Response rate depends completely on the effectiveness of your material, quality of your product and site, brand recognition, commissions, etc.

Regardless, with affiliates, the more the better. You are paying commission. There is no real negative to having more effective affiliates.

When doing a product launch it's important that you follow a formula for getting the most out of it. Usually a launch consists of 3 content videos and 1 last sales video, which wraps it up and closes the sale. The content videos lead up to and help answer and solve the problems the market is having.

For attracting GOOOD affiliates, they look a few things:

1. Relationship - Being new to the market and no one knowing you, you have some ground to prove. You can combat this with fantastic marketing.

2. Commissions - Good affiliates are in it for the money and look at EPC (earnings per click) for the promotion. So before attempting to recruit the big boys, test the promotion first with paid traffic and get some core metrics to entice them.

3. The Quality - Warrior type folks are $5 buyers, not $500 buyers, so if that's your market (which is a start) keep your product cheap or else no one will buy. That market is cheap.

4. Build a solid Funnel - For a product launch to make sense for any affiliate it can't just be 1 sale, it should contain upsells, oto's, downsells, and potentially continuity. Get thinking of your upsell opportunities and products.

Lots more to learn. So get implementing!

You're getting great advice here already. One caveat I would add with regards to the number of affiliates is this . . . it depends what your time is worth and who is doing the actual "writing of checks."

If you are using a service like Clickbank where they issue the checks or if you have a bookkeeper who does this for you, no biggie. On the other hand, if you're doing it yourself, you might want to give some thought as to how wide you go. It always sounds great to have 1,000 affiliates, unless you're writing out 977 checks for $7. It's been been addressed in this thread already . . . do what you can to get quality over quantity. As Ali mentioned, there is no negative to having EFFECTIVE affiliates.

It sounds like you're good at relationship building and that will serve you really well in a product launch.

Inspire your affiliates to send their first email on "launch" day, which makes it look like "everyone" is talking about it. Keep them motivated with contests and leader boards. (Never underestimate the power of the iPad. Lol.)

If you know the personalities involved and the rivalries, reach out in personal email and egg them on . . . "Man, you're only 2 sales behind so-and-so! I thought you'd like to know how close you are!"

And as it's been mentioned here . . . make sure you've got an offer, upsells, etc. that deliver. Nothing motivates affiliates more than when you can show them the money!

Have fun with it and good luck to you! :) Dana