not sure if this was mentioned already, but
Affiliates - Prosperent also something to consider. Testing this at the moment with 1 brand new installed automatic blog 10 days old, no marketing...no pings, no directory submissions...nothing. Used to test very generic niche, So far results:
June Performance Overview
Impressions - 336
Clicks - 5
CTR - 2.49%
I am thinking to implement prosperent into some "more serious" blogs i have and see how it goes.