There are a lot of different ways to make money nowadays. On top of working everyday jobs, people are investing in the stock market. People are gambling. People are using survey sites. All of these methods can make people a fair amount of cash on the side of their normal jobs, but there are better ways to do it. We aren’t saying our method is the only one out there, but there are certainly a lot of worse ways to go about it. We’re talking about Affiliate Marketing, and chances are you’ve never heard of this before.

However, it’s probably just the terminology you’re unfamiliar with and you’ll have actually experienced some sort of Affiliate Marketing before. If you know how to work this kind of Marketing to your advantage, you could be absolutely rolling in your money without even having to leave your home- but what actually is it? How do you get involved? Don’t worry, we’re here to tell you everything you need to know about Affiliate Marketing.

So what actually is Affiliate Marketing? It’s actually pretty simple and a lot easier to understand than you might think when you look at its name. It’s more or less when you are effectively hired by a person or company to help them sell a product. You can choose what companies or people you want to work for, and they’ll give you a link to their product that they are trying to sell. It’s then your job to get this product out there for people to see, whether it’s on your own website or simply on your social media pages. You will then be paid a percentage of the profits for each sale you help come to fruition, meaning you can earn your own money by helping other people out.

Read more: How The Next Generation of Affiliate Marketing is Driving the Digital Future

Taking part in Affiliate Marketing helps both you and whoever you work for make more money. By helping to sell more of this person or company’s products, they’ll make more profits. You’ll then be entitled to some of these profits, making it a win-win situation for the both of you. The person you are working on behalf of you will track all the Sales you help make in order to ensure you are earning every penny you deserve. It’s a very reliable and effective system.

There are a lot of different programs you can use to get involved with Affiliate Marketing. Different programs present different kinds of opportunities and a wide variety of products to sell, so you need to make sure you give them all a good look before you decide which one you want to do your business with. Picking a good one will allow you to have fun while you make money, which is a great goal for us all to aim for. You can check out some of the best Affiliate Marketing programs here.

There are three different people involved in affiliate trading. First of all there’s the seller. This person kick-starts the whole process. A lot of the time the seller is in fact a full company and you could effectively turn into a sort of employee for them. However, it could also be a young entrepreneur or businessperson, and it all depends on what kind of product you think you’ll be good at selling. Make sure you choose your seller wisely; make sure they’re reliable, have a product you’ll enjoy selling and that they’re making the profits necessary to  pay you a substantial amount.

Next up is the affiliate- that’s you. You are the middle ground in the whole Affiliate Marketing process. You are provided with a product to sell by your seller, and it’s then down to you to get it out on the market and make profits for your seller. You can do this in a variety of different ways depending on what your product is. If you have your own website you could advertise it on that, or if you think you have the right audience for it then you could post it on all your social media pages. People are always likely to click on a link you post on social media, so this could definitely be a good tactic for you.

Last but certainly not least is the buyer. This is who’ll actually be generating your money- if your Sales tactics have been (as hoped) successful and you’ve managed to persuade someone to buy your product, they’ll most likely be taken to your seller’s website and purchase the product there. This then generates profits for your seller, some of which are passed onto you as commission. Pretty neat, right? If you can nail this process then you’ll be well on the way to making serious cash.

There are also a number of different ways that you can get paid with Affiliate Marketing. First of all, you could get paid-per-sale. This is pretty self-explanatory for every sale that you generate for your seller, you are granted a commission of the profits they make. This is an easy way to motivate you as well- whatever method you have to go through to sell a product, at least you know by the end of it that you’ll be making some money.

You could also make money in a pay-per-lead method. This is where you are paid if you successfully send a customer to the seller site and get them to perform an action (such as sign up for the site or simply buy a product). You are generating leads for your seller and are paid for it.

A pay-per-click method could also be on the cards, which is again pretty self-explanatory. This is where you will advertise a link on your website or social media and for every person that clicks on it, you are earning a little bit of money. This is another easy way to generate some cash, so if you think you’d be good at this then make sure to look for sellers who pay for these actions.

Read more: Three Dangers of Affiliate Marketing and How to Avoid Them