How To Make Money With Affiliate Links On Pinterest
Did you know that you can create a passive income stream without even writing a single blog post? All you need is a Pinterest account and some affiliate products to promote!
Affiliate marketing is truly the easiest way to jumpstart your income if you are just starting out in the blogging world.
If you need to make money fast and don’t have time to wait for Google to let you out of the Sandbox in 6 months then why not try using Affiliate links on Pinterest?
If you are like me and love scouring the income reports on Pinterest, you have probably noticed that affiliate marketing makes up the bulk of revenue for most bloggers.
Did you also know that you can add affiliate links directly to Pinterest without writing a single piece of copy?
You can make money promoting all kinds of products on Pinterest and get paid a commission while you sleep!
Read on for all the details on getting started with this lucrative side hustle.
This page contains affiliate links meaning I earn a commission if you use those links. Please read my Disclosure for more details.
How To Use Affiliate Links On Pinterest
Once I discovered I could make money with affiliate links on Pinterest, I became really interested in the ins and outs of affiliate marketing and read every article I could find.
Now I’ve put it all together for you in this post so you can get a jumpstart on your affiliate marketing!
How Pinterest Affiliate Marketing Works
First, let’s talk about Pinterest. Pinterest isn’t really a social network in the same way as Facebook and Instagram.
In a way, its more of a visual search engine that people browse to get inspiration for home decor, fashion and, well, anything really.
A Pinterest pin is the same as a post on the other social media networks.
Content creators add new pins to their Pinterest account with links back to their website or blog.
In the same way, affiliate marketers can use Pinterest to add product pin to Pinterest with their unique link to affiliate offers from different brands.
When I first head about using Pinterest affiliate links, lots of people were saying they had made commissions within 24 hours of starting.
I’ll be honest that I was completely skeptical because it all seemed too easy.
When I didn’t make my first sale within 24 hours, I was a bit disappointed but within two weeks, I was making affiliate sales almost every day. I still can’t believe it!
For those new to this form of marketing, let’s break down some of the basics of using affiliates on Pinterest.
What is affiliate marketing?
It seems like a new and trendy way of making income online but in fact, it’s been around for decades.
Any sales person who makes a “cut” or commission from selling a product is, in a sense, an affiliate for that product.
In essence, the affiliate is acting as the agent or representative of the product or company they are selling.
Think of travel agents, insurance salesmen or MLM direct sellers.
As an affiliate, you can promote different products on Pinterest, social media or your own blog and make a small commission for every sale you refer.
How do Affiliate Links work on Pinterest?
Since 2016, Pinterest has allowed pinners to add direct affiliate links to their pins instead of having to go through a blog.
This is great news because it means that you can market to the over 450 million monthly active users!
For free! Now that’s my kind of marketing.
While the use of affiliate links on Pinterest has been around for 5 years, the Pinterest algorithm has changed a lot so it is important to know how to take advantage of this great opportunity properly.
Without realizing it, you have probably already clicked on an affiliate link for a cute sweater or Etsy printable.
Those are affiliate links.
Here is an example from my board “Summer activities for kids”:
You can see that the link to this pin is from shareasale.com.
If you are new to affiliate marketing they are a great place to start because they work with tons of retailers such as Modcloth, Shutterfly and DollarTree.
I find it to be a great network for fashion bloggers as there are lots of great brands on ShareaSale.
While adding your affiliate link to a picture of a product is a good starting point, you will likely need to create a marketing strategy in order to grow your Pinterest traffic.
RELATED POST – Top affiliate networks you can join today
Step by step process to your first affiliate sale on Pinterest
Here’s exactly what you need to do in order to start making money with affiliate links on Pinterest.
It is so easy, you will wonder why you didn’t start doing it a long time ago.
Create a Pinterest Business Account
You’ll need a business account in order to claim a website and use all the features you need on Pinterest.
You can convert an existing account to a business one but I recommend you start a new account for ease.
A new account will allow you to start your Pinterest business the way you need to – with relevant pins and boards that are related to the products you promote.
Keep the best ever cookie recipe or ideas for new hairstyles on your personal account.
Fill out your Pinterest profile page with a short description and a photo.
You’ll also want to create rich pins which enable you to have more information on your Pinterest pins.
After that you can create some Pinterest boards that match the products you want to promote with affiliate links.
Remember, it is easy to create a new board at anytime but it helps if you make a few now and curate content from other people before you start affiliate marketing.
