I wrote a very long post about one week ago at ReveNews.com that speaks openly about the activation of inactive affiliates and about the retention of existing affiliates.
You can read the full post here
About Affiliate Activation and Retention
I thought that it is worth mentioning due to the fact that I was not holding anything back and provided some insight from an affiliates point of view. Included are also some real actionable tips and not just generic and nice sounding blah blah.
I hope it will help some of you to activate some inactive affiliates and keep existing affiliates loyal to your program. Cheers!