This blog post can contain affiliate links. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I personally use and trust.
Pinterest is the platform that most business owners use to generate traffic and sales.
- There are more than 2 billion searches on Pinterest every month
- 97% of the searches are unbranded
- Shopping is the top priority for 48% of Pinterest users
Now you must be wondering why I am giving you these statistics. Right?
Well, I just wanted to show you the potential of Pinterest. With so many UNBRANDED searches, it is the perfect place for affiliate marketing.
Previously Pinterest didn’t allow users to add affiliate links to their pins. But that has changed nos.
You can now add affiliate links directly on your Pins and make money.
This is fantastic. Isn’t it?
But there are a few guidelines that you will need to follow to earn money with your affiliate links.
In this post, I will show you:
- How to use affiliate links on Pinterest
- How to set up your Pinterest profile to get maximum exposure
- How to generate more clicks and increase your chance of generating more income
This article will be longer than my usual articles.
So, grab your cup of coffee, and let’s get started.
how to add affiliate links to Pinterest
Before I show you how you can use Affiliate links, I think it will be important for you to understand how Pinterest works.
This will help you see Pinterest from a completely different perspective.
Many people ASSUME that Pinterest is a social media platform. Though it has some features that simulate the characteristics of a social media platform, the core feature of Pinterest is different.
Pinterest behaves more like a Search Engine.
Just Like Google Search Engine.
The main difference is that on Google people will find your blog posts, but on Pinterest, they will find your pins.
It is crucial to understand that Pinterest is a visual platform and its algorithm is different from other social media platforms.
Now, how does affiliate marketing works on Pinterest?
Well, there are two ways:
- You can add your affiliate links directly to your pins, or
- You can use affiliate links on your blog (The most effective way to generate a full-time income).
The first one seems to be the easiest. Right?
So let’s elaborate on that.
SPECIAL NOTE: I'm really thrilled to let you know that you can now start your own blog with Bluehost for just $2.95 per month when you use this exclusive link. That's only an upfront investment of $36 for 1 year, which is over 60% off regular pricing. Plus, you will get a free domain name ($15 value) if you sign up for at least 12 months. I don't really know when this exclusive offer will end, so take advantage of this offer before it's gone. If you want to start your own money-making blog, then you can read my in-depth tutorial here.
Adding affiliate links directly on your pins
All you have to do is to create a Pinterest account, optimize it for your niche, apply for some affiliate programs, and add affiliate links to your pins.
Easy peasy.
Sounds too good to be true. Right?
Well, if you just want to earn some bucks, then this is the fastest and easiest way.
On the surface, it seems very easy.
But…
Looking at it from a buyer’s perspective. Do you think it will work as intended?
Let me ask you a simple question.
If you click on a pin and you are directed to a product or service page, will you make a purchase?
Yes? No? Maybe?
It’s something you must ponder on.
I am sure, you will want to read a review or at least know how the product can help you, right?
This is why, having a blog, is the only way to earn a full-time income with your affiliate links.
But, that doesn’t mean you cannot use affiliate links directly on your pins.
There are a few things that you will need to know.
Pro tip: Do some research on your affiliate programs and see if you are allowed to add affiliate links directly on your pins.
Things that you should know before adding affiliate links to your pins
1. Choose your affiliate programs wisely
Now, don’t be in a hurry to apply for some affiliate programs and add your affiliate links.
Do in-depth research about your affiliate programs and learn if you are allowed to add affiliate links directly.
I usually recommend my readers apply for affiliate programs such as ShareASale or Flexoffers.
This is because as a beginner, I earned my first $20 with ShareAsale. Though I applied for different affiliate programs, SharAsale was the only one to accept my application.
Though I wasn’t expecting much, I was really thrilled when I earned my first $20.
So, if you are struggling to get approved, try ShareAsale. It can help you earn your first $ online.
CREATE YOUR FREE SHARAESALE ACCOUNT
Now if you are using amazon affiliates, then maybe you are at risk. This is because amazon affiliates make changes much more often than any other affiliate program.
