Are you looking to make more money with less effort? You are definitely not alone! If you happen to be on my email list or have checked out my other blog posts, you might know that I already write about and am a big fan of affiliate marketing. The good news is that you can combine Pinterest with affiliate marketing and make even more money. Not only is Pinterest the fastest way to grow your email list, but you can also add another income stream and grow your savings passively with affiliate marketing.
So, how do you begin? First off, you need a Pinterest account for your business. If you don’t already have one, now is the proper time to create it. If you need help getting started with Pinterest, you need to check out my Pinterest course for beginners called Pinning Foundations for JUST $37.
Affiliate Marketing Becomes Popular
First things first: affiliate marketing on Pinterest means recommending products to your followers on Pinterest where you’ll then get a small percentage of the sale for your marketing efforts called a commission. This can range from 20 – 50% of the product price.
You’ve already done the work to determine and attract your ideal audience, so you already established a bond with them. That’s why they surely want to find out about all the products you use and recommend for your business or in your life.
There are no additional fees for your followers or you, it is more like mutual help. You tell them about these products they were searching for, and you get a small bonus for spreading the word.
Win-win!
How Pinterest Works for Affiliate Marketing
Whether you realize it or not, Pinterest is actually a search engine. That means, much like Google or YouTube, when you type in something you’re looking for the platform will search through the keywords users have uploaded into the database and present you with information you are likely to find helpful.
You’ve probably used Pinterest when you were looking for ideas for your child’s birthday party, new recipes to cook for dinner, fun family vacation spots, unique decorating ideas, garden inspiration, or more. Maybe you’ve even clicked some of those pins to learn more if you’ve been interested in the image and description that was pulled up after your search. Or you saved it to your own boards to look at later.
When you click through the pins and buy a product they might be sharing, that person could possibly be earning an affiliate commission from your sale.
How Do You Upload an Affiliate Pin on Pinterest?
- Create a pin. Remember that a pin consists of an image, a description, and a URL.
- Find the plus button on the right part of your profile.
- Click it and select pin.
- Upload the pin you have prepared to promote the affiliate product.
- Add your link – here you can choose between a direct affiliate link or a link from your blog post that already contains an affiliate link.
- Select which board you would like to put the affiliate link on and hit SAVE or you can schedule it to any board using my favorite Pinterest scheduling tool, Tailwind
And now you might say: if this is so easy and straightforward, why do you need me? Well, first, because nothing is actually simple. There are specific rules to follow. And second, in order to understand how affiliate marketing on Pinterest works, you first need to properly set up your Pinterest account.
If you really want to understand more of the nuances of how affiliate marketing works on Pinterest, join me for my Pinterest Affiliate Marketing Masterclass. Inside I share my 3-step criteria for evaluating which companies make it worth my time to partner with them as an affiliate, plus my six-step framework for organizing, running, and maintaining your affiliate marketing business on Pinterest.
10 Tips & Best Practices for Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest
- You need to recommend products that are beneficial to your target audience. Don’t spam them, but offer solutions. I always recommend promoting what you use.
- Grow your Pinterest account by creating beneficial and engaging content along with beautiful pin images.
- Gain more followers. You can do this for example by pinning something that is popular in the categories you typically write about.
- Use Tailwind. This is a tool that helps you create and schedule pins easily to bring in consistent income and helps you expand your reach by sharing your content in its communities.
- Optimize boards to display the affiliate products. Start with keyword research, so that you know what is relevant to your target audience, give a relevant name to each board, and add pins that are meaningful to these boards.
- Use SEO strategies. Remember that Pinterest is more than just a social media platform; it can also operate as a search engine.
- Pinterest works both with and without a blog. Of course, the existence of a blog brings its benefits, but it is also possible to have results by continuously posting consistent affiliate links on your boards and having engagement and coherent branding.
- Be transparent regarding the affiliate you are about to add and do not hide the destination of the affiliate links.
- Read thoroughly and stick to the spam policy Pinterest has. You run the risk of having your account blocked or shut down.
- Think long-term, no matter what strategies you adopt. Build an authentic brand, publish quality pins, add value, and create a relationship based on trust.
The Advantages of Affiliate Marketing for Your Business
Once you understand the affiliate marketing strategy, you can combine it with the power of Pinterest. Let me remind you of some of the benefits of Pinterest Affiliate Marketing regarding your business:
- Grow the online presence of your business
- Boost your ROI
- Increase the purchases
- Grow your social media presence
- Drive traffic and conversions
There are other advantages that you, as a content writer and business owner, can take into consideration while using affiliate links:
- First, you don’t lose anything. Worst case scenario, you don’t get paid, and then you need to think about what didn’t work in the first place in order to improve it.
- Second, you do not have to deal with customer service, support, or transportation of the products you are promoting. You just need to provide the traffic via Pinterest.
- Third, you can promote more than just one brand or product.
Don’t Wait Another Day!
Pinterest is continuously growing, so your business must have an account. And it needs to be set up correctly in order to try different approaches such as promoted pin campaigns or affiliate marketing. These will bring numerous benefits for your brand, such as more traffic for your website, conversions, brand awareness, email list growth. And plus, they will allow you to grow your income.
Creating a Pinterest strategy is not easy, but with so many tools, ideas and help, it is impossible not to achieve the results you deserve! Oh, and I almost forgot: I said less effort at the beginning, right? Well, this is the moment you should sign up for my Pinterest Affiliate Marketing Masterclass to get my 6-Step Framework to help you get started with your Pinterest affiliate marketing. You’ll also receive special bonuses like my affiliate planner checklist, an affiliate organizer Airtable base, and an affiliate cheat sheet just for tuning in!
