The internet is full of marketing systems claiming to put your business building on autopilot. Sadly, most of them don't offer the high level of functionality you will need to build a substantial and informed organization. Sign up for a few free trials and you will often be backended with pitches to join affiliate programs, buy leads, invest in additional autoresponder setups, or purchase traffic.

Here's the rub. All these automated marketing systems with slick flash presentations, attractive compensation plans, and so forth generally lack a solid set of tools to drive high-quality, targeted traffic to your site. The site may do the ?selling? for you, it may be the hottest thing around. When you find yourself going up against other marketers promoting the same thing with Pay-Per-Click campaigns, your rate of return on your marketing dollar will plummet as the market for the product gets saturated and more people promote it with paid advertising.

A recent case in point is a costly automated marketing system which has a call team to follow up and close sales. I spoke with a few people who were selling this automated system and making money with it. One woman told me that she had to get about 700 hits to make a sale. Its important to know that this lady is an extremely savvy and experienced marketer with a lot of blogs and credibility. Many of the hits to her automated marketing system were driven through friendly informational sites, not paid advertising. This marketer was no doubt making money promoting this marketing system primarily because she already knew how to market it when she signed up.

Do I hear the sound of a catch?

In fact I do. I researched the automated system being promoted and found that 73% of the people who had purchased it were not yet qualified to even make money. I observed that many marketers are brazenly promoting it with PPC, with more jumping in all the time. More people promoting makes for higher marketing cost and a lower rate-of-return on your advertising dollar. I concluded that at present, this particular system is one where only sophisticated, experienced marketers will succeed. The promises of easy wealth without work or skill seem unfounded.

On the net today many people are looking for that magic product that will make them money without skill development, talking to people, spending on advertising, etc. Is it any wonder that scams abound? Are there systems that can drive targeted traffic to a flash presentation and make passive sales? Yes, but building that kind of traffic base takes a commitment to learning and practicing marketing skills.

A few people will always succeed by jumping into the newest programs, but many more will be victims. These victims are created because many of these automated marketing systems prey on human weakness.

The solution: education. Successful internet marketers are not born that way. Marketing like any other skill is learned through experience and diligence. Seek out a marketing system which provides ongoing support and training workshops. Because the internet is constantly in flux, ongoing training is the only realistic way to keep up with the latest marketing trends.