What it comes down to is simple...

Your prospect has no shortage of "solutions" being presented to them.

Visualize this....

They are standing on a busy street corner and everyone who passes by them says "awesome new make money widget, buy now" (or some version of a quick pitch). At first, the person may have been curious ... but after a while, these people/pitches all just become a blur.

And regardless of how great the product may actually be, none of them stands a chance of getting his attention.

But you... you instead go up to the buddy on the street corner and mention a couple of key benefits about your product. Then later you come back with a "did you know" and you educate him about something that ties into that product. Later you come back with a different soft-sell or credibility/testimonials about that product.

YOU are now getting his attention.

"Why is this THING that this one guy keeps telling me about? I keep hearing about this Widget... what the hell is it? Next time he comes around, I'll actually listen to him"

In a less crowded marketplace, the above dance doesn't have to occur. If the demand for a solution is much higher than the supply, repetition/followup and "planting the seed" isn't a high priority. But in hyper-competitive markets like the IM space... no, a single or even 2 mentions of a product will produce moderate results. The MONEY comes in AFTER you've planeted the seed, they recognize the product name, they see that you're still promoting the same damn offer, they get curious as to what's oh so special about this new offer, the education of the benefits start setting in and now they know why they should buy.

In a "launch" the job of the merchant is actually to do all of the above for you.

You refer them a lead for every "teaser" content they put out (each video, each PDF, whatever). So you're "selling" the free education (though even there, you should be pitching more than once). Once they are in the funnel, the merchant should be using their videos, their email broadcasts, webinars, their launch blog etc to really further educate your prospect.

The social proof on their sites/blog should show that prospect that a lot of other people are also checking this THING out.

but repetition, repetition, repetition... it's golden.

It's a complete fallacy to think that mailing once or twice is smart (or "enough") for an affiliate promotion. You do a disservice to your subscribers (as you wasted their time mentioning something you didn't fully commit to and THEY won't fully commit to reviewing either since they only heard of it once or twice)... it's a disservice to the merchant since you're providing minimal exposure and, of course, it's a disservice to you because you leave the larger chunk of the money on the table.