Learn To Make Beautiful Pins
Just like with a social media post, Pinterest is the king of visual content and you need to produce great content in order to be successful.
You can create pins using a free program like Canva.
I personally use Pin templates such as the ones from Mommy On Purpose as they save me a lot of time and help me to create lots of pins quickly.
Click here for some free Pin templates to try (these are the ones in the picture above).
There are also video pins and tutorial pins called Idea Pins that you can use also, however they do not allow you to add your affiliate links so are not as useful for our purposes.
You can get images for your pins from the affiliate programs that you join, take your own photos or even use stock images from Canva.
Join Affiliate Programs
When someone clicks on an affiliate link from Pinterest they are redirected to the merchant and the pin owner (you!) receives a commission for each sale.
That means that you need to have a bunch of affiliate links you can use.
Brainstorm the kinds of products you want to promote – maybe it is fitness products or baby gear.
It will be easier to make sales if you choose a niche and stick to it, making your Pinterest account an “expert” in that subject.
Check out this list to find some awesome affiliate networks you can join today
Start Pinning Affiliate Links To Pinterest
Once you have created some cute pins and got your affiliate links ready to go, you can start adding your pins to a Pinterest board.
You can also try joining some group boards for even more exposure.
Like the other social media platforms, it is important to appeal to your target audience with content and eye catching pins on relevant boards.
Make sure to read the Pinterest best practices guide which will show you the best way to promote your content on Pinterest.
You can use a Pinterest scheduler such as Tailwind to make sure your pins go out at intervals or you can add your pins directly to Pinterest using the “create” tab.
The “create” tab makes it easy to add your own description and the affiliate URL to your pin before choosing the board you want to pin it to.
While you don’t want to add too many pins (Pinterest has a very robust spam detection system), an effective way to boost your account is to re-pin your top pins to different boards a few days apart.
One important rule to note is that you must add a Federal Trade Commission disclosure on your pins that contain affiliate links.
Disclosures on Pinterest
Make sure to disclose on any and all pins that you are acting as an affiliate.
This is true for every social media channel and Pinterest is no exception.
You can do this in the pin description by adding #afflink or #affiliate as you can see on my pin above.
Failure to do this can result in you being banned from Pinterest and even result in legal action.
I have noticed that, when it comes to courses and ebooks, most people do not disclose that it is a direct affiliate link, perhaps because of the landing page.
I would rather be 100% covered and I recommend that you do add a disclosure.
Top Tips For Using Affiliate Links On Pinterest
Don’t be spammy
No one wants to be bombarded with sales pitches on Pinterest so make sure to stay true to the essence of the site.
Pinterest users are searching for inspiration, ideas, and ways to improve their lives.
In that vein, remember to pin other people’s stuff and use affiliate links sparingly but effectively.
Keep your content fresh
Look for new products to promote and mix your affiliate content in with regular pins so that your account is interesting and fun to follow.
Experiment with different kinds of pins and make sure to follow Pinterest power users to see the kinds of pins they use.
Use Tailwind Communities
Drive traffic to your pins by joining Tailwind communities for free and sharing your content and others.
This seems too good to be true?
It really is as simple as that but to be honest, just slapping some pins with affiliate links onto your boards won’t make you rich.
Trust me, I tried! They say “build it and they will come”.
This is true but you do need to know how to build “it” to be effective.
Affiliate Links On Pinterest FAQs
Can you use Amazon Associates Affiliate Links on Pinterest?
The Amazon affiliate program is by far the most popular affiliate program on the web and for good reason.
Everyone knows Amazon so it is easy to direct sales there.
Plus if someone clicks on a link with your Amazon associate ID and then makes a purchase, you get credit for anything they bought on Amazon, not just the product they clicked on!
But can you use Amazon Affiliate links on Pinterest?
I have seen a lot of conflicting information about whether or not you can use Amazon links on Pinterest.
Some sources say that it is fine as long as you add Pinterest to your Amazon profile under ” website and mobile app links”.
To be honest, I see Amazon affiliate pins all the time when I’m browsing Pinterest but personally, I err on the side of caution and do not use them.
For me, it is just not worth losing my Associates account for a few sales plus the cookie is so short on Amazon (24 hours) that it is not a great converter on Pinterest for me anyway.
Bottom line: Use Amazon Links at your own risk.
What affiliate links convert well on Pinterest?
Really, anything and everything!
Have a look at your own boards and see what affiliate links you have already pinned without realizing it.
For me, the most popular were clothes and printables followed by e-books on subjects I want to learn about.
