Affiliates are businesses themselves and they provide a service which they should be compensated for. The Service which they supply is providing you with customers to your own business. You as a business owner need to decide whether to use them for a sales channel or a marketing one. On a general basis the better users of affiliate programs use them as a sales channel. This is befitting as the CPA reward means you will not have to undergo the uncertainty of other marketing programs.

Nearly all businesses use metrics in their sales when it pertains to affiliates, an example is the general marketing cost per sale and the potential gain by each individual sale. If you plan on using an affiliate they are much more likely to be evaluated as included in the media buying schedule inside your business.
Affiliates can deliver a large number of sales compared to other sales venues. This cannot be done with CPA that is not competitive. Sales levels reach their highest points by appointing CPAs that are competitive.

Affiliates that are good stay in business because of their abilities to connect to the consumer.  They give the consumers  what they want and they deal with their business so that it is a profitable business. This means that low CPAs will not promote the more successful affiliates to have anything to do with you affiliates to the side of your business rather than right in the center of everything.

When searching for a network be selective, be choosy. You want the best network that will work for you. Not the network that will work best for Jim over there in Kansas. There are networks that work the best with large companies, and then there are the networks who work the best with small and medium sized companies, also called SEMs. Some work well with some better with some avenues of the market while some work better with others such as email marketing. Choose the one that best fits your needs.

Affiliates only stay in the center of your business if they become the spokesmen at the center of your business. For this to happen you must meet with them on a regular basis that way you can make sure that they have all the correct information for your trademark, product, your offers and whatever else you offer in your business. They need to feel as though they are a part of your team not just on the outside looking in. They need to be a part of the staff. You as an employer need to give them the fundamental tools they need to perform their job accurately and creatively.

To have affiliates at the center of your business you need to get in touch with a network and maybe even an agency that will work with the affiliates to make them your trademark ambassadors. Then have all of the internal processes set up so that way when they want to deliver a high volume of potential quality business you have the right tools available to them.