Passive income. It’s the holy grail of online business, the dream every entrepreneur chases.

But passive income isn’t just one plan or income stream. It’s made up of several different types of cash flowing into your business, and one of the most popular is affiliate sales.

Promoting products and services through affiliate programs allows you to:

• Earn cash without having to write books, create courses, or do any of the heavy lifting associated with product development
• Get paid for sharing valuable resources with your readers, fans, and clients
• Earn recurring income thanks to cookies and ongoing referral tracking

Imagine referring a client to a product such as a WPGrow planner, and when she makes a purchase, you get paid. But even better, because of ongoing referral tracking, the next time she makes a purchase—even if you haven’t made another promotion—you’ll get paid for that as well! That is the power of affiliate marketing, and why it’s such a big part of your passive income plan.

Of course, you can’t just start signing up and dropping links everywhere. Well, you can, but you won’t have a lot of success. Instead, you’ll want to put some thought and planning into your affiliate promotions, so that you can provide your audience with relevant resources they need and want, and so that you can grow your passive income as well.

Before you get started though, let’s talk for a minute about affiliate programs. Not all are created equal, so when you’re researching options, be very careful to thoroughly read the terms of service. You want to fully understand how sales are tracked, how long cookies last, when payment is made and any payout thresholds that exist. If something isn’t clear, reach out to the program manager before you begin promoting. It’s frustrating to make sales and not be paid due to a misunderstanding of the fine print, so take the time to do this first.