You must have your own website or multiple sites that are yours. I'd recommend you avoid the cookie cutter sites that hundreds of others get for free. Sure... they're easy to implement and convenient. But you'll be shooting your self in the foot. NOT unique. Quite often your market will need repeated exposure to your marketing message. And you can do that with your own memorable domain name and unique site. Imagine what a potential customer thinks if they have already seen many sites similar to yours? Then it doesn't matter really who they buy from.
People get bombarded every day by hundreds of ads everywhere they go. So create your own unique ads, banners, whatever you plan to use. It's the same idea behind having your own website.

In time, or sooner if possible, create one or two of your own products to market to your affiliate list. (You ARE capturing names and emails and creating your list... right?) If you have difficulties with product creation, you can try getting master rights or resell rights only if you can find something good and NOT old. And then try to make it your own as much as possible. Be creative and you'll see what you can do!

Build a strong relationship with your list. These are current and potential customers. You'll get lots of questions from potential customers about your affiliate products. So the ideal is to buy the product, or products, you're promoting so you can speak from authority. That's best!

People love experts and those in the know. You'll be marketing from a position of strength when you know all about the product. And that fact will come through in your marketing communications. When you've bought and used the product your support will be better. You can even create stand alone tutorials you can use as bonuses. Be creative.

Also, you may buy a product and discover it's horrible and worthless. And that will save you. It's much, much more difficult to rebuild your credibility than it is to create it. As much as some marketers will have you believe... your list is NOT an ATM machine. Although when you've done your work sometimes it can seem like it when everything is working as it should. So don't try to market everything you come across to your list. Be selective. Be smart. Think about the number of times you email your list on a monthly basis.