That being said, if you want to use Amazon affiliate links on your pins, then I would advise you to contact them. This is the only way to get a straight answer.
2. Be sure to follow Pinterest guidelines
Pinterest doesn’t allow people to shorten their affiliate links. This is a technique many people use to escape spam filters. A pretty smart way to use affiliate links.
But you don’t want to risk your account being suspended, right?
So, try to read and follow their advertising guidelines to be on the safer side.
3. Be sure to be transparent with your affiliate links
According to FTC( Federal Trade Commission), publishers should be transparent that their content contains affiliate links. You can read more here.
Using #affiliate on your hashtag is not a proper disclosure. You must clearly state that your pins contain affiliate links.
These were some crucial things that you needed to know before you add affiliate links to your pins.
Now, let’s see how you can get started with Pinterest.
how to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest
1. Research the topic that you will choose
As I have mentioned before, having your website is the best way to earn a CONSISTENT Full-time income with Pinterest.
This is how so many bloggers are earning $10,000-$30,000 per month.
That being said, before you create your Pinterest account or do any adjustments, you will need to know which topics on Pinterest perform the best.
This is where the Gold is.
Popular topics that have HIGH search volumes are the topics that you should choose. This is to make sure that there are enough search queries to satisfy the demands of Pinterest users.
Some of the topics that you can consider:
- Health/Fitness
- Making money online
- Start an online business
- DIY
- Food/Recipes
- Fashion
- Travel
- Lifestyle
- Parenting
- Animals and Pets
- Car and Motorcycles
- Celebrities
- Gardening
- Hair and Beauty
- Home Decor
- Holidays and events
- Outdoors
- Photography
- Sports
- Weddings
- Men’s Fashion
- Technology
Pro tip: You can try any niche that is visual or design-oriented.
2. Know what your ideal audience is searching for
Once you have selected your topic, you will need to know what people are searching for in that topic.
For that, you will need to do a little keyword research. I know keyword research may sound scary, but it is not.
It’s easier than you think.
Let me give you a simple example:
Let’s say, you will choose “DIY” as your main topic.
Head over to your Pinterest account and type DIY in the search tab.
Pinterest is giving us the following popular searches:
- DIY Christmas decorations
- DIY Christmas gifts
- DIY home decor
- DIY gifts
- DIY Christmas ornaments
- DIY furniture
- DIY crafts
As you can see the phrases on these keywords have the potential for generating a sale.
Now, let’s go a little deeper to find keywords for which your pins can get ranked easily. Shall we?
Let’s choose “DIY gifts” and see what Pinterest suggests.
Now we have some interesting keywords here:
- DIY gifts for boyfriend
- DIY gift ideas
- DIY Christmas gift
- DIY gifts for friends
- DIY gifts box
- Diy gifts for mom
- DIY gifts for him
- Useful DIY gifts
- Diy Gifts for dad
These are the potential keywords that you can include in your pins to attract the right audience.
Now if you want more keywords, choose any one of the above.
Let’s say you will choose “DIY gifts for your boyfriend”.
Now we get another set of keywords that are more targetted towards “DIY gift for boyfriend”
Pinterest suggests these keywords:
- Cute DIY gift for boyfriend
- Birthday DIY gift for boyfriend
- Christmas DIY gift for boyfriend
- Anniversary DIY gift for boyfriend
- Valentine’s day DIY gift for boyfriend
- Easy DIY gift for boyfriend
- and the list goes on
Pro tip: The keyword on the left(Cute DIY gift for boyfriend) will have MORE monthly search volume than the keywords found on the right(Easy DIY gift for boyfriend).
Now that you have a list of keywords, the next step will be to set up your Pinterest account.
This is crucial as Pinterest must know what YOUR account is all about.
how to set up a Pinterest account for affiliate marketing
Your Pinterest profile needs to be optimized in such a way, that you can appear on search results and people can find your Pins.
The whole process of setting up your Pinterest profile may look like a lot of work initially, something that many people ignore.
Remember in the beginning, I told you that Pinterest works as a SEARCH ENGINE?
