affiliate newbie

i am starting a promotional company .. promoting music.. models.. artists and more.
i have been reading up on affiliate programs and kinda understand how this works but one place im getting stumped is for example.. i have this clothing company that offered me % of sales from my site if i put their banner on my site... now i asked them how do i know how many of my users are clicking on this banner you give me and how many purchaes i am generating from their site.
they stated they will give me the stats but i dont trust that.. is there a way for me to track this myself and not relying on them to tell me what profit i am making?

thanks for the help. i have several other companies that are offering the same thing but how do i track my sales from their site

I don't know any programs myself that do this, but at the most, you can see who's clicking through to there site I'd imagine, I don't think you'll be able to know if those click throughs actually buy anything tho :s (if that's what you meant )

you are issued an affiliate code when you sign up with a network. This automatically tracks everything through their system. What network are you thinking of dealing with? It's not something to worry about with networks that are established. The good ones will have affiliate managers that can explain the whole system to you so that you understand how everything is tracked.

yeah i understand how they track things but i this company that i am working with said i had to get stats from them to see how well im doing.. and i dont know them personally so how can i tell if i am getting what i have earned ?

thanks

Well unfortunately there is no other way to check. This is how all the companies operate and you just have to make sure you don't use one that has a bad reputation. Which one are you planning to use? I might be able to tell you if I have heard anything about them or where you can find info. You can PM me if you want