Originally Posted by signupdamnit

You have to look at CTR and conversion rates together though. She might convert 1:500 ("Join BLAHBLAH here for only $15 a month!") and you at 1:1500 ("Visit BLAH BLAH for more porn!") but if your CTR is 3 times higher with your text links then it's the same. Same with traffic sources.

Also many sponsors do convert at 1:500 overall for "non-affiliate" traffic because they are getting all the repeat customers who cancel and join again a month later as well as all the sales affiliates don't get due to tracking issues. The type in traffic is better as well because people are interested from the start.