Something to keep in mind is that everyone loses in the end, and when people lose, they stop playing. Affiliates that keep playing with large amounts for more than a few weeks are very rare. The only way to continuously make referral commission is to continuously advertise your link to new audiences.
The number of affiliates you have does not mean much. I had more than 200 affiliates at primedice before I made my first satoshi in commission there. The quality of your referrals are what matters. Micro from PD for example made almost 35Btc from basically one referral.
Good ways to get referrals are with legitimate content that draws new users/viewers. For example a blog with site reviews, or your own experience on the sites, your betting systems and how well they worked/didn't work, Youtube videos detailing your strategy and playing etc.
Bad ways of getting referrals are by spamming your link on social media (including forums) and other sites, or making meaningless posts just to get the affiliate link in your signature to show. These methods usually does not reach new audiences and just annoys the same people over and over again. If someone spams a link like this and I'm interested in going to the site, I make an effort to remove the referral info from the link before opening the site.
I agree, promoting affiliate links through a blog or through Youtube video's is one of the best ways to get quality referrals.
It has everything to do with the value you add for people who are about to click your referral link, at least that is how I think of it.
But this can also be achieved on this forum, as I have personally found out, just not 'en masse', the opportunity needs to be there.
Whenever I see someone ask a serious question here about gambling sites, I at least try to give an in depht, usefull answer and sometimes the link in my signature is part of that answer, let me explain.
When someone asks me for good sites to invest in for example, or dice sites with a good interface with certain features, it's pretty neat that I can sometimes refer to the site in my signature, without lying or without overselling it. I'm sure I've gotten a few good referrals by pointing towards the site in my signature as a possible solution to their problem.
Example:
Looking for a casino with the option of investing in their bankroll with low minimum investment? The one in my signature fits that description, as do certain other ones that I will usually also list in my post.
It's far more effective to post meaningful content than to just spam 1 sentence replies on the forum.
I don't think that it's unethical to do this, since I stand behind what I am saying, and I also chose to advertise the specific website in my signature because I've had positive experiences with it as a user.
And the campaign manager really does a good job of keeping spammers from joining, I like a clean forum
It's also important to not trick people into clicking on your referral link, especially here in the forums. It might even be more effective to just add a regular link to your post and then say that they can support you by clicking the link in your signature.