Using it as a search engine will make all the difference.
That being said, the first step is to add a good description of your Profile name and description.
1. Optimize your Pinterest profile
Add a good Profile name that describes what your profile is all about. The profile description is to give more details on your profile.
As you can see, if someone visits my profile, they will get a clear picture of my Pinterest account.
For instance, they will know exactly that my account will provide them with tips and tricks to start a blog, earn money online and drive traffic to their blog.
Also, make sure to add a few keywords to your description. By adding keywords, I mean SPRINKLE your description with keywords.
Let me show you how to do it.
The main keywords for my Account are: “Start a blog”, “Blogging Tips”, “Online business” and “Make money.
I added my keywords in a way that won’t look like keyword stuffing. This is why I created sentences to fit all the keywords.
“Learn how to start a blog and make money. Find blogging and WordPress tips to make your online business profitable”.
Now, the next step will be vital if you have a website. If you don’t, you can skip this part.
2. Convert and claim your account
If you convert your account into a business account, you will have these benefits:
- You will be able to use Rich pins.
- You will be able to promote your pins.
- You will have access to Pinterest analytics
I have a step-by-step guide to help you convert and claim your account in just a few minutes.
Related: How to claim and convert your account with Pinterest
Pro tip: Claiming your website with Pinterest will verify your authenticity. This is vital for Pinterest to trust your account and give you some advantages over an unclaimed account.
3. Increase your followers
The best type of followers that you can get is people who are interested in YOUR niche.
Now, you must be wondering, how you can find such people.
Well, it’s really easy.
Head over to a Pinterest profile that has a lot of followers in your niche and start to follow their followers.
But, make sure that you don’t follow 50 people at once. Pinterest can flag your account as spam.
The best way to do it is by following 10 people every 1-2 hours. I know, 10 per hour doesn’t sound much. But if you do the math, you can easily follow 50 people per day.
Now, you must be wondering how many people will follow you back. Based on personal experience, for every 10 people that you follow, 3-4 will follow you back.
The goal should be to reach 1,000 followers as soon as possible. This is because having 1,000 followers will help your pins get more eyeballs in the smart feed.
Also having 1,000 followers is an indication that you are not a beginner. As far as I know:
Reaching 1,000 followers is the tipping point for your exponential growth on Pinterest.
4. Join group boards
Recently, many people claimed that group boards are no longer effective. Some even claimed that you must not have any group boards on your profile.
Well, it’s true that Pinterest has now changed its algorithm and favors personal boards.
But it doesn’t mean that group boards don’t have their importance. If you add your pins to at least 10 relevant group boards per day, you will see an increase in your number of clicks.
I have made the mistake of ignoring group boards previously, but once I started to use them, I saw an increase in my blog traffic.
For instance, this is how my boards are performing right now.
Pretty awesome, isn’t it?
The fantastic thing about group boards is that they will help you get more exposure.
For instance, if you become a contributor on a group board that has 10k followers, you have just increased your reach by 10k.
It means that if you add a pin on the board, you can potentially reach 10k people.
Now, can you imagine having 10 group boards with 10k followers? Every time you add your pins to all the group boards, you have just extended your reach by 100k.
And if you follow some successful Pinterest users, you will see that they add pins to their group boards more often than you think.
That being said, the whole process of being accepted to a group board is very simple.
Just head over to Pingroupie, and type your niche keyword.
In the “Enter a niche or keyword” tab, enter your main keyword. For instance, if your niche is about food, you will enter the keyword “Food”.
Now, select these options:
- Request to join button
- Updated
- Ascending
You will get a list of all the active group boards that are related to the food niche.
Press on the boards and you will get a pop-up that will tell you to visit the board on Pinterest.
Press on “Visit this board on Pinterest” where you will be able to join the group board.
It was really easy, isn’t it?
All you have to do is to repeat this process so that you can join at least 10 group boards.
Note: Usually it will take some time to get accepted on a group board. I have waited 1-5 days to get accepted on some group boards.
5. Create a brand board
Now you must be wondering what I mean by the brand board.
