How To Start Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest Step By Step

Starting an affiliate marketing using Pinterest has a lot of advantages, and there is a wider chance to get your affiliate product sales while using Pinterest.

In this article, I will show you how to become a successful affiliate marketer through the use of Pinterest.

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

 

Before we dive deep, look at the statistics I found from Statista about affiliate marketing.

 

As of the first quarter of 2022, Pinterest had 433 million monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide, up by roughly 2 million users in the previous quarter. However, at the end of March 2021, the image based social media platform had 478 million MAUs worldwide.- Statista.

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

Now let's continue with the purpose of this article which is, How to start affiliate marketing using Pinterest. But what is Pinterest in the first place?

 

What is pinterest?  

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

Pinterest simply means a visual search engine that has the features of social media platforms with the goal of making it possible to save and find content online using photos and, to a lesser extent, animated GIFs and videos in the form of pinboards. 

Furthermore, people can discover something new on Pinterest, a social networking platform and cross-search engine. The format of the content is a "pin," which is an image linked to an external website.
 

People save these pins to their personal boards, which serve as a virtual inspiration board for concepts, goods, or ideas. You may use Pinterest as an affiliate marketer to promote your affiliate products, including blog articles, landing pages, and YouTube videos. 

After all, your chances of making affiliate sales and collecting commission are higher when your affiliate link is seen by a number of people.

 

How to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

Now we start the real work by guiding you on how to do affiliate marketing using Pinterest and generate sales. So if marketing on Pinterest is what you have a passion for, this article is the answer.
 
I will bring the ideas step by step to become an affiliate marketer on Pinterest:
 
 

1. Follow the rules


Before you begin any marketing activity on Pinterest- already you may have affiliate marketing rules from three parties: Your affiliate network, Pinterest, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). 


Affiliate Network Rules

I always see some bloggers advising beginners to simply create a Pinterest account and begin posting affiliate links everywhere. [CHUCKLES]
 
That not only doesn't work, but it can result in the suspension of your affiliate account. Especially if you are using Amazon Associate as your affiliate program. 

However, they don't maintain a list of the channels you can use to advertise their items.
If you wish to follow the guidelines exactly, you can't utilize anything that wasn't included on your initial application until they approve it, which limits many options. 

What exactly I want to tell you here is you should be familiar with the rules of every affiliate network you want to work with or working with.

 

Pinterest rules

Pinterest does not support tools like Pretty Links, which let you reduce or disguise your affiliate links and are frequently used to get over spam filters. So that Readers should have no difficulty figuring out the source of your link.
 
They disapprove of "made-for-ads" websites, or those that are only there to make sales. They like original, well-considered content that benefits readers. (Which all of your content needs to do!)
 
Try to generally abide by the Pinterest advertising policies

Although these are a little more formal than the community standards, it's still a good idea to plan your content with advertisements in mind.


You'll save a ton of time if you can select virtually any of your pins to promote, especially if you intend to market.
 
 

Federal Trade Commission Disclaimer

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

 

There shouldn't be any misunderstanding here because the FTC is fairly clear about what constitutes proper disclosure.

It doesn't count as appropriate disclosure when posts on Pinterest use hashtags like #aff or #afflink.
Since the majority of your audience is generally unfamiliar with concepts like content generation and affiliate marketing, they are unlikely to understand what it represents. 



2. Study the Platform 

One of the best things you need to consider is knowing the activities of Pinterest will give you the high chance to promote your certain affiliate products.
 
Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest


Find out which Pinterest niches "work"

To start affiliate marketing using Pinterest, there are some niches I personally see trending and that's what I found in Statista too:
  • Art, Art supplies, and Hobbies
  • Baby Gear
  • Clothing and Apparel
  • Entertainment (Books, Music, etc.)
  • Flowers, Food, Drinks, and Gifts
  • Footwear
  • Health and Beauty 
  • Home, Garden, and Pool/Spa
  • Jewelry, Handbags, and Accessories
  • Sporting Goods
  • Other
  • None of the above 
 
Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest
                                                         Source: statista.com

 
Marketing in other niches does great too but I don't think they will perform like the niche I've listed above.

