I’ve been using Pinterest for many, many years. It has been my go to place to search for just about anything. I actually search Pinterest more than Google.
And I know I’m not alone. Pinterest is considered a visual search engine, not a social media platform.
Then two years ago I learned something amazing about Pinterest that I never knew was possible. You can get paid to pin on Pinterest!
I kid you not! I still can’t believe this isn’t talked about more!
When I first learned How to Make Money Pinning On Pinterest, I became obsessed. I was constantly on Pinterest.
Fast forward two years later and I’ve made a substantial amount of money from Pinning on Pinterest through Affiliate Marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money online. If you do it right, you can earn money while you sleep; which is known as passive income.
Affiliate Marketing is a way to get paid when you refer a product or service. You will usually get paid commission for the sale, but there are some affiliate companies out there who will pay per click.
You are assigned a special link, also known as affiliate link, that is unique to you so the affiliate company can track how many people you refer to their company.
If a person buys something through your link, you will earn commission.
Many people don’t know that you can use Affiliate Marketing directly with Pinterest to make money. I’ve been doing it for more than 2 years and it has been the best side hustles I’ve come across to date.
How To Get Affiliate Links?
You will need to sign up with an Affiliate Network or Program. Affiliate Networks partner with thousands of brands.
My favorite Affiliate Networks to use with Pinterest are:
MagicLinks is an Affiliate Network that partners with thousands of brands. Once accepted to MagicLinks you can then work with any of their brands. You don’t need to apply to each individual affiliate program.
ShareASale is also an Affiliate Network that partners with thousands of brands. Once accepted to ShareASale , you will then need to apply to each individual affiliate program.
Both programs may partner with the some of the same brands, but the terms for each could be very different. If brands do overlap, you will need to check the terms to see which company is best for you (cookie windows, payment terms, etc).
Once you are accepted to an Affiliate Program, you can create affiliate links that is unique to you
How To Make An Affiliate Pin On Pinterest
Using Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest is very easy and it can be done in 6 easy steps. So if you want to learn how to make an affiliate pin on Pinterest, follow my guide below.
Step One – Join an Affiliate Program
As I mentioned above, my favorite Affiliate Networks to use with Pinterest are:
Step Two – Find a Product or Service you Recommend
Once you are accepted to an Affiliate Network, you will want to find a product or service you recommend. It’s always good to promote brands and product you trust so you can build a relationship with your followers.
Step 3 – Take a photo of the product/service
Once you joined an affiliate program, found a product you recommend, it’s time to take a picture. It’s always best to take a picture of the item in use rather than just an image of the item.
If you don’t have a picture of the item, check with your affiliate company to see if you can use their images. Or you can try to find a stock photo (free or paid) of the items.
If you decide not to use your own photos, you want to make sure whatever photo you use has commercial rights for you to use them. If your affiliate company lets you use their photos, awesome. If you find photos for free or paid online, just make sure it has commercial rights.
You can be sued for using other people’s photos for financial gain if you don’t have approval to use them.
Step 4 – Make Your Affiliate Pin on Pinterest
Go to your Pinterest account. In the top right corner, you will see a plus sign. Click the plus sign and then click ‘Create Pin’
Upload your image by clicking “drag and drop or click to upload”.
Next you will want to add your title, your description, and your destination link. Remember: the destination link if your affiliate link.
Then you want to select your Pinterest board you wan the pin saved to.
Don’t forget, when you write you description you disclose that your pin is an affiliate link. All you have to add is #ad or #affiliate to the description.
Step 5 – Promote Your Pin
Once your Pin is created and added to you Pinterest Board. You will then want to share the pin to your other relevant boards and any group boards.
Don’t add the pin to all the relevant boards at once. You will want to space it out so Pinterest doesn’t think you are spamming all your boards at once.
I like to use Tailwind to schedule all my pins. I can tell Tailwind the day, time, and board I want the pin scheduled. Tailwind will then pin the affiliate link per the schedule.
Tailwind is a time saver. This way I don’t have to manually promote my pin, I can rely on Tailwind to promote my pin for me.
If you haven’t tried Tailwind, you are seriously missing out. Here’s a free month of Tailwind so you can test it out to see how awesome it truly is.
Step 6 – How to check How Well Your Pin is doing
You joined Affiliate programs, you created your Affiliate Pinterest pins, shared it to your relevant boards and now is time to see how well that pin did.
In order to check your Pinterest Analytics, you will need a Pinterest business account (if you only have a regular Pinterest Account then you can easily convert it for free to a business account).
Here’s a Pin I created last week for a blog post I wrote on How to Make a Pinterest Pin Go Viral.
When I click on the Pin, it tells me the amount of impressions, saves, and clicks. These stats are only visible to the owner of the Pin.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have much activity. Sometimes that happens with Pinterest. If that is the case, try creating a different style image. Add words, change the colors, take a different photo.
What I like to do is create several different pins for the same affiliate links and blog posts. This way you can see what your audience likes.
That is How To Create an Affiliate Pin
Creating an affiliate pin is just as simple as I described above and creating an affiliate pin can be done in 6 steps.
This is just the start on How to Make Money Pinning On Pinterest. This process won’t make you rich quick. You will need to develop a strategy and grow your Pinterest profile.
You will want to understand your audience and create content for them.
Leave a comment below or head over to my Pinterest group: Pinning for a Profit and let me know if you create affiliate pins on
Hi! I’ve read your article on pinning for profit. And I have a quick question on this post. You mentioned uploaded an image and making a custom pin, but do you use the product image from your affiliate? Or the company’s website?
Hi Justine, If the affiliate program allows, you can use their photos. I always try to use photos showing the item in use.