Is Affiliate Marketing Any Good For New Internet Marketers?

If you are new to internet marketing, it totally makes sense to ask, "Is affiliate marketing any good?"
A true affiliate marketing program can be very good, but as with anything that does with business, some worry about affiliate marketing scams.
This field of marketing is not as subject to scams and others. I guess it is possible to run a scam through an affiliate program, paying others to advertise the scam, or not paying affiliates for the links that they provide, but so far I haven't seen this happen.
To set your mind at ease, you might want to read How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Things to Watch Out For…
Before signing up for an affiliate program, it is wise to read affiliate marketing reviews. If someone is running an affiliate program and is ripping their affiliates off, I am certain that the disgruntled affiliates would spread the news through online forums.
If they are running a scam and taking advantage of their customers, I'm sure that the customers would make it news as well.
Just simply do a Google search of the name of the affiliate program or the names of their products to learn more about the stability and honesty of the program.
Most affiliate programs use an affiliate marketing system, like ClickBank , Commission Junction, Share-a-Sale, or the Google Affiliate Network to track the activity of their affiliates. (The examples given are some of the most popular ones).
By using such a system, affiliate IDs are assigned to each affiliate to use in the links to the affiliate products or services and the commissions are automatically tracked.
Beware of programs that do not use an affiliate marketing tracking system.
Some affiliate programs, like Sitesell use an in-house tracking system that works just fine, but if you run across programs that don't use affiliate IDs, chances are they are just using you for free advertisement. It is quite impossible to track sales and appropriately distribute commission without a system.
Don't release any upfront money.
It shouldn't cost you a dime to join an affiliate program. Affiliates are beneficial to the owner of the affiliate program and you shouldn't pay to be an affiliate. I haven't seen any affiliate programs ask for application fees or membership fees from their affiliates. If you run across one that does, the flag should go up that it might be an affiliate marketing scam.
All in all, affiliate marketing is very good if it uses a tracking system. There is little need to worry about scams in affiliate marketing. If you don't find any negative stuff about the program online chances are, you can make money through the affiliate marketing program.

Buford Mobley is a successful online entrepreneur who has written many articles on affiliate marketing. For more information on all aspects of online marketing, please visit his website, NetBizForNewbies