First off let me preface by saying I'm strictly a sponsor marketer, not a sponsor owner, and I'm in no way an old-school expert, so keep that in mind.
I think free hosted materials are a good idea. If it's good quality, smaller players will often use it as a stuffer for their sites, which can bring in a small, steady trickle of sales. Plus, by offering free hosted materials you'll get more attention from bigger players too.
But I do like the idea of offering more content to affiliates then what's available free hosted. As a traffic site owner, I'd rather stuff my list with submitted content then add in tons of freehosted sites anyway.
And though there are a lot of stats junkies out there, ccbill gives me everything I need to know about a sponsor - not the least of which is a near-absolute guarantee that I'll get paid, which really works in your favor if you've got a new site.
Other than that, the basics:
- Perfect your tour (no traffic leaks please).
- Offer small steady amounts of fresh content/updates, rather then big but infrequent.
- Offer assistance to affiliates who've proven their value.
- Fine tune, improve, rinse, dry, repeat... etc.
Good luck,
~Some Random Hippy
