Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.
When I mentioned to my friend the other day that it’s possible to make a lot of money on Pinterest, he was surprised. How can you earn money on a platform full of recipes and interior design ideas?
The answer is: affiliate marketing.
Pinterest has a lot of potential when it comes to selling products. It has a lot of users who are there to browse for inspiration on topics like food, fashion, travel, make-up, interior design, and many others.
And they are ready to buy the things they like.
So this is the part where you may take part and make some money in the process.
Ways to use Pinterest for affiliate marketing
Generally, there are two ways how to use Pinterest to drive affiliate sales.
Your main goal is to find a product or a service which you could recommend to the people on Pinterest which they would be interested to buy. If you use an affiliate link for the recommendation, the seller will track it and pay you a percentage of the purchase price to you.
This is great for all involved sides. Pinterest users get great content which solves their needs and shows them the products that would solve their problems. There is no additional cost for the buyers. The product creators get more sales in this process. And you get a commission for your efforts.
Add affiliate links to your Pins
The first way how you can recommend a product on Pinterest is to simply create a pin that has an affiliate link to the product.
Here I describe my experience of making my first $7 on Pinterest using this strategy.
This is a great strategy if you want to earn money on Pinterest without a blog. It’s great for learning about how the affiliate marketing works and setting up your Pinterest profile for business.
It may seem that this is an easy thing to do, but actually, it’s not. And there are several reasons:
- The Pin that you make has to attract clicks, otherwise, it will not make sales. Check here how to get more Pin clicks on Pinterest.
- If the Pin is not really attractive and doesn’t have a good and SEO friendly description, it may just be buried in the big amount of other similar Pins and never actually displayed to Pinterest users.
- There are many other people using this strategy so expect tough competition for views and clicks.
Send readers to blog posts with affiliate links
The second option is to write a blog post, add affiliate links in it, and then send people from Pinterest to read the blog post and consider buying the related products.
I think that this is a better way how to use Pinterest for making money.
In the blog post you can explain how to use the product that you recommend. It’s much easier to show your readers how the product will solve their problem and make their life better thus convincing them to buy it.
You can’t do that with just one picture on a pin.
This approach is also better when you consider competition.
Imagine, if someone has added many clothing items from Amazon with their affiliate links to their “Fashion” board. You can probably just go by yourself on Amazon and see the same items.
But if someone has curated a blog post of the trends this winter with quality clothing that matches together? There is a much better chance that you would be convinced to buy, right?
And an additional thing to consider is that you own your blog. You can attract audience not just from Pinterest, but from other sources like SEO or Facebook as well.
If you choose to go with the first approach, Pinterest is the one who can decide on affiliate Pin policies. They have in the past removed all affiliate links from Pins for some time. They could probably do it again, as they have the power to do so.
Which affiliate programs can you use for affiliate marketing on Pinterest?
There are many programs where you can apply and be an affiliate. Some of the more generic affiliate programs that I’d recommend you can find in this blog post.
If you decide to try adding affiliate links straight to the Pins, you can try out the Amazon Associates program. There you could find a product to recommend in literally any niche.
In their own affiliate guide Pinterest suggests using RewardStyle.
On your blog, you can try out all sorts of affiliates.
Best book for Pinterest affiliate marketing
My favorite guide for affiliate marketing on Pinterest is the Get Paid To Pin eBook.
It shows how to set up your profile, set up rich pins, search for the best keywords to use in the Pin descriptions, and many more tips and tricks to help you reach your affiliate marketing goals.
Do you see what I did here?
This is a blog post recommending you a book that would help you to start earning money on Pinterest, the same way it helped me. It’s the second way as was described above.
you described the topic very nicely and easy to understand.