Also, you shouldn't be discouraged when you find your niche is not there, it doesn't mean Pinterest is not fit for it but the above topics are the trending ones I'd experienced.

Conduct research! 

Keep track of the number of pins that are searchable for a particular topic.
Check the quality as well. It indicates that your topic is still developing if there are many low-quality pins but few related searches
 
Do not waste your valuable time attempting to make it work, even though it might be beneficial. 
 

Understand what your audience is searching

Don't mistake Pinterest as a social media is considered a search engine like Google, Bing, Baidu, etc, but Pinterest is a visual search engine. 

Therefore, it's important that you are familiar with and understand your target audience's needs.
 
 Start with a few general keyword suggestions. For example, I used the term "DIY" here. 

Whenever you research the name of a particular niche, many related ideas will appear that you can start with. Look at the screenshot below.

 

 
 
 

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest


Make sure your filter is set to "All Pins" before clicking search if you want even more ideas.

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

As you can see, there are a ton of suggestions to help you understand what your audience is looking for. Because more and more ideas will appear.

There are many more of them in other topics. (Simply attempt a very general search, such as recipes.
Everything from foods to your diet type will be provided.) 

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest


If you need more content ideas, you can also filter by People, Boards, and Videos using the filter to the right of your search bar.

Look at the most successful boards, paying close attention to the pins' appearance, the titles and descriptions they used, and the number of repeating keywords. 

You'll discover that the boards displayed here are those that are most related to your search, not always the ones with the most followers or from the biggest companies. 



3. Improve your Pinterest profile and content

Making sure your profile is optimized for Pinterest is important for making sure it is ready to rank.
Before you do anything else, pay attention to the following items. You will spend much less time later on fixing issues if your profile is optimized.

 

Ensure Rich Pins Are Activated

Your pins should appear as "rich pins" if you have claimed your website correctly and the information on your posts is accurate.

Rich pins appeared in bold and might display recipes in place of the pin description, therefore these used to be separated by formatting. (Such as this.)

Even now, pins have various buttons. Rich pins will display the words "read it" or "create it" instead of the word "visit," which is how you can identify them. 
 

Attach your profile with keyword 

At most three keywords should be used, along with a few more of the categories listed in the top bar. 
 
Your profile name should also contain a few keywords in this case. When looking through profiles to follow based on a term, this can be useful for pinners. 

It's simple to begin mindlessly pinning a bunch of posts you believe your audience would find interesting.

But it's important to have relevant, keyword-rich board titles and descriptions.
The same is true of repinning and pinning.

Make sure the pin descriptions you create for yourself appropriately reflect your content and contain the right keywords.

Look out for high-quality, relevant descriptions for repins that go along with your keywords and content. Update the pin description if the content is excellent but it isn't quite what you want it to be.


Get Your Boards in Order!

Although adding sections to a board doesn't affect how your content ranks, it can undoubtedly make your boards easier for Pinterest users to navigate, particularly if you have a board with a broad topic.
 
If you manage group boards, sections are very helpful. 
 
 
Never delete your Boards
Don't remove any of your boards if you wish to start fresh on Pinterest after using it for a while. You'll stop having access to that content as well as all of your followers.
 
Archive your board's posts rather than deleting them or making them private.
This ensures that you keep those followers and that, even if they saved the URL, they can still visit it.

Other than that, you don't have to worry about it clogging up your profile because it is hidden from your profile and search results. 



4. Gather followers

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

It's time to grow your audience right now.

The nicest aspect about Pinterest affiliate marketing is how much simpler it is to grow your audience there than it is on other social media platforms.

