Mind you, there are a lot of affiliates who work their asses off to promote sponsors, promote their sponsors in unique ways and do wonders in contributing the development of their own brand as well as the brands of their sponsors. There are also many affiliates who can choose to promote a new site and, in doing so, set that sponsor on a path to success (bring publicity to an up and coming yet relatively unknown site). There are many affilites - the major, high traffic ones - that literally can set a site on fire and turn it in to a success.
There are also affiliates who are up and coming and may end up being the best affiliate a sponsor ever had, though not quite there yet.
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