It's time to expand your audience.

A few years ago, it was Facebook and Twitter that attracted all the attention.But the game has changed.

Pinterest is a powerful and reliable traffic source (check out Spencer's niche site 4 project), and you can use Pinterest's affiliate marketing to diversify your revenue.

I'll provide a quick definition of Pinterest affiliate marketing and then talk about how you can make money on Pinterest.Next, we'll cover best practices, how to grow your Pinterest account, and why Pinterest on other networks.

WHAT IS PINTEREST AFFILIATE MARKETING?

Pinterest affiliate marketing is when you recommend products on Pinterest for your followers to buy.When your followers buy these products, you receive a commission.

This doesn't cost your reader anything extra and won't hurt you or you if they buy using your link.Indeed; It's a pretty advantageous situation.Your viewer gets something they wanted and you get paid.Buying from yourself does not cost the viewer anything extra.

HOW TO ADD AFFILIATE LINKS ON PINTEREST

Adding affiliate links to Pinterest is pretty easy.First, you will create a brooch as usual.You can do this from your profile page.Click the plus sign below the search bar, and then click Create Pin.

And then you can fill in the title of your pin and a description.The only things left are to add your affiliate link and photo.

I'll use Amazon Associates for my example (check out my Amazon Associates review) as it's a pretty common affiliate program.Amazon has verified that its affiliates in the EU can use affiliate links on Pinterest.The United States is a little clearer.If you're nervous, I'd avoid putting Amazon on your social media accounts.

If we use Amazon, we encounter a problem:

We are not allowed to use Amazon images on Pinterest (or elsewhere).

So we're creating a pin like this:

We need our affiliate link and our pin photo.

We will get the affiliate link from Amazon using Sitestripe.You can search for the product you want and then at the top of the page you'll see the Sitestripe bar.Click Text and you will get your affiliate link:

So now we need to get our photo.Remember that we can't use any of the images on Amazon for this.We must get ours.

There are some perfect places to get beautiful free photos.I recommend Unsplash and Pexels.Both have a rather wide variety and won't charge you a dime.

If you need more stock photos, I recommend avoiding expensive options like Shutterstock or Adobe.I use Canva's photo shoot.It costs $12.95 per month and is really worth it.

You'll have to resize if you get a wider image than it is.This is a free feature in Canva and it won't take more than a minute.Once we have our image and our link, we can put them in the pin:

When someone goes to your pin and clicks on the link, you get a commission if they buy your product.

Easy as that.

PINTEREST AFFILIATE MARKETING IDEAS AND BEST PRACTICES

So you know how to create pins with affiliate links.Now let's talk about how to get the most out of your pins.

#1: RECOMMEND RELEVANT PRODUCTS

The first step here is to make sure your pins are relevant to your audience.Here are some niches and elements that would be relevant to each other:

• Fitness : heart rate monitor, Crossfit equipment, home training
• Outdoors: trekking equipment, tents, water bottles, backpacks
• Home life : stylish bar stools, kitchen knives, televisions
• Dogs: food, bowls, collars
• Handicrafts : DIY tools, craft supplies
• Internet marketing : software, marketing tools, courses

You want to offer your audience things that can help them.It won't help you send affiliate spam links to all kinds of products.Find out what your audience wants and offer them good ways to get it.

#2: LINK TEST FOR BUYING GUIDES OR REVIEWS

This will depend a bit on your niche.It might be a good idea to test how to get the most sales.I'd like to try linking directly to the affiliate product from Pinterest and linking to a review or buying guide on your website if you have one.

You'll need to have good tracking for this method, but it's not too difficult.The first thing you need is to have separate links for your Pinterest post and shopping guides.This is not a problem at Amazon Associates.

From the Associates dashboard, click your email address.Then click Manage your tracking ID.

Once you're there, you want to click Add Tracking ID.

Name something so you remember what's happening on Pinterest.

Spend the next month comparing these tracking IDs.Send some of your pins directly to the affiliate product and other pins to your buying guides or reviews.Compare results after about a month and see what's driving the most conversions for you.

#3: DISCLOSE AFFILIATE RELATIONSHIPS AND AVOID HOOKUP CLOAKING

Almost all affiliate networks will require disclosure of an affiliate relationship.This is due to FTC requirements for affiliate networks.You should always reveal these relationships in your pins.Amazon in particular has a specific line that you need to say:

"As an Amazon member, I earn money from eligible purchases."