Simply by pinning content that others like, you'll gradually begin to attract followers even if you have no audience. (It doesn't even need to be original content.)

You can also upload images or leave comments on pins, but in my experience, it's preferable to put your time elsewhere if you have a lot of other things to do.


Make your audience
Joining group boards is one of the easiest methods to get started on Pinterest with a new account, even if they don't have many followers.
By doing this, you'll have an audience without having to create one from scratch.


The quality of group boards has often declined over time.
However…

Once you locate the ideal group boards, you've struck it rich.
Consider the followings:
  • The percentage of followers to pinners (more followers are preferable).
  • How useful the content is.
  • Go for your target keywords and confirm that the message board is extremely relevant.
  • a group board's list of other pinners' qualifications
  • Whether or whether it is open-invite (open-invite boards tend to be spammy)
  • guidelines for quality content 



Promote Your Pins to Even More People
Once you have a bigger audience, you can also extend invitations to others to work with you.
Unless there is something in it for them, like additional followers, many pinners are unwilling to accept.

As a result, more people will see your board because it will appear on their profile.

Even if you don't have many followers, companies will still be likely to repin your post.
Share it with them if you have a blog post or review that mentions them! Send them a message on Pinterest or mention it in an email.

Do not see Pinterest as Social Media
Pinterest is never a social media platform as many people think. Pinterest is a visual search engine with social features.

You'll gain from investing considerable time in producing aesthetically attractive visuals and search engines optimizing your posts.
 
Engaging with other users might be beneficial for new accounts, but it's not absolutely necessary. Your time is much better spent in other areas (like SEO!) than trying to participate. 

 
 

5. Make Excellent Affiliate Content 

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest
If you may ask bloggers how to do affiliate marketing using Pinterest, I'm sure you will get a lot of different answers. Some may even tell you, "Never, ever share direct affiliate links on Pinterest!"

 
You can use direct affiliate links on Pinterest, or otherwise. But:

It is necessary for you to offer a variety of content.
Whether your content is mostly informative or includes inspiring or visual pins.

Here are some tips from me on how to make engaging pins with affiliate links.



Create your website
 
Building a website will be added advantage.
 
Having a website is better even though you can still earn money through affiliate links without one in the event that something happens to your Pinterest account.

People that often post new content on Pinterest are given preference.
Especially if they're not just intended to sell, they enjoy reading new blog entries from you.

You should provide high-quality content that has some sort of value for your readers, just like with the majority of other sites. 

Give them the followings: 
 
  • Motivation- motivate your content readers and give them more value. 
  • Come up with actionable tips- show them exactly how to do something by demonstrating it to them.
  • Invent new things for them- people hardly forget the person that teaches them something they don't have an idea about.
Do all you can to make sure your content readers go with some values, if possible to go with all that you've delivered.

Having a website often makes Pinterest affiliate marketing simpler. 
 


Use landing pages if you don't want a website!

Maybe you may see that you can't afford the expenses that building a website may demand. there are still alternatives to doing affiliate marketing even without a website.

Get landing page creation software, at the very least. And there's good news: landing pages are always useful. Even after you publish your site, you'll find a need for them!

I'm currently suggesting Groove Pages. They have a lot of features planned, however, they are most known for their free funnel builder for one to get started, they also provide some lovely landing page layouts.

Give GrooveFunnels a try if you're now unable to make any purchases and must postpone making any investments.

When you're earning enough money to cover the expense, you can always upgrade because they also provide a paid edition of their software.


Continue to Follow Trends

Maintain your relevance by following trends. 
 
Pinterest is the best place to keep up with your trends 

Pinterest every year covers 100 popular queries. This is a fantastic resource for learning about the top-performing Pinterest categories. 

But Google Trends is much more comprehensive, and you can narrow your search by country or even state to make sure it's relevant to your targeted users. 


Use Bold, Clear Visuals

Your graphics are one of the most important things you need to get perfect on Pinterest.


