The payment methods used by the various advertising networks and affiliate programs depends to a large extent on the country in which the ad network operators are based and also their publishers.
Most US based affiliate programs and ad networks offer payment through Check, Paypal. Some also offer direct deposit in the bank account for US based publishers. For international publishers, direct deposit is available on payment of an additional fee.
Moneybookers is a popular money transfer system in Europe and has low fees compared to Paypal. It allows transfer of funds to bank accounts.
Compared to Paypal, Alertpay is new, but allows check withdrawal and wire transfer for a fee.
Liberty Reserve, Perfect Money, WebMoney and ePassporte are some of the other payment methods offered by Advertising Networks.

A business interested in generating sales and leads online can use the services of a specialized  Internet Marketing firm , which uses a combination of  Search Engine Optimisation,  Search Engine Marketing and Email Marketing to boost their business.

Some affiliate marketers are using an illegal method to boost their revenues, they are using  redirects.  When someone searches for a website,  they redirect it to their affiliate link.  They do this by infecting the computer.

One of  the most striking features of having an online business is the amount of sabotage  you face.  Almost everyday, some one tries to  hack or DDOS your website.  So when your revenues are OK, always make a provision for times when your income is zero.

One of the most important criteria for selection is payment terms. Some networks pay almost immediately, others pay on a net 15 , net 30 or net 45 days basis. You have to adjust your cash flow accordingly.

It is always important to diversify your internet income revenue streams.   You never know when a particular company will shut down or  your account will be disabled for no fault of yours.

Most affiliate programs use cookies  for tracking conversions and sales, but cookie stuffing seems to be rampant.  The owner of the website who has actually made the sale , usually does not get any credit for it.

One of the major problems for Pay per click (PPC) advertising is click fraud.  You may be an honest webmaster , but there are a lot of website owners who want to make quick money and will develop sophisticated click rings.   Since the advertiser does not get genuine leads from these websites, they will also discount leads from high conversion websites.