That disclosure changes, so be sure to check the Amazon Associate TOS.

You'll also need to cloaking links.Pinterest's acceptable use policy makes it clear that your viewers should know where they're going.No Geni.us, no Bitly, no Pretty Links, nothing.I think Amazon short links would make an exception to this, but I'd stick with full URL links just in case.

GROW YOUR PINTEREST

Now that we've talked about some best practices, let's look at how to expand your revenue.It's time to grow your little Pinterest account.

One of the most important steps you can take at the beginning is to make your profile authentic.That means posting pins, creating boards, and following others.If you already have a Pinterest account with over 200 followers, you can skip steps 1 and 2 below.

STEP 1: CREATE 8-10 TABS AND START PINNING

The first thing you'll want to do with a new or small profile is to create several distinct tabs.The numbers here don't have to be exact, but I think 8-10 is a good place to start.When people look at your profile, you want them to see that you are authentic and that they have a range of interests.

These tabs should be different, but contained in your niche.Here are some niches with potential board ideas:

• Fitness : weight loss, exercises with body weight, motivation
• Outdoor: hiking panoramas, camping, hiking resorts
• Home life : ideas for the home, fashion for the home, living room
• Dogs: memes for dogs, cute puppies, humans and dogs
• Crafts : homemade items, sewing, ideas for do-it-yourself projects

The goal here is not to create 8 or 10 random tabs.You want them to create cards that your future audience will see and appreciate.

You can create a board by going to your profile on Pinterest and clicking the plus button.You'll have an option to create a card:

After clicking Create Board, you are given an option to name the board and mark it as secret.

If you wish, you can mark your board of directors secret, but I don't think it's necessary.Some people like to mark their secret tabs as long as the card has a significant number of pins.We'll block you enough to fill your card in a few days, so I don't think you should mark it as a secret unless you want to.

Once you've set up your tabs, it's time to start pinning.

Pinning yourself can be tiring and time-consuming.I recommend a tool called Tailwind to do the pinning for you.(check out our Tailwind review).Tailwind allows you to block en masse.You can schedule pins, add them to your boards, and do a week's work in just a few hours.

For $10-$15 per month, it's one of the best productivity promoters on the market for Pinterest or Instagram.

And you can use it for free.🙂

Click here to try Tailwind for free and increase Pinterest affiliate marketing

GET MORE FOLLOWERS AND EARN MORE MONEY WITH TAILWIND

Tailwind's pin programmer allows you to find all images on a page and program them for pinning.If you're on Pinterest and turn on the Tailwind Chrome extension, you'll see something like this:

This screen has a lot to do, so let me explain.

Tailwind allows us to click on the images we want to program.All programmed images get a blue highlight.You can see a list of scheduled posts at the bottom left of the screenshot.

When you have the images you want to schedule for Pinterest, Tailwind lets you find and set optimal publishing times.These optimal times are based on when your pins get the most views, replies, and engagement.This feature alone is worth the price of Tailwind.

Tailwind also lets you choose which boards you're pinning to, and gives you the option to shuffle your pins so you don't spam your followers.I recommend adding 30-50 images per day.You can go back as your account fills up with more content, but 30-50 per day is a good way to fill up a new account.

Once you've set up your boards and posted pins, it's time to start gaining followers.

STEP 2: START GAINING FOLLOWERS

There are a couple of main ways to get followers:

1. Following other people
2. Repinning the most popular content

You should start following other profiles after filling some boards and some published pins.They should be people in your niche, but they don't have to be a carbon copy of your Pinterest profile.You might get some followers this way, but the goal here is to create an authentic profile.

You'll get the most of your followers by blocking content that is already popular.

I recommend adding already popular content because you know there's an audience for that.This content has been successful in the past, so you know it will work well in the future.It will be fine when you publish it.

This is quite easy to do.Go to Pinterest and search for a topic.I'm going to look for "outdoor design ideas".Turn on Tailwind and find the pins you love the most.

A general rule of thumb is that any of the upper pins are quite successful.And since you plan to add 30-50 images per day, you can select many of these images.

I recommend doing this for a few weeks.If you're setting the rate I recommend, filling your boards, and repeating incredible content, your number of followers should increase.

You can also start blocking affiliate content or pins that redirect users to your website.Once you have a few hundred followers, it's time to scale your Pinterest operation.

