Newbie with a newb question about tracking

My answer will be divided into two -
1. YES ! if you can afford it, then a tracker is a must, and imobitrax is great (though I would start with some of the others that costs less....).

2. From my personal experience (long ago, when I started), and from what I see from people I work with, most affiliates do not have the budget for those tools to start with, moreover, don't really understand what to do with them once they have those installed (not "technically" like "how to set up a campaign", but more "strategically", like "how to read the info correctly).
Saying that, and as someone who come from business development strategies in the past (before started full time mobile marketing), I do not know about a lot of businesses you start with 100% of the BEST tools out there... usually when you start a business you do it with a limited budget, and then "grow" it from there and build it up while buying more tools, etc. (as you have the budget from your income).
To make long story short (honestly, 'cause I can argue about that for hours), what I teach my students, and the way we work together is by building the business step by step (once again, unless you have the budget, and a lot of it!) - start small, track whatever you can without spending tons of money ! there are a lot of ways to track a lot of things without a tracker, if you REALLY know your traffic source. then study the market you're targeting, study your traffic source. have at least one small campaign profitable...
once you can really understand how mobile traffic works - carriers, OSs, devices, different traffic sources, what tokens are, IP ranges, CTRs, CRs, CVRs, creatives and more and more and mroe... then, you KNOW the business you're stepping into, and can really take it to the next step - purchase tools, spend a lot of money, 'cause you know how to read stats and optimize, and earn much more ! do your self a favor, don't rush into things - BUILD YOUR BUSINESS STEP BY STEP! , and to answer the obvious question - YEAH YOU CAN BE PROFITABLE WITHOUT A TRACKER, it's just a bit harder... but can save you tons of $ .
saying that again - unless you have the budget (a couple thousands $ ) to start right away with all the tools.
when you step into a world you don't know - first study it (not only "theoretically", but also in a practical way - test campaigns!), I promise you, beside a tracker, there are so many other tools you'll be using (personally, I spend about $1,200 a month on tools, but running large scale campaigns).