Quality US travel or real estate affiliate programs

[rcjordan]

OK, my eyes have been opened, my destination guide users just like "handy" stuff. They particularly love search boxes. The jaw dropper for me was the phone book search (Verizon) -at .03, it's doing a minimum of $8/day and up to $14.

Some good ones I've found [some with help from WebmasterWorld]
Verizon (Befree [thanks, NFFC])
Trails (CJ)
PrivateForSale (CJ)
Move.com (LinkShare [thanks, stcrim])

I need QUALITY national sites related to travel, real estate, vacations, moving, schools, colleges, and newspapers (to name a few top categories). Anyone?

[rcjordan]

First, the bad news...

Last Thursday, a major affiliate network suspended my account rather unceremoniously (as in SLAM!). I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong, I re-checked the various 'terms & conditions' -nothing wrong there. I hadn't clicked on any merchant links except once during setup to check the activated link, I hadn't changed even a whiff of affiliate code, the sites all have squeeky-clean content.... nothing! I can only assume that a merchant's CTR, which now has a sustained average above 2% (and still climbing), was suspicious.

The good news...

I emailed them and told them exactly what I've stated here. I asked for a reinstatement, and -if I had made an error unknowingly- I would fix it if they'd be kind enough to point me to it. They acknowledged by opening the account with only a note "XYZ merchant has reinstated your account." BTW, XYZ was the one that has over 2% CTR.

Back to the topic...
I'm now familiar with the following affiliate programs
- ClickXchange
- CJ
- Befree
- Linkshare

Are there any others that I should explore?

[Drastic]

Glad to hear you got that account straightened out. Lack of communication from merchant to affiliate has always been a sore spot with me. At least they reinstated you.

As far as generate affiliate networks, under CJ, I have had the best results with [onresponse.com] . After that is [directleads.com] and [websponsors.com] . Another one I had heard of good success with is [sponsorships.net] .

Most of these have CPA type offers that expire after a certain number of clicks, leads, or date. I recall seeing some travel related offers in the past, but never looked into them as they didn't fit my site. It takes more on your part for management, having to remove offers before they expire.

One idea would be promoting travel (vacation) sweepstakes, which have a decent lead setup. It is different than the other lead offers, and I can go into more detail and give you some stats info if you're interested.

If this type of thing would interest you, I can look at each one's current set of offers and see if I see anything that would be worth you joining, saving you time of having to setup account/wait for approval with each one.

[rcjordan]

>CPA type offers that expire after a certain number of clicks, leads, or date.

Knowing myself as I do, I'm not going to put any of those up. They'll just end up hanging out there forever.

> I can look at each one's current set of offers

No, I wasn't expecting anyone to dig out individual programs for me. Though I've been an long-time affiliate of one of the major travel networks (how long? I have the only 3-digit affiliate code I've ever seen with them.), I'm relatively new to all the networks, and was hoping that someone might have direct experience in my categories. Or just some general guidance as to which rocks I need to start looking under, which you've provided. Thanks for offering, though.