Baby items are also really popular.
Once you have found some products you are interested in, check out shareasale.com or the other awesome networks in my list of the top paying affiliate networks and get linking.
Does Promoting ebooks work on Pinterest?
Personally, I find ebooks are a great thing to promote as an affiliate on Pinterest because the ebook author often has a landing page that “sells” the product once the pin has been clicked on.
If you have taken some courses or bought some ebooks and want to promote them, it’s worth seeing if there is an affiliate program you can join.
Do I have to buy the ebooks I promote?
Well, yes, in theory it would be nice if you had actually read a book you promoted!
However, sometimes you just want to promote the bestsellers in a category that you may not have even read, hey, thats what reviews are for, right?
I don’t force my affiliates to buy my book because I figure that a lot of them have found out about it from this blog post and I want you to have something to start promoting on Pinterest as soon as possible.
However, many ebook authors will not let you into their affiliate program unless you buy their course or book, so what can you do?
Obviously you could go ahead and buy tons of books so that you can become an affiliate but there is an easier way – the Ultimate Bundles.
What are Ultimate Bundles?
Ultimate Bundles is a company that puts together different “packages” of courses and ebooks periodically and then sells them for rock-bottom prices.
For example, the last one I bought was the Genius Bloggers Kit and for $97 I got over $5000 worth of products.
I think there were almost 100 ebooks and courses included. And most of them had affiliate programs.
Do you see where I am going with this?
If you can find an Ultimate Bundle in your niche, it is basically a pot of gold. You can then do two things:
- Buy the bundle and apply to all the individual affiliate programs and start promoting them
- Become an affiliate for Ultimate Bundles yourself and promote the bundle as a whole.
Isn’t it genius?
Can I use Etsy affiliate links on Pinterest?
This is a great question because there are product pins with Etsy links all over Pinterest.
Unfortunately the answer is no.
Etsy used to be a complete goldmine for affiliate links on Pinterest.
You could promote all kinds of products, printables, invitations and clothing and the sales would just roll in.
The bad news is that a while ago Etsy announced some new Terms and Conditions for their affiliate program which explicably bans Etsy affiliate links being used on Pinterest.
What’s weird is that you can use Etsy affiliate links on a social media network such as Facebook or Instagram.
Here is what Etsy says about affiliate links on Pinterest:
“Social Media and Sharing
Affiliates may only post affiliate links on social media feeds they operate in line with their website URL, such as Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
Affiliate links are prohibited on some social sharing sites, such as Pinterest and Tumblr.
When posting content outside of Etsy, it is the Affiliate’s responsibility to follow each site’s policies on affiliate link”.
So what can you do now?
Etsy is a fantastic affiliate program to be part of and I recommend you join it even though you can’t use their affiliate links on Pinterest.
What I have done is to make whole blog posts around Etsy products that I want to promote and then created pins for that blog post. That way I am still getting the sales but via my blog instead of directly from Pinterest to Etsy.
Instead of Pinterest > Etsy = $$, the sales funnel looks like this: Pinterest> Blog Post> Etsy =$$
If you want to join the Etsy affiliate program, it is available on both Awin.com and shareasale.com
If you don’t have a blog, your best bet for promoting Etsy is probably on Facebook or Instagram, both of which are allowed.
More Affiliate Marketing Tips
The Top Affiliate Networks for Bloggers
Affiliate Action Plan – How to Monetize Your Blog
Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Worth the Money?
How To Promote Your Pins
Why Tailwind Communities are Awesome for Promoting Your Pins
4 Easy (Free!) Ways to Promote Your Pins
Optimizing Your Pinterest Strategy
Start A Blog That Makes Money
Ready to start a blog and make money from home?
In this FREE 5 day email course, I will show you the exact steps I took to take my mom blog from $0 to a consistent $2000 a month within 4 months.
Turning Etsy promotions into full-fledged blog posts and creating pins for that content is a savvy move. It’s all about adapting and finding creative routes.
Thank you for the information!! I like how creative you can get when doing affiliate marketing. It’s really awesome, I made my first commission recently, feels good haha.
Hi! Good blog!
I have one question. Suppose I create a pin with an affiliate link that directs to the affiliate network landing page. Of course, this is not my site, so I can not put this pin image there – can I normally add my created pin to Pinterest + add a url as a source to this landing page without problems from Pinterest side?
Very informative article! I have been wanting to get into affiliate marketing for the income opportunities.I wasn’t aware that pintrest made it so easy ! Thats good to know i will put a plan in action!
