@Shaun Thomas - The Write Provider Thanks very much for the comment Shaun, greatly appreciated. I would have to say that your first point is quite an "old school" method and would actually be putting your links in danger of penalties.
However the second point is spot on. All articles - and the links within them - should be tailored to the site. If you have a finance blog, you want to be writing about and linking to financially relevant topics and sites - not talking about something way off topic just for links.
At the end of the day it's your name on the bottom of the article and you should be proud of your work - not just after a link. Similarly, you're working on behalf of your client and the blogger who is posting your work, and you should be doing your best for them too. The blogger is letting you post on their site, and the client is paying your wages after all!
I'd love to know what metrics you all measure, and how you communicate with bloggers - it's not easy sometimes coming to an agreement, especially on high authority sites so any views or advice - or feedback in general - would be welcomed
Be interesting to know what everyone else thinks are the priorities for site owners in the next year...