I spent years living off of affiliate programs on CJ, Linkshare and other networks. In fact for a long time I didn’t know much else existed. I would get a feel for the types of offers in a niche, test some, and move horizontally across the network entering a wide range of niches. When some worked, I was content with my affiliate selection for that niche since I didn’t know better.

Today virtually all of my affiliate revenue comes from in-house programs in a limited number of niches. This change occurred when I started looking deeper and deeper for programs in my niches. Usually there are all kinds of in-house programs in virtually any niche that pay better, have better reporting, better communication, better integration, and quicker payment than the networks. Of course this isn’t news to most experienced affiliate marketers, but one that’s easy to fall victim to.

I still head straight to a network when I ‘m testing a niche. However if the test proves successful I then fully investigate all possible sources of affiliate programs within the niche before focusing on another one. If you are looking for ways to find these hidden programs, simply do a search for some of your target keywords, then start clicking on all of the affiliate sites in the PPC ads and determine who the affiliates are getting paid by. You will probably find a few that you didn’t know existed.