Thank you so much for these timely tips! 🙂 I am like you. I like to err on the side of caution. (The rules seem to be always changing.)
Best,
Christina
I promote on Pinterest from shareasale but I have been trying to figure am I allowed to use my merchant’s photos from the site or no. Can you answer this for me?
Hi Ketionee, it would depend on the individual merchant to be honest. Most will probably let you but it’s best to reach out to the merchant (you should be able to find their contact on Shareasale.
Wow this is great to know one can actually share affiliate links on Pinterest. But one should be able to develop a strategy so as to see better results in this.
So glad I was able to read this today and thanks for sharing
Hi Gemma,
These tips are great, thanks very much for sharing them.
One other positive about the Ultimate Bundles affiliate program that your readers may not have realized… They actually offer second-tier commissions too, meaning you’ll earn a share of the sales from any affiliates that you refer to the program. In this case, it’s 10% of their bundle sales during their first year as an affiliate which could be a nice earner!
Thanks again and keep up the great work.
Jonathan
Hi. Are affiliate links in the pins still allowed? I’m asking because Pinterest is changing something all the time.
Hi Luke, yes affiliate links on Pinterest are still allowed but you need to check with the merchant to make sure they do allow you to market that way. As I mentioned above, Etsy no longer allows affiliate links directly on Pinterest and Amazon is iffy.
Hi Gemma,
Thank you fro the article and sharing the book you read to put the puzzle of all information together. I m new to affiliate and I have one question, does it matter what country you live in? I currently live in Vietnam. Thank you in advance for the reply.
Jelena
Hi Jelena, Thanks for your comment. I don’t think it matters where you live although you will likely need a Paypal account for many companies. As long as you can get paid, I think you can do affiliate marketing from anywhere!
Hi Gemma,
I’m very happy that I come across to your site. I would like to start working from home using Pinterest and affiliate marketing and your text here is really supportive. I also have the same issue like Jelena, related to the country where are you from. Actually, not all programs are available to all countries, and that is a huge problem. As an example, today I have tried to get an affiliate link of an adobe cut pro program but my country is not on their list. But nevertheless, I think that we should be persistent and follow good and successful as you are. Thanks for the text.
I am apart of click bank and tried putting in allfilliate links in directly into pinterest and it would not let me it just keeps on saying it may be connected to spam or somthing.
Hi Sara, I’m afraid I don’t use click bank myself so can’t really help there. I use the main networks that I mention in this post – Affiliate networks for new bloggers. Good luck!
Very useful info, and thanks for the heads-up about Etsy not allowing affiliate links on Pinterest! Have you ever tried advertising on Pinterest, i.e. paying Pinterest to promote your pins? I was wondering if that could be lucrative with affiliate marketing, where the margins are always lower than when you have your own product to sell. I’m also wondering if it would be lucrative to advertise on Google, Facebook and Youtube (found this guy who supposedly made a lot of money that way – https://moneytestimonials.com/crestani-free-webinar/ ). I’ll probably do my own experiments with this but if you have experience in this area I’d be very interested to hear about it!
Hi Peter, I personally have never tried promoted pins on Pinterest but it’s on my to-do list. I’ve heard mixed reviews (they made some changes back in June or July on ads that seem to favour bigger companies). I have heard however that if you promote a pin, your whole account gets a bit of a lift. I would definitely recommend giving it a go with a small dollar amount to see if it works, I think I will try too and will report back!
How can I make money with affiliate links when I only have a Pinterest account? Does it require a website?
Were you able to generate income utilizing these affiliate pins without a blog?
Hi Singa, thanks for your comment. Yes, I have been quite successful at earning money using affiliate links on Pinterest. That being said, if you really want to earn a lot of money wth affiliates, starting a blog is probably a great idea as it will allow you more platforms to promote your products. I have a free start a blog course here.
How much will you end up having to spend with Leadpages and autoresponders after buying the $25 E-book also, or do you not need to buy those to advertise with Pinterest? Thanks!
Hi Ally, You don’t need anything like Leadpages or autoresponders to use affiliate links on Pinterest. All you need are to be a part of some affiliate programs and a Pinterest account as I mentioned above! I pay for neither Leadpages nor an autoresponder, I’m not sure why they would be necessary for affiliate marketing? Maybe I have misunderstood. Gemma
Hooray! I love pinning and trying pins but I find blogging tedious so this is great news. Still, I don’t even know where to begin. Does the book start with very basics? I need it to be idiot proof!
