It's great that you are researching different ways to monetize your potential site but have you thought about what your site will be about yet? Because whatever topic you choose, there will almost always be ways to monetize your traffic to make money. Whether it be coupons, regular affiliate programs, Adsense, or a combination of all the above... there's enough to go around no matter what niche you choose.
The reason I ask is I was having a convo with a friend about starting her site and she kept asking me about all these different programs and how they make money. While that's fine to question, you really need to focus on choosing a niche you love. I know I say that a lot on here and probably sound like a broken record to the readers here but I can't underestimate how important that is. Because when you love what you do, the money will come. There will always be tons of successful monetization options for you to choose from.
Don't chase the money. Chase your passion and the money will follow.
80% of my top income generators were discovered a year or two after my site was up and running. My point is that I spent the early years developing my content plan and the affiliate programs just fell into place.