Pinterest Affiliate Marketing in 2024: Complete Guide

Despite the rise of newer social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, Pinterest continues to be a relevant and incredibly popular platform. It remains one of the most widely used social media platforms, boasting hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU) worldwide. In fact, during the third quarter of 2023, the platform recorded an impressive 482 million MAUs.

With billions of Pins (Pinterest posts), users can search, save, and share ideas and trends. Pinterest now allows users to shop directly from Pins, opening up new opportunities for brands and affiliate marketers to expand their reach and grow their businesses.

Pinterest is an important channel for affiliate marketing that you shouldn’t overlook in 2024. Marketers worldwide are already using this visual search engine as a marketing tool. 

The Benefits of Pinterest Affiliate Marketing

Pinterest affiliate marketing benefits both affiliate marketers and brands. It’s where people go to find inspiration and make informed purchasing decisions. Also, users often come to the platform with the intent to purchase.

Pins are a potentially powerful way to drive traffic to your website or affiliate pages, especially if you’re working with products that rely heavily on visuals, such as beauty products or home décor. Other industries that can benefit from using Pinterest for affiliate marketing include fashion, food and beverage, household goods, and health and fitness.

When you share your affiliate links on Pinterest, they don’t look like traditional ads – they’re not disruptive and blend seamlessly with other Pins. Best of all, by being on Pinterest and using it for affiliate marketing, you already have access to an audience that’s interested in discovering new products and making purchases. According to Pinterest, 82% of its weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on the platform. Plus, 47% of Pinners in the US alone have a household income of over $100,000.

Through Pinterest, marketers can access another channel to grow their income and following, while brands can use Pinterest to drive interest in their products or services. The platform can also help merchants boost brand awareness, drive engagement and conversion, direct traffic to their website (for both marketers and brands), nurture brand loyalty, and enjoy better ROI.

One advantage of trying out Pinterest for affiliate marketing is that joining the platform is free. Once you’ve set up your Pinterest account, you can start creating Pins for the affiliate products or services you’re promoting. This alone makes Pinterest an invaluable source of free traffic.

So, what sets it apart from other social media platforms?

As mentioned earlier, Pinterest is a visual search engine. It enables you to create your own posts, which we’ll refer to as Pins from now on. In addition to creating your own Pins, you can browse the platform to discover other Pins that you can add to your board.

Given its primarily visual nature, Pinterest is particularly well-suited for affiliate marketing. For instance, when you search for “jewelry” you might come across something like this:

Notice how the Pin is featuring a “Shop the look” option? When you hover your cursor over the Pin, you’ll see several options for interacting with it.

You can save it to one of your boards, share it on your preferred social media platform, or visit the website directly. Clicking on the external link will take you straight to the specific page featuring that particular ring or bracelet.

Pinterest goes beyond just displaying images and video clips. It also serves as a valuable resource for tutorials, guides, and articles. All the Pins in your search results will have external links that redirect you to external sites or specific articles or blog posts. So, if you come across something that piques your interest, you can click the link to visit the website hosting the actual post.

How to Get Started With Pinterest Affiliate Marketing

Identify your niche

If you haven’t pinpointed your niche yet, now is the perfect time to do so. Having a niche allows you to identify and narrow down your target audience. You’ll be able to understand your audience better, including their needs and pain points. This way, you can position yourself or what you’re promoting as a solution to their problems. Also, having a niche means you can focus on specific content for your website, ensuring that what you’re creating is relevant to your target audience. On to of that, having a niche allows you to specialize in that particular subject, giving you the opportunity to become a subject-matter expert. If you’re passionate or enthusiastic about your niche, you’ll be able to express yourself and your interests more authentically, which can help build trust with your audience.

Read More: How to Choose an Affiliate Marketing Niche?

Determine your goals

It’s crucial to have clear, measurable, and realistic goals. Goals are valuable tools that can help you narrow your focus and give you direction. They can help you set targets, measure your progress, and identify areas for improvement. For example, if you’re an affiliate marketer, do you want to drive more traffic to your website and to the website of the brand you’re working with? What benchmarks can you set in place to help you measure your progress?