Very interesting post.
Thanks for sharing with us.
I got the link to this post one of my WhatsApp friend.
Keep sharing.
Have a nice day.
Awesome article. It’s really motivating when you involve in extra work to collect some money that helps you to pay off extra bills. I am currently working on Dropshipping, but i want to get involved with affiliate marketing through Pinterest. Have a blog earn income and also learn new things. Great. Thanks for sharing article.
Hi Ryan, thank you so much for your kind comment. I keep hearing about dropshipping but I know nothing about it. I need to have a look into it asap! Good luck with your affiliate marketing on Pinterest!
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your article. I bought Elise’s book and found it interesting as well. I wondered if you set up a separate Pinterest page for doing marketing or used your personal pinterest page. I am an avid pinner for fun but in doing affiliate marketing I would like it to be more branded and niche specific. How do you do yours?
Thanks!
Hi Trish, I did set up a business Pinterest profile for Seaside Sundays and I use that one. I have a personal profile also which I use more for collecting recipes and such. I think it is a good idea to get a business profile so you can apply for rich pins.
I LOVE Pinterest and found you PIN on Tailwind suggestions! Very interesting post…read the WHOLE thing…and signed up for your mailing list (great Lead Magnet!) Hugs, Kristie
Aw, thank you so much, Kristie! I really appreciate your kind words and feedback. I’ll definitely check out your blog!
Awesome article. I’ve had this tab open on my computer for a while using it as reference. I’m finally ready to close the tab after setting up affiliate links on my blog and pinterest… I’ll be back though hahah.
Haha. Thank you Quinn. Good luck with your affiliate pins! I’m sure you will do great!
Thank you so much. I saved and shared!
I applied to shareasale and was accepted.
Thanks.
Hi Tara, thanks so much! Shares sale is awesome! They really have products for every niche. There are a bunch I haven’t even gone through yet.
I’m interested in joining. How do I go about.
Thank you.
Marlene
Thank you for sharing your information. I plan on using affiliate marketing on my blog very soon.
Thank you for the great advise! I have started affiliate links two weeks ago and so far nothing. I also didn’t think about the disclosure. Will update my links immediately.
Thank you for this post. Do you know of a fast way to add the affiliate hashtag to existing affiliate posts on Pintersest?
Appreciate your help.
Hi Sandra, do you mean pins that are already out there on Pinterest? You can’t change the pin description on those, you will just have to start from today and use a new alt description on your pins. If you have any on your own boards, you could change those. Hopefully I’ve understood what you mean!
I like joint this website. Because I want to learn how can money earn this website. Please help me.God bless.sweety. perera
If I don’t want to take a picture of a product I already have but want to link to a face wash on Sephora (for example), can I just use an image from the Sephora website and use my affiliate link for the pin?
Hi Nicole, I’m not familiar with Sephora specifically but yes, I normally use the image provided in the affiliate creation kit otherwise you can use an image from their website (make sure to check the specific terms and conditions eg. Amazon does not let you use their images for pins etc).
I was under the impression you could not use shareasale directly on Pinterest, the link has to be directed to your website/blog THEN to their page. Is this true, or does it depend on the individual retailer associated with shareasale?
It depends on the retailer. You need to check the terms and conditions of each one carefully. Shareasale’s own blog shows you how to do it on Pinterest: http://blog.shareasale.com/2016/10/04/how-to-use-affiliate-links-on-pinterest/
This is a great idea! What percentage of total pins do you think should be affiliate? I don’t want to add too many but I’d like to add as many as possible without being spammy.
Thanks!
Hi SaraBeth, thanks for your question. I would recommend keeping the number low to start off with and see how it goes. There are some pinners who only do affiliates but I think that takes away from the whole point of Pinterest. I would say I maybe pin 1 affiliate for every 20/30 regular pins max.
How to do I link the affiliate links to my pinterest to earn money? I’m kind of new to this so any advice would help.
Thanks in advanced…
Hi Kate, on Pinterest, you can add the affiliate URL when you create the new pin on your account. If you already have the pin made and want to add the affiliate link, you can just “edit” the pin and change the URL. Hope that makes sense. In the book, Elise has a step by step tutorial with photos on how to add the URL to Pinterest in case you need more help.
Ok let me know how do I start.
Thank you
Vrey informative article! I have been wanting to get into affiliate marketing for the income opportunities. I wasn’t aware that pintrest made it so easy ! Thats good to know i will put a plan in action!