Marketing products and services through the Internet is unquestionably easier and more rewarding compared to traditional marketing methods. With the millions of people worldwide getting online each day, there’s an enormous possibility for a merchant to sell his products and generate huge income.

However, merchandisers are not the only ones who can benefit from online marketing. A booming industry nowadays, provides great opportunity as well to individuals as affiliate marketers. In affiliate marketing, an affiliate marketer doesn’t need to have his own products and services to sell. All he needs to do is to refer people to the merchant’s business site for them to buy the products and thereby, earn a commission.

High payout thresholds are common in many affiliate programs, and for good reason. Although many new affiliate marketers resent the high payouts, there really are reasons for them besides the owner of the company not wanting to pay you. Learn all about affiliate program payout threshold - pros and cons and make your own decision whether you want to sell products for a company that uses this tactic.

There are a number of reasons for a high payout threshold. Making fewer payments results in less paperwork and lower payment processing fees. However, the main reason that affiliate programs require high minimum payment amounts is to protect affiliates from regular customers who sign up just to save money on the product. If the minimum payment is high, these people won't bother trying to cheat the affiliate out of the sale because they know they will never get their money back.

If you are thinking of getting into affiliate marketing, I have something important to tell you - a lot of affiliate programs suck. That's right. I pull no punches when it comes to telling the truth, so I'll say it again. A good number of affiliate programs are horrible to say the least. Unless you know how to differentiate between the ones that suck and the ones that don't, you will not be able to make good money online.

Affiliate marketing scams are not new. They are probably as old as affiliate marketing itself. However, a lot of people, novices in particular, fall prey to these scams as they are not aware of the fact that the number of scammers is almost twice as much as the number of honest people on the internet. With this being the case, how can you avoid the traps set by scammers and choose genuine affiliate programs? Let us take a look.