Join an affiliate program or network

Affiliate programs or networks can provide you with exclusive content to promote on Pinterest. These channels can also offer special deals you can share with your audience. For instance, if you already have a brand or product you love, consider checking their website to see if they’re currently looking for affiliates. Alternatively, you can join an affiliate marketing network. With affiliate networks, you can access a wide range of affiliate programs and merchants. Because such networks act as intermediaries between affiliate marketers and brands, they offer additional benefits, which may include a streamlined affiliate marketing process, a dedicated account manager, and comprehensive reports. Once you sign up for an affiliate program, you’ll receive affiliate links that you can promote on Pinterest via your Pins.

Read More: Best Affiliate Networks in 2024

Do your research

Before creating your Pins, conduct thorough research. Analyze your competition and see what they’re posting and how they’re promoting their Pins. Identify your audience and discover what they’re following or interested in. Pay attention to emerging trends as well. Combining all these elements will help you develop a more effective strategy for your Pinterest and website content. For example, one of the emerging social media graphic design trends is the use of bold or abstract shapes. Consider incorporating these design elements into your Pins using tools like Rawpixel.

Create helpful and evergreen content on your website

If you have a website, create content that’s relevant to the products or services you’re promoting. This can include videos, blog posts, articles, or how-to guides. If you have old content you want to repurpose, give it a fresh start by adding up-to-date information. You can also use infographics to convey information. They’re highly visual, easy to digest, and offer an accessible way for your audience to get the information they need.

Read More: How to Build an Affiliate Marketing Website

Set up your Pinterest business account

Creating a Pinterest business account is necessary to use your profile for business purposes. You have two options: create a new Pinterest business account or convert your personal Pinterest account into a Business account. Unlike a personal account, a Business account gives you access to helpful analytics features and insight tools.

Create stunning visuals for your Pins

The images for your Pins, which will serve as thumbnails, should be visually striking. You can go the DIY route and use graphic design tools like Rawpixel, Canva, or Adobe Photoshop.

Alternatively, you can work with a designer to come up with awesome visuals for your Pins. Pinterest recommends the following specifications for different types of Pins: Static Pins Should be in either PNG or JPEG format, with a 2:3 aspect ratio or a size of 1000 x 1500 px.

This prevents images from getting cut off in feeds. Standard-width video Pins Videos should be in the following formats: .mp4, .mov, or .m4v. Your video should ideally be between 4 seconds and 15 minutes long. Idea pins For images, your Idea pins should be saved in the following formats: BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or WEBP. For videos, you can upload MP4, M4V, or MOV files.

Create your Pin

Once you’ve set up your account, you can start creating Pins. Here, you have two options:

Idea Pins

This is Pinterest’s multi-page video format for Pinterest Business accounts. Through this, you can publish content directly to Pinterest and record and edit videos for up to 20 pages of content. You can also add interactive elements, music, and voiceovers to your Idea Pins.

Pins

When you log in to Pinterest and conduct a search, you’ll see Pins, which are Pinterest posts. To create a Pin, select “Create Pin” from the “Create” drop-down menu. You’ll then be taken to a page where you can add Pin details like the title and description. This is where you’ll also be adding the images, which will appear as thumbnails. Don’t forget to add your affiliate link in the “Add a link” section.

Apply SEO best practices

When filling in the Pin details, apply SEO practices to ensure that your Pin is optimized. Incorporate relevant keywords into the title or description. To elevate your Pin and increase its relevance, make sure that your description is detailed and offers the information that your target audience is looking for. If you’re linking to a website, it is crucial that the website is SEO optimized as well.

Read More: What is On-Page SEO and How to do it

Don’t forget to analyze key metrics

Use Pinterest’s built-in tools to get an overview of your performance and analyze the results of your campaign. This way, you’ll know if you’ve met your goals. Find out which Pins are responsible for driving traffic or increasing leads.

Determine which Pins are performing well with your audience. Which ones are they engaging with the most, or which ones have the most views? Besides Pinterest’s built-in tools, you can also use other analytics tools like Google Analytics.

Disclose your affiliate status

You need to disclose your affiliate status to meet FTC guidelines. You can add that your Pin or description: “content is sponsored” or “contains an affiliate link in the pin description”.

