Much of "hype" concerning affiliate programs centers on anonymity of web, and that you won't have to have a "face to face" relationship with your potential clients. Let autoresponders do work, have money deposited in your bank account while you sleep, yatta, yatta, yatta.People want to do business with people. If you're in sales, and can't stand "Rejection", you're in wrong business. Trying to market something online, does not shelter you from this either. People will contact you and not buy into your offer.
Worse yet, you don't even get any contacts. If this is happening, you might want to ask yourself why. Many people will simply "quit" and write it off as a bad experience. Those who succeed find out why.
The first axiom of marketing is that people want to do business with people. If their only contact is with an affiliate page, that may or may not bear your name, they will most likely "click on by". Ask yourself - would you do business with someone you never heard of, know anything about, and have no way of contacting?
Letting people know about you is one of strongest statements you can make about your business. If you give a short background on yourself, with appropriate contact information, they most likely will have necessary confidence to proceed. I have full contact information on my website, including a telephone number they can call in event of a question or a problem.
Now you might think that giving your phone number to world, is going to result in a lot of "bad things". Not true! In our 8 years of doing business on Internet, I have never had a "crank" call - never. I post hours that people can call, and receive very few calls outside of that time frame. After hours, I turn on answering machine and give them hours I'm available. I suggest a broadcast type of message which doesn't allow caller to leave a message.
Now majority of people will never call, but will use email channels provided instead. The presence of a telephone number however, goes a long way in allaying their concerns. I don't recommend an "800" number, as people will think twice before spending their own dime to call. I also give a mailing address, and no, we haven't been visited by "stalkers".