Make sure your pins are easy to read and contain relevant pictures. (This is crucial for the mobile app since the graphics are a little bit smaller.)

Your pins should also be visually appealing. By seeing pins that frequently show up in your feed and at the top of the search feed, you can get a sense of the types of pins that people find appealing. 

Although it doesn't display the same pins as frequently as it once did, Pinterest still likes to display a lot of visually similar ones.


This is sometimes a result of how Pinterest understands your choices, and other times it's just a result of what's trending on Pinterest.


Stick to studying search feeds and repeating ads to have a more clear idea of what is beneficial.


Include keywords and clear content
 
Direct from Pinterest:
Make sure to pick a landing page that feels like a natural progression from the Pin, to your site.

For example, Pins that feature a product should link to a page where people can buy that product. If your Pin features a DIY, it should link to the article on your site with full instructions. -
Pinterest.
 

Sending pinners to an unexpected place is the quickest way to create an unpleasant user experience.

It's obtrusive, irritating, and unwelcome in general. 
 
Whether it's a product page, a recipe, or informational content, you'll also want to make sure you're crystal clear about where users are headed.

You will rapidly get your content marked as spam if you begin concealing links (particularly affiliate links), adding redirects, or engaging in other actions that Pinterest considers spammy.  
 
Keywords that are relevant to your content and profile should be included in the pin descriptions, which should also be relevant and helpful. (If I want to attract wine-loving pinners, I won't tag a post about DIY with #wine unless it's somehow related to that page.)


Accounts that simply put a lot of useless keywords into their pin descriptions are less popular now, but I do sometimes occasionally see them. 


Plan to Promote/Advertise
 
Ads have a few more limitations on what they can contain. For instance, there are several restrictions on the type of information you can link to, the kinds of connections you can advertise, and even the layout of your website and content.

For instance, placing affiliate links is normally frowned upon. Still, you are free to link to product reviews or articles that educate readers on how to use a tool, which you then use affiliate links to advertise.

Additionally, "made-for-ads" landing pages and pages created solely to make sales are not allowed. 


Placing affiliate links directly is not that highly welcome on Pinterest unless you mix it with some additional information, not just a title and an email capture or payment form.


If you want to scale quickly, you'll need a big number of pins made with advertising in mind. Create some content with advertisements in mind and decide in advance what you want to promote. 



6. Track and Analyze What Works Best For you

 

Affiliate Marketing Using Pinterest

Make sure your Pinterest content is in line with your marketing strategy and know why things are effective. These are two critical factors of making Pinterest successful that many bloggers ignore.


There are many instances where users opt to relax, keep pinning a ton of things, and let their scheduler handle the work after noticing an increase in traffic.

There is a problem when you don't know where the actual source of your traffic coming from.

The best strategy is to set up Google Analytics to track your pins along with a free Tailwind account, which provides full Pinterest analytics. 
 
Check here to understand your Pinterest traffic. 


7. Automate your Pinterest usage

Last but not least, if you're like many new or aspiring bloggers like me, you're probably trying to accomplish everything on your own.
 
I suggest you should sometimes relax!

Schedule a month's worth of pins with Tailwind, then sit back and watch it go. You just need to choose the board you want to publish to, submit the graphics you want to utilize, and include the link and pin description.

Tailwind provides comprehensive data and suggests the ideal times to publish your pins.
Never again will you need to consider when to post.


Click here to see what you've missed from the Tailwind free trial.


What else

This article might help to clarify some of your concerns about Pinterest affiliate marketing. 

I'm working on a helpful article that addresses affiliate marketing using Pinterest more "step-by-step" because there is a great deal of information to cover and it is barely touched in this article.

Feel free to ask me or ask a question in the comments box below if you still have any.

Additionally, Tailwind's blog includes a ton of Pinterest resources if you're looking for more information.

Prepare to grow your blog marketing to skyrocket if you don't have one.



Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post