I only know people who are on those deals. I do not know details, but they get a huge premium to display ads. The trick is that you have to be really special, like some main newspaper or clear #1 in some niche. But even with the premium I think it does not pay off longterm if you have a converting traffic.
For advertiser this pays off only if you have a good sales team, not so good traffic and you hit some big corp like Ladbrokes or Bwin, who just got their quarterly budget for burning (exactly this expression is being used and exactly that happens).
I agree there can be deals worth of it, but for sure not for one/few men show. Because most of the deals will certainly be bullshit. So I do not even read the offers, when I am getting them. I once explained the situation like that, ended with rev share by the brand and I think I did this right.
But I am not doing poker and I am happy I am not doing that, so there are still decent affiliate programs. Still I would rather stick with CPA than with flat rate, because CPA can be correlated with value of the traffic better.
PS. Flat rate is for me CPC, CPM or something like that, not CPA.
We are all bloodsucking ticks, hungry, devious
each one latched on to the ass of the previous
when the last and the first latch on it can be shown
ass-blood sucked by the first from the last is his own