Take a look at the Adsense placement on this
WhyPark site of mine to see why they get such a high CTR:
http://www.safe-credit-repair.com/
You'll notice they are placed right in front of your prospect and the only option is to read another article, back out or click on your Adsense. I sprinkle a few affiliate programs throughtout my sites but primarily it is Adsense that pulls in the most revenue.
You can also use these sites as landing pages for promoting affiliate programs in Adwords. WhyPark allows you to also setup custom pages. All in all I really like this passive income system more and more =)