In short, a brand board is a board that contains your pins ONLY. It is the first board that people must see when they enter their Profile.
You can use the drag-and-drop feature on Pinterest to put your brand board first.
One thing you should not forget. And that is to put a good description that contains at least 1 keyword on your board.
Usually for a brand board to perform at its best you must put only your best pins.
This will allow people to see your best content when they visit your profile.
For instance, you can name your brand board something like ” Best of food recipes”.
Related: How To Name Your Boards To Get More Clicks
6. Create at least 10 boards
If your Pinterest profile is new, then it’s time to create at least 10 personal boards.
These boards will help you get more exposure in the future. Here, you should diversify the name of the boards.
For instance, if your niche is about “Blogging”, some of your boards can be:
- Blogging 101
- Blogging tips for beginners
- How to start a blog
- Blogging tips and tricks
- Starting a blog from scratch
- Blog Traffic
- Pinterest for new bloggers
- SEO tips for beginners
- Make money by blogging
- Blogging for aspiring bloggers
This is just an example for you to get a general idea.
But here one thing is really important. Do keyword research (as shown above) and create boards based on the keywords that Pinterest suggests to you.
The next thing is to find some POPULAR pins and add them to ALL your boards.
This will help Pinterest to understand what your board is all about. Having popular pins on your board will help to boost the visibility of your boards.
This is something you should not forget: The more Pinterest understands your pins and boards, the more visibility you will get.
7. Apply for Rich Pins
Rich pins are pins that contain more information than a usual pin. It is a pin that is designed to give Pinterest users more information.
Now, this is something very useful. You can add more information to your pins, which in turn will help to get more exposure.
There are 6 types of Rich Pins:
- Product pins
- Recipe pins
- Movie pins
- Article pins
- Place pins
- App pins
When you set up Rich pins, Pinterest will be able to pull dates from your website via Open Graph and Schema.org formats for marking up.
The process of setting up a rich pin is simple. Head over to this article to claim your Rich Pins now.
Related: What is a rich pin and how to enable it
Now, that your Pinterest profile is set up properly, the next vital thing is to get more impressions and clicks on your Pins.
For you to get MAXIMUM impressions and clicks, your pins must have certain key characteristics.
How to Maximize your reach on Pinterest
1. design a viral Pin
By now you know that Pinterest is all about visuals. And it works like SEO. For SEO in Google, keywords and the quality of content makes all the difference.
For Pinterest SEO, keywords and the way you design your Pins make all the difference.
For instance, here is how much traffic a single pin generates in 1 month:
Your goal should always be to create a pin that can go viral.
How can you do that?
Well, to be able to design a viral pin, you must first know the characteristics of a viral pin.
Key features of a viral Pin:
- The size of the pin. Vertical pins with an optimum size of 735 x 1,200 pixels perform best on Pinterest. But it’s better to try different sizes to know what works best for you. For example, you can try pins with these ratios: (2:3), (1:2), and (9:16).
- A good description. Your pins should contain a good description of your content. People should know what type of content they will get when they click on your pins. They should also contain at least 1 keyword so that it can be found on Pinterest search.
- Fonts that are easy to read. You will notice that fonts that are easy to read usually end up in the top search results. People want simple things. You don’t want to use fonts that will put any kind of extra pressure on your readers.
- Use simple images. Pins with a lot of space tend to perform better. So avoid adding too many pictures or elements to your pins.
- Use only a few hashtags. Based on my experience, adding 2-3 hashtags to your pins is enough.
One thing is really important here. And that is to create pins very fast and have ready-made templates to make everything easier.
This is where Canva does an awesome job. If you are thinking to design pins with software like Photoshop, I beg to differ.
Canva is the fastest and most convenient way to create pins. Almost every blogger I know uses Canva.
As you can see, I have templates that allow me to create pins in just 20-30 seconds.
Yes, this is all that it takes me to create a pin. All I have to do is to change the words, pictures, and colors.
And the awesome thing about canvas is that it is FREE. You can use the free version and you don’t need to provide any credit card information.
