Guys,
Affiliate managers always want to respond to the mails on a daily basis so that there is no backlog. One normally gets at least around 50 mails a day just from affiliates and media partners and some of these would be ongoing conversations.
There is no way an aff manager can afford not to reply the mail the same day. But there may be times when some mails go into the spam folder or get blocked. So I suggest using MSN or yahoo pager to send a reminder or to say hello and resolve small issues. This has worked very successfully for me for past 5-6 years and many affiliates on CAP would agree to this.
I believe most programs have separate team to do prospecting and affiliate managers don’t resort to cold calls. And if they do, it must be because they are unable to contact the aff through emails and there must be an urgent issue to be addressed.