Want to know how to make money on Pinterest with affiliate marketing, even if you don’t have a blog? Keep reading!
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WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Now, affiliate marketing simply means to promote other people’s products and services in exchange for a small affiliate commission.
This means, if you promote a product on Amazon, and if you’re a part of their affiliate marketing network, then you would stand to gain a commission each time someone buys a product from your affiliate link.
DOES PINTEREST ALLOW AFFILIATE MARKETING?
So the short answer to this question is yes. Pinterest does allow affiliate marketing, however, there are some rules and regulations that you need to follow to ensure that you are not being blocked and suspended on Pinterest.
What I mean by this is that even though Pinterest does allow affiliate marketing, not all affiliate networks are allowed to have direct links placed within the platform.
This means that depending on the affiliate network that you’re a part of, or the products that you’re promoting, as well as which country you’re based in, it could really differ on whether or not you’re able to use those links on Pinterest.
HOW DOES AFFILIATE MARKETING ON PINTEREST WORK?
Now, there are two main methods in which you can do it. The first method that I’m going to share with you is without a blog.
METHOD 1: WITHOUT A BLOG
So you don’t really need a website or any kind of blog in order to start affiliate marketing on Pinterest using this method.
This means that you can actually place direct links within the Pinterest platform and promote those directly to the products that you are an affiliate of, and each time someone buys those products, you tend to gain a commission.
Now, this will really come down to the affiliate network that you’re a part of. For example, Amazon doesn’t really allow affiliate links on Pinterest when it comes to the US audience.
However, it does allow direct affiliate links on Pinterest in some other countries. So the thing that you need to check here is whether or not the affiliate market that you want to represent allows these links on Pinterest or not, and whether or not your country has some specific requirements for affiliate marketing, as well.
Another popular affiliate platform, such as ClickBank, does allow links within Pinterest, however, not all links are allowed, because that is very, very product dependent.
Some products allow you to promote those products through social media links, such as Pinterest, and some really don’t. The key here is to really look into the product guidelines where you want to promote, look at the affiliate contract, and see which platforms you can actually promote that product on, and see if Pinterest falls into one of those categories or not.
So what exactly do you need to get started with affiliate marketing without a blog? Well, you’re going to need two main things.
The first thing that you need is an affiliate network. Now, an affiliate network is simply a marketplace where you can pick out products and services that you want to promote. Some examples of this include Amazon associates, ClickBank, ShareaSale, et cetera.
And the second thing that you’re going to need to start affiliate marketing on Pinterest is your own Pinterest account. All you got to do is head to the Pinterest website and sign up for a free account right away.
Once you’ve joined the program you can go on links, and then you can go and get a link or banner, which is exactly where we are going to be picking up the links for Pinterest from.
So in order to actually promote these links on Pinterest, you actually need to create a pin and upload that in this particular manner. So as you know from my other videos, you need to be making a vertical pin, which has some kind of text on it, as well as a small description, and then we are going to add a link here.
So here is where we are going to add your affiliate marketing link for this particular tool. So, as you can see, I’m promoting Tailwind, which is a Pinterest marketing tool. And I already created a description, a pin, as well as a pin title here.
Now, before you add the link, you want to make sure that you add a certain number of hashtags, which disclose that it is either an ad, or an affiliate, or it is a sponsored post, so that you need the FTC guidelines. Now, you don’t have to add all of these three hashtags, you can just add one of them, but make sure you do add one of them so that you’re not going against the guidelines, and your account doesn’t get accidentally blocked.
Now, finally, to save this pin and to actually save it to your board and promote it on Pinterest, you want to pick out the link as well. And then once this is done, I’m going to select the right board for this and save my pin to that particular board.
So let’s say that I have a board on Pinterest marketing. I’m going to save this pin to that board, because that is the most relevant board to be promoting this pin on. And once you hit publish, you’d be able to see it on your Pinterest profile and start making money from it already.
Method #2: WITH A BLOG
Now keep in mind, some affiliate networks will only let you in if you have a website.
This means that there is entry barrier to join that affiliate network. Now, this again depends on which affiliate marketing network you want to join, which niche it is in, and which country it is in, as well.
So make sure to figure out which affiliate networks you want to join, which products you want to promote, and what are the condition that you need to meet to join these affiliate networks, as well as start promoting their offers.
Having tried both of these methods in the past, I have to say that the safest way for you to promote affiliate links on Pinterest is by having your own website.
And the reason why I say this is because when you have a landing page on your website, or on your blog, it is a safer link for Pinterest to promote versus promoting it directly to the product, because that can be banned or suspended depending on the policies that frequently change within Pinterest as well.
If you’re serious about making money on Pinterest with affiliate marketing, I would highly recommend looking into getting a website.
Now, moving back to affiliate marketing on Pinterest with a blog, the thing that you need to keep in mind here is that it doesn’t really work as a direct link, as it would in method number one. So what you need to do here is to start creating specific blog posts which have affiliate links inside of them.
Now these blog posts can be anything, such as a how-to post. It can be a regular blog post of yours where you share content regarding a certain industry. It can be a tutorial post. For example, if you’re doing a product review. And it can be any number of posts, which actually talk a little bit more about the product and explain exactly what it does.
And what you will do here is that within these blog posts, you’re going to embed your affiliate links, and then you’re going to create pins on Pinterest, which is going to direct traffic to these particular blog posts.
Now there are multiple benefits to using method two versus method one. The first benefit is that you have a higher rate of conversion when it comes to affiliate links, because people usually want to have some kind of presale information, instead of just buying the product directly.
Which means, when you actually create helpful content which guides that consumer to figure out exactly how that product works, and how that fits into their life, then you have a higher chance of converting that into a sale, which means you have a higher chance of making an affiliate commission on that product, as well. Not to mention the obvious reason that more links are allowed when you use this method.
When you use method number one, not all direct links are going to be acceptable by Pinterest, either because of Pinterest policies, or because of the affiliate network policies.
However, when you use your own website, there’s a high chance that pretty much all of your links, which are affiliate links, are going to be allowed, and you can drive traffic to them, and convert them using Pinterest.
Whether you decide to use method number one or method number two, both of these methods actually require you to have a traffic strategy in place.
Why? Because if you don’t have an audience that is seeing these offers, whether they are direct offers directly send to the products side, or they’re offers sent to your blog or website, you do need to have some sort of audience which is seeing those offers in order to actually have conversions.
Now, if you need help driving more traffic from Pinterest, then you can check out my free Pinterest Traffic Checklist, where I breakdown my step-by-step formula for driving traffic using Pinterest.