CREATE YOUR FREE CANVA ACCOUNT
Now that you know how to design a viral pin, the next step is to find a pinning strategy that will work best for you.
2. Pinning strategy for more clicks
The most important thing to consider here is whether you have time to spend on Pinterest.
Though many people will tell you to add your pins manually, I know how time-consuming it is to add 20-30 pins per day manually.
I have tried manual pinning and it worked to some extent, but not the I way wanted.
The thing with making money online is this:
You should always find smart ways to automate your systems to be able to grow exponentially. This is the only way to make more money online.
That’s why it’s vital to use Tailwind.
Why you should use Tailwind.
Tailwind is the OFFICIAL partner for Pinterest. It means that if you use it, your account won’t be flagged or marked as spam.
The benefit of using Tailwind is just that it does an awesome job of adding your pins to your boards at the optimum time.
Here is a screenshot from Tailwind which suggests the optimum time for me to add my pins.
As you can see, most of the optimum times my followers are online are early morning and at night.
I can’t add pins manually.
This is where Tailwind helps me a lot.
And I won’t lie to you.
In the beginning, I was very hesitant to invest more money in my blog. This was because of my lack of knowledge of automation and systems.
But since my blog wasn’t getting enough traffic, I decided to try Tailwind and see how it could solve my traffic problem.
This is what my Pinterest analytics looks like after I used Tailwind for a few months:
As you can see, my top 10 pins brought around 13,000 visits in just 1 month.
If you would have asked me if my pins will ever get 5,057 clicks in 1 month, I would have laughed and said it was impossible.
With Tailwind, you will just have to create pins and schedule them for your boards.
As you can see, it makes everything easy. Trust me, investing in Tailwind will help you in the long run.
CREATE YOUR FREE TAILWIND ACCOUNT
Once you are using Tailwind and getting some traffic, the next step is to examine your analytics:
3. Examine your analytics
After a few weeks, go to your Pinterest analytics to see which pins are performing better.
The crucial thing to do here is to add your top-performing pins again.
So how can you do that?
4. add existing pins
First of all, the purpose of adding an existing pin again is to keep them fresh and to push them into the smart feed.
It is not necessary to add all existing pins over and over again. You should focus only on the pins that are performing well on Pinterest.
There are different ways you can find your top-performing pins.
Some of the ways where you will find which pins are performing well are:
- In your notifications – Here you will find other pinners who are adding your pins to their boards. Once you find those pins, repin them to your top-performing boards.
- In your Pinterest analytics – This is where you will get insights about your top-performing pins. You will know precisely how many clicks and saves those pins are getting.
- In Google analytics – Here, you will find all the pins that are bringing traffic to your blog.
- Smart feed – If you search for a specific keyword and find your pins, it means that these pins will get a higher ranking. Therefore, you will have to repin them to all your relevant boards.
The next thing to do is to find your best pins and create similar pins with slight variations in fonts, colors, and pictures.
Your next batch of pins should:
- Have the same wordings, but slightly different font sizes
- Contain the same picture (Increasing and decreasing its size)
- Include a new picture that is quite similar
- Have different colors (Vivid colors tend to perform better)
Final thoughts: Affiliate marketing with Pinterest
As you may have seen, affiliate marketing with Pinterest is not complicated. It will just take some time to set up everything so that your Pinterest profile can perform at its best.
But, once again I will emphasize that:
Having a blog is the only most effective way to make at least $5,000- $10,000 per month CONSISTENTLY.
SPECIAL NOTE: I'm really thrilled to let you know that you can now start your own blog with Bluehost for just $2.95 per month when you use this exclusive link. That's only an upfront investment of $36 for 1 year, which is over 60% off regular pricing. Plus, you will get a free domain name ($15 value) if you sign up for at least 12 months. I don't really know when this exclusive offer will end, so take advantage of this offer before it's gone. If you want to start your own money-making blog, then you can read my in-depth tutorial here.
If you liked this post, please don’t forget to share it so that others can benefit from it.
See you soon!