Home to countless cookie recipes, laughable memes, and perfect last-minute gift ideas, there’s certainly already a lot to love about Pinterest. But what if we told you that it’s possible to make money on Pinterest?
The simple truth is this: Amidst the ab workouts and IKEA furniture hacks, there lies a huge opportunity for businesses to use Pinterest to drive revenue. And with 31% of online American adults using Pinterest, this isn’t an opportunity you’ll want to leave on the table.
Can you make money on Pinterest?
Whether you are a content creator, have an eCommerce business, or are trying to drive traffic to your blog, Pinterest can be a key tool for monetization.
If your target customers are on Pinterest, they’re likely ready to buy. According to demographic data from Pinterest, 45% of adults in the U.S. with a household income over $100K per year are active on the platform. Additionally, 83% of Pinterest users make purchases based on what they see on the platform.
If you aren’t monetizing through Pinterest, now is a great time to start. To help you get a handle on how to make Pinterest work better for your business, check out the tips below.
How to Make Money on Pinterest
1. Generate traffic to your eCommerce products.
Best for: eCommerce businesses.
If you sell products online, one of the simplest ways to drive more sales is to pin your product pages directly to Pinterest. Creating pins that are linked directly to your online shop can generate meaningful traffic when paired with the keywords your ideal customers are searching for.
Before you start sharing your products on Pinterest, make sure you’ve enabled Rich Pins, which sync the latest information from your website into any pins created from your site. Product Rich Pins are able to pull the most up-to-date price, inventory, and product description from your website so you don’t need to worry about manually updating existing pins.
Rich Pins are free to use and only require adding a bit of code to your website. New websites requesting Rich Pins are typically approved within 24 hours.
2. Create pins for your affiliate partnerships.
Best for: Users with strong relationships with their affiliate partners.
Affiliate marketing is a popular tactic for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to build passive income. As an affiliate, you can receive a commission anytime someone makes a purchase from your unique link to a product or service.
To leverage Pinterest for your affiliate marketing efforts, consider creating pins that link directly to your affiliate links or to blog posts or YouTube videos that incorporate your affiliate links. By sharing your affiliate links on Pinterest, they can be found by anyone searching for that particular product, earning you a commission if they make a purchase.
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when using Pinterest to make affiliate sales:
- Disclose when affiliate links are present. Per FTC guidelines, clearly state when affiliate links are being shared within a piece of content.
- Only share direct links. Pinterest discourages the use of link shorteners or tools that disguise the final URL when sharing affiliate links.
- Optimize your pins for keywords related to affiliate products. The beauty of Pinterest is that it operates as a search engine. When your content features keywords users are searching for, the content is more likely to generate clicks and engagement which could lead to increased sales.
3. Send traffic to your blog.
Best for: Inbound marketers and bloggers.
Whether you rely on web traffic for advertising revenue, or as part of an inbound marketing approach, you can incorporate Pinterest into your traffic-building strategy to drive revenue. Ranking for keywords on Google can be a complex, time-consuming endeavor. However, ranking for keywords on Pinterest can be more straightforward, and can lead to meaningful traffic gains.
According to Pinterest, 85% of users turn to Pinterest to start a new project or learn something new. If you’re creating helpful content that aligns with the keywords your potential audience is searching for, you can potentially capture some of this search traffic through Pinterest.
Here are some tips to help you grow your web traffic through Pinterest:
- Use Pinterest Trends to discover which keywords are trending with Pinterest users.
- Create multiple pins for each blog post that have an optimized title, description, and image that align with the keywords users are searching for.
- Save your pins to boards that have optimized titles and descriptions incorporating the keywords users are searching for.
- Create article Rich Pins from your website to incorporate the blog post title, description, and author information in your pins.
4. Join the Pinterest Creator Fund.
Best for: Creators who want to grow and monetize their Pinterest account.
In 2021, Pinterest launched the Creator Fund to help creators grow and monetize their content on the platform. These cohorts open quarterly and participants have access to unique brand partnerships and tools and resources from the Pinterest team to help them grow their reach.
This year, Pinterest announced an expansion of the program’s fund to support a wider range of creators.
5. Share shoppable pins for your products.
Best for: Online shops and eCommerce businesses.
If you sell products online, creating shoppable pins for your products can be an effective way to increase sales. According to Pinterest, engagement with shoppable pins increased by 20% in 2021. One way to drive conversion from Pinterest is to enable Product Pins on your account.
Product pins allow online merchants to list their products on Pinterest so customers can make a purchase without leaving the platform. To set up shoppable pins, start by applying to be a Verified Merchant on Pinterest.
Below, you can see an example of shoppable pins by the skincare brand, Summer Fridays.
6. Create sponsored content.
Best for: Content creators and influencers.
Pinterest can be a lucrative space for influencer marketing. Content creators can work with brands to create sponsored content specifically for Pinterest or can negotiate a higher rate for sharing their sponsored blog and social content from other platforms with their Pinterest audience as well.
7. Manage Pinterest accounts for other businesses.
Best for: Virtual assistants, social media managers, and administrative professionals.
If you have the skills to manage and grow a Pinterest account, consider lending your services to other businesses. Many busy entrepreneurs don’t have time to manage their own Pinterest accounts despite the benefits of remaining active on the platform.
In this role, you could develop a Pinterest strategy for your client’s primary business objectives (such as growing web traffic or increasing conversions of shoppable pins), do keyword research to determine what their audience is searching for, and create and upload pins to their account.
It helps to have demonstrated experience in this area. Try creating a portfolio outlining the results you’ve gotten from growing your own or other businesses’ Pinterest accounts to share with potential clients.
8. Use Pinterest Ads to reach new users.
Best for: People selling digital and physical products online.
If you have an online business, consider running ads on Pinterest to get your offerings in front of potential buyers. Pinterest ads look like regular pins but can be strategically placed where your audience is most likely to see them including on the home feed and in search results.
To start running ads on Pinterest, make sure you have a business account. After you have your business account created, visit the Ads Manager to create a campaign and ad group.
Lastly, you’ll have the option to create new pins or select the existing pins you want to promote. Here’s how the company Daily Harvest uses paid ads on Pinterest to reach new customers.
9. Showcase your products with video content.
Best for: eCommerce businesses.
Idea Pins are multi-page video posts that are quickly gaining popularity on Pinterest. Though Idea Pins can’t link directly to web pages like standard pins can, users can tag specific products featured in their Idea Pins to make them shoppable. Cosmetics company Fenty Beauty frequently features video tutorials on Pinterest to promote key products.
Users can tag products using affiliate links, and merchants can tag products from their own businesses to drive sales. By sharing Idea Pins that feature video clips of your products in action, you can help expose new buyers to the features of your products.
With over 400 million users who are looking for inspiration and are ready to buy, incorporating Pinterest into your business strategy is a great way to engage with your audience and drive potential revenue.
