Possibly adding (and I’m not quite sure how to put this): “being aware of many-to-one affiliate relationships that look good on the surface”. I think the US is littered with them; not sure about the UK, but have certainly come across them. When you’re a more experienced affiliate, you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of them yourself. They can be symbiotic, but a newbie would never really ask the question imo.

1) Avoid affiliate marketing of ONE brand and model line by ONE manufacturer. It may seem like a good idea due to its popularity, but will eventually tire out the segment. For example, avoid a niche like Sharajoku Ninja Swords…

2) The competition are also looking at their new competitors. So be prepared for your competitors to try to squash you out by improving their own campaigns.

3) Google is not your online lifeline. Yahoo, MSN, and Facebook all provide opportunities to generate traffic.

4) Affiliate marketing can be taken offline. Flyers, face to face selling, local classifieds, newspaper ads, bulletin boards at grocery stores, be creative.

There’s so many more you can learn out there. All these tools in your bag will give you the edge you need to beat the bedroom affiliate and the bigger players.

Couple More things I would add to the list of considerations:

1) Merchants that go bust or stop their affiliate marketing activity. This is one the risks of building up only one site or one site that channels visitors to 1 merchant.

2) The taxman.

When you talk about the big brands, I guess you are talking Kelkoo, TheSun etc. What about this – Facebook, Twitter, etc all developing systems to change all natural links on their sites into affiliate links.

On the cashback / voucher code sites I think the affiliate community should be more pro-active in supporting the merchants that don’t work with cashback & vouchers. Or do you think this happens anyway when the affiliates get better results / higher conversions ?