Pinterest is rapidly becoming a top platform for affiliate marketing, with over 400 million monthly active users and a highly engaged audience.
Unlike other social networks, the visual nature of Pinterest lends itself perfectly to showcasing products creatively and driving motivated traffic to affiliate links.
In fact, Pinterest’s high conversion rates, long-term search traffic potential, and simple integration with major affiliate programs makes it an ideal channel for earning great commissions.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through exactly how to leverage Pinterest for affiliate success, optimize your affiliate pins for maximum impact, and start earning passive income sharing products you love.
Let’s dive in!
An Introduction to Pinterest Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing on Pinterest works much like traditional affiliate models – you promote relevant products through creative pins, and earn a commission when someone makes a qualifying purchase after clicking your link.
As a Pinterest affiliate marketer, your goal is to build an audience through an account focused on a specific niche. Provide value by pinning useful, inspiring content. Integrate affiliate links seamlessly by showcasing products relatable to the pinned content.
The key steps for getting set up with Pinterest affiliate marketing include:
- Choosing a profitable niche
- Finding affiliate programs related to your niche
- Getting approved for affiliate programs
- Creating merchant-specific landing pages
- Driving targeted traffic to your affiliate content
The more targeted traffic you can drive, the more potential affiliate
sales you can make. The key is pinning engaging, inspiring content blended with creative calls-to-action.
Now let's explore each of these steps to Pinterest affiliate marketing success in more detail:
Choose a Profitable Niche
As with most forms of affiliate marketing, focusing your Pinterest account on a specific niche is vitally important.
This allows you to become a specialist on products/topics in that niche and provide maximum value to an engaged audience.
Some proven profitable niches for Pinterest affiliates include:
- Fashion/Beauty
- Home Decor
- Nutrition/Health
- Crafts/Hobbies
- Recipes
Ideally choose an area you have existing knowledge and interest in. This will come across in your content and help build a natural following.
Conduct competitor research to validate profit potential and demand. Use tools like SimilarWeb and Google Keyword Planner.
Find Relevant Affiliate Programs
Once you’ve selected a niche, dig into what affiliate opportunities are available.
Many large retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy have established programs – along with niche players related to your focus area.
Great affiliate platforms enable you to browse by category, so you can zero in on relevant merchants that align with your Pinterest niche and audience interests.
I recommend having 5-10 core affiliate programs to promote a good mix of products.
Some top affiliate platforms to check out:
Vet potential programs based on average order value, conversion rates and commission rates to gauge expected earning potential.
Get Approved For Affiliate Programs
Gaining approval for individual affiliate programs requires filling out applications and agreeing to the merchant’s guidelines.
Expect it to take a few days to get your account fully set up.
Approval criteria commonly includes having:
- An established website or social media presence
- Quality content samples
- Traffic data or audience metrics
- Contact information
- Tax info
Make sure to professionalize your Pinterest profile to boost chances for approval, including crafting an on-brand bio and populating multiple boards around your niche.
Create Dedicated Landing Pages
Best practice is to create dedicated landing pages for each affiliate offer you want to promote.
These capture pages provide valuable info related to the product and integrate your affiliate links prominently.
Crafting custom landing pages personalizes the affiliate offer for your Pinterest audience based on their interests. It also allows tracking conversion performance for each merchant using UTM campaign tags.
Having a website already gives you the ability to capture email addresses for further promotion. For Pinterest affiliate marketing without a site, lead capture services like Linktree or Carrd work great.
Drive Targeted Traffic To Affiliate Pins
Driving motivated users to your affiliate pin landing pages is the final ingredient for making sales.
Employ these proven traffic-building approaches in your Pinterest affiliate marketing strategy:
Pin Consistently
Post 2-5 new pins daily to stay active and expand your reach overtime with both human and search discovery.
Create Different Pin Types
Go beyond single product images to also create how-to tutorials, style guides, gift ideas, and reviews showcasing your affiliate links.
Share To Group Boards
Optimize exposure by having your pins featured on niche-specific group boards, which taps into an expanded, targeted audience already passionate about that topic.
Promote Your Profile And Pins
Explicitly invite followers, promote your best content across other platforms, and repin top-converting affiliate pins to keep driving clicks.
Now that you’ve built a solid foundation for finding affiliate programs and driving Pinterest traffic, let’s explore some proven best practices for structuring your affiliate pins for higher conversions.
Optimize Your Affiliate Pins For Higher Conversions
Simply sharing an affiliate link on Pinterest isn’t enough – you need to inspire users to take action.
Master these pin optimization tips to boost clicks and increase sales from your Pinterest traffic:
Lead With Value
Provide useful information, ideas, or inspiration focused on solving a problem before pivoting into showcasing a relevant product. Think helpful first, promotional second.
Utilize Rich Pins
Enhanced pins allow you to feature additional info like prices, descriptions, ratings, etc directly in the pin design instead of just static images. This builds more buyer trust and intent.
Include Clear Calls-To-Action
Give users specific direction on what you’d like them to do, like “Shop This Look” or “Get This Recipe.” Strong CTAs can improve clicks by over 300%.
Link To Product Pages
Sending traffic directly to a merchant’s website where they can view inventory availability, read reviews, get specs, and complete checkout eliminates barriers in the buyer’s journey.
Use UTM Tracking Parameters
Custom campaign tags allow you to identify traffic referred specifically from your Pinterest activity so you can measure ROI by merchant.
Make Pins Visually Appealing
Leverage vertical pin formats, text overlay features and eye-catching color templates to make affiliate pins stand out as users scroll through their feeds.
Promote Timely, Trending or Evergreen Content
Align pins to current shopping habits – like highlighting fitness gear ahead of New Year’s resolutions or patio furniture during the summer. Evergreen tips and tutorials also perform well long-term.
Now let’s move on to tracking tactics to continually assess and refine your Pinterest affiliate approach.
How To Track Pinterest Affiliate Performance
Understanding which affiliate pins drive action is key to maximizing your earnings. Dial in on what converts through robust analytics.
Monitor these essential Pinterest metrics:
- Clicks
- Engagement rate
- Repin rate
- Landing page views
- Goal completions
- EPC (Earnings per click)
- Conversions
Troubleshoot underperforming affiliate pins by evaluating if they are focused on the right products, optimally designed, shared across enough group boards, or promoted heavily enough through repins.
Double down on what works by creating more high-converting content. Consider testing different CTAs, landing pages, or pins for the same product to lift performance.
What Income Can You Expect From Pinterest Affiliate Marketing?
Top Pinterest affiliates make over $10K USD per month by:
- Maintaining multiple content-rich Pinterest accounts
- Having hundreds of affiliate pins actively driving traffic
- Promoting the hottest high ticket products
- Mastering conversions with landing page optimization
Realistically as a beginner Pinterest affiliate marketer driving mid-funnel traffic, you can expect to earn $100-$500 per month initially.
Ramp this towards $1-2K+ per month within your first year by consistently publishing new pins daily, sharing your best-performing pins ongoingly, and layering in additional monetization like display advertising.
The combination of Pinterest’s money-motivated audience with the right affiliate products and optimized pins make hitting these income milestones entirely possible on a part-time basis.
Ready To Start With Pinterest Affiliate Marketing?
As this complete guide summarizes, Pinterest and affiliate marketing go hand in hand.
The platform makes visually showcasing attractive products natural while allowing focus on specific niches to maximize relevance.
Once you identify the right merchants to partner with, craft optimized affiliate Pins lead with value, and track