Familiarize yourself with Pinterest’s affiliate marketing policies

It’s essential to familiarize yourself with Pinterest’s community guidelines before publishing your Pins. The guidelines emphasize the need for affiliate content to be original, value-adding, and transparent. You should only have one Pinterest account to ensure that your presence on Pinterest is authentic.

Create multiple pins for each post

To increase the chances of your Pins being noticed, create multiple Pins for each post. This strategy makes it more likely for your target audience to see your content. There’s no limit to the number of Pins you can create for one post on Pinterest.

Schedule your content

Scheduling Pins allows you to reach your audience at optimal times, helping you expand your reach and cultivate brand awareness. By scheduling your Pins in advance, you won’t have to worry about forgetting to publish new content.

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Don’t forget to interact with your audience

Engage with your audience to keep them interested. Reply to their comments or like their other posts. Aside from helping you build relationships, communicating with your audience is one way to develop a loyal following.

Use different marketing tools

Marketing tools can help streamline your workflow and allow you to create more optimized Pins. For example, you can use graphic design tools like Rawpixel or Canva to create striking visuals and Google Analytics to measure your performance. By following these strategies and best practices, you can effectively leverage Pinterest for affiliate marketing in 2024, creating engaging content that resonates with your audience and drives results for your business.

While Pinterest is technically a social media network, it differs significantly from other platforms. Yes, you can still view images and video clips, and it allows you to create and share posts, but it is still a visual search engine.

Pinterest offers two main options for monetization:

Promoting your own products or services

If you have your own shop, you can use Pinterest to showcase your offerings. You can create Pins for your products and link them to your website. This approach not only helps drive traffic to your site but also promotes awareness of your brand and what you have to offer.

Using Pinterest as a channel to drive traffic to third-party websites

Pinterest allows you to monetize your content in several ways. You can create sponsored posts, use your Pins to build an email list, or engage in affiliate marketing by promoting the goods and services of other merchants.

Let’s focus on the affiliate marketing aspect. One of the great things about Pinterest is that you can still earn money as an affiliate marketer even if you don’t have your own website or blog. Pinterest allows affiliate links on its platform, so you can simply add external affiliate links to your relevant Pins. These links will then redirect your audience to landing pages, opt-in pages, and merchants’ websites.

In essence, Pinterest affiliate marketing involves using the platform to promote affiliate products or services through affiliate links. You recommend goods or services using Pins, and if someone makes a purchase or signs up for a service using your affiliate link, you earn a commission.

It’s important to note that while Pinterest affiliate marketing may seem straightforward, it still requires a significant amount of effort to become a sustainable and reliable source of income. You need to consistently maintain and optimize your Pins, especially given that Pinterest’s algorithm tends to change over time.

If you’re looking to diversify your income streams in 2024, using Pinterest for affiliate marketing is definitely worth considering. Besides having an immense audience, Pinterest is home to “super shoppers” – individuals willing to spend up to twice as much per month compared to average consumers.

And it’s not just big brands that can benefit from Pinterest’s vast reach; even smaller brands have a chance to grow their audience and reach, given that the majority of searches on Pinterest are classified as unbranded.

By leveraging Pinterest’s best practices, targeting tools, and good old SEO, you can reach your target audience at the right time. Plus, Pinterest provides access to its Insight tools, allowing you to gain valuable insights into Pinners, their interests, behaviors, and even their demographics. This enables you to create tailored and highly-targeted Pins that appeal to the right audience.

Read More: How to Use Social Media For Affiliate Marketing

Conclusion

Pinterest affiliate marketing presents a valuable opportunity for both new and experienced marketers in 2024. By leveraging the platform’s visual nature, vast user base, and powerful features, you can create a successful affiliate marketing strategy that drives traffic, engagement, and sales.

Remember to focus on creating high-quality, visually appealing Pins, optimizing your content for search, and consistently engaging with your audience. Stay up-to-date with Pinterest’s policies and best practices, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches to find what works best for your niche.

With dedication and the right strategies, Pinterest can become a significant source of affiliate income in your marketing toolkit. Start implementing these tips today, and watch your Pinterest affiliate marketing efforts flourish in 2024 and beyond.