STEP 3: RESIZE PINTEREST

You have tabs and you're pinning a lot.You've amassed a couple hundred followers, and maybe your account is starting to gain some traction.

At this point, you have a compiled profile, an authentic look, and some of your followers.To scale the task, you'll start joining workgroups.

The group cards look like this:

They are places where several people can join and post their pins.When someone joins a group council, all of their followers join the board as well.This tab has 67 pinners, but a whopping 271,903 followers.

When you join a group, your followers will be able to see the pins of other people other than you.It's a bit of a dilution for your followers.But you have access to a huge number of eyeballs in a matter of seconds because all those 271,903 followers can see your posts now.

It's 100% worth it.

To find a group board, I like to search for "[topic] group board".You can say that they are group boards because the image of the owner will have more people.You can see it in the red box below:

Click to enter one of these group boards and see the content plus collaborators.If a board is welcome to new people joining, they will almost always say so in the description of the group board:

This group says, "For an invitation, please follow me first and then send me a message for an invitation." But wait a second – who is this person "I"?Who do you send for an invitation?

This is not difficult to understand either.When you click on the list of collaborators in the top right, the founder is always the first person listed:

You can also say it because this person is out of alphabetical order with the rest of the group 🙂

Follow the founder of the group and send him a message.Something simple will work well:

"Hi [nome], are you still accepting contributors to [bordo]?If so, I'd like to join.I specialize in [nicchia] and will follow all the rules you set. "

Once you've joined a group, it's time to start driving users to your site.Your content has the ability to reach thousands of people now.Keep posting popular pins, but start spreading more pins on your content.

Merging group listings is the fastest and easiest way to scale your growing Pinterest account.Keep your high pin count or repin count and you'll be well on your way to a meaningful account.

WHY SHOULD YOU CHOOSE PINTEREST ON OTHER NETWORKS?

As you can tell, Pinterest isn't the easiest win.It takes work and it does not bring success overnight.You can think of Pinterest as a marathon: the longer you pin and the more you pin down, the more successful you'll be on Pinterest.

But I think it's much more viable than other social networks.

The game was played on Facebook and Twitter.What led these two giants to go out of fashion?

Facebook has lost popularity due to a number of reasons.It started when Facebook tweaked the algorithms so that Facebook page posts started to display less and less.Pages might use ads to increase posts, but they might otherwise expect that only a fraction of their users would view a particular post.

Then the costs of ads began to rise.And they've risen faster than your average portfolio: Facebook ad costs have increased by about 122% year-over-year.

Being successful is fine.To some extent, all life is pay-to-win.But Facebook has become pay-to-play-at-all.

Twitter has a different story.Users didn't leave Twitter because it restricted their posts or because it increased ad costs.

Users left Twitter because they realized it wasn't working.An average click-through rate (CTR) for Twitter links is about 2.8%.

But as your followers increase, the click-through rate decreases.And considering you can get a 20% open rate for your emails on a bad day, there are better investment avenues than Twitter.

Pinterest doesn't share any of these weaknesses.

You can buy ads on Pinterest (although I'm not sure if they are effective).But you don't need to buy ads on Pinterest.Instead, I recommend investing $50-$150 on a Pinterest VA every week that can repeat existing posts and create new posts.

Pinterest is also based on the idea that your Pins should reach a lot of people.It's based on repins and groups, both of which work by increasing your reach.People want to have awesome pins on their page, so they'll repeat great content you create.

Group cards allow you to reach a huge number of people without having to spend years building a following or shelling out a fortune in advertising.

Why Pinterest on Twitter and Facebook?

It requires less work and less money to reach a wider audience.It's not an overnight hit or a silver bullet.Pinterest offers the highest return on investment per hour of time spent.

Affiliate marketing on Pinterest is easy to do but it's not that crowded that everyone gets spammed.Pinterest can drive traffic to your site and help you get sales.It just takes a little work.

YOUR PINTEREST AFFILIATE MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Pinterest affiliate marketing requires some practice, but it provides a higher ROI than other social networks.I recommend using the cheap tool ($10-$15 per month) Tailwind to automate your pinning.A small investment of $10-$15 per month could save you hours of your time (or a VA).

So you can invest more in other projects such as improving your SEO or building authority sites.

Click here to use Tailwind to automate your Pinterest account.

Pinterest affiliate marketing isn't easy, but it's worth it.