On a personal basis, there are likely almost as many definitions of success as there are people in world.

In marketing, though, there are just four measurable elements of success:

Profitability, Market Share, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention.

Profitability requires little explanation. The very reason businesses exist is to make a profit, or generate more revenue than they pay out. Profitability may be increased by reducing overhead and cost of goods sold—or by increasing price to buyer.

But prices can only be raised so much. Per laws of price elasticity, as prices rise, unit sales tend to decline, as does Market Share; which brings us to our next measure of marketing success.

Market Share, as a measure of success, is important to marketers since greater share, more stable brand’s performance is in marketplace. A product with 65% market share is a force with which to be reckoned. A product with 3% share is vulnerable to a variety of market factors such as competitive pricing, promotions, loyalty to better-known brands and more.

Financial managers understand impact of Profitability and Market Share. But concepts such as Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention are softer items and tend to be treated as lesser by those managers. Yet, long term success and growth of a brand is highly dependent on them.

If you want to make money online you must work! There's no way around it. But, there *are* ways to make money with *very little* work. It *is* possible to make a passive income, and a very good one at that.

I'm not talking about "get rich quick" schemes or current trend, "money doubler" programs. (By way, US Federal Trade Commission considers money doublers a form of illegal gambling.) No, what I mean is earning money while doing work one time, or with very little maintenance on your part.

If you sell memberships to something, for instance, you'll earn a passive income from recurring commissions of those you sign up. Anything that gets paid to you on a regular basis, such as web hosting services, is a passive income.

It's "passive" because you sold service or membership once, but you'll continue to get paid as long as member or customer keeps service. This kind of income is also "residual," meaning it keeps recurring.

But there are other types of passive income, too. Using programs like Google AdWords and Google AdSense, for example, will bring you a passive income. How?

By displaying Google AdSense ads on your website, you'll earn money every time your visitors click on an ad. And by creating ads for your products with Google AdWords, you'll put your advertising on autopilot. People who visit your website or sales page may become a customer or subscriber to your mailing list.

While both of these can bring you a good passive income, they do have some minor drawbacks.