over a period of 5 days. On day 3 the server crashed for 12 hours...it crashed again on day 5 for about 4 hours. I wasn't amused and dropped the program.

[ShantiShunn]

Thanks for the post Chris, it seems like others don't want to try to get the Affiliate companies to work better for us as the affiliates...come on everyone, this is to help the affiliate programs understand what we really want.

Also, what ads does everyone find to be the most useful and/or productive?

Product based?

Lead based?

Incentive?

What's the communities take on this?