Get Into Big Pinterest Profits One Tiny Bite at a Time
Pinterest is such a big shopping platform.
Of course, you will also find pictures of cats and puppies, but overall, an audience of mostly women visits Pinterest to find boxes, clothes, hair jewelry and a lot more.
It is a perfect platform for bite-sized affiliate marketing.
When you create your Pinterest account, make sure to turn it into a business account. It will give you better statistics plus there are things you are allowed to do with a business account, which a personal account will now allow.
It is free to create a business account.
Before you start, you should familiarize yourself with the rules. They are object to change, so only trust what you read on Pinterest itself. Here is a link to their policies: https://policy.pinterest.com/en
Make sure to click one step further and check the Paid Partnership Guidelines as well.
One important point here is that you must disclose that you are using an affiliate link here. You must also check what Pinterest does not allow you to promote on their platform. That could change, too, so I recommend you go to the source for knowledge.
Sadly, some of the rules are unclear.
If you go to the Community guidelines for example, you will see a section about affiliate marketing. When they say that you should not try to manipulate Pinterest algorithms by “Creating affiliate Pins repetitively or in large volumes,” how many do they accept? How many does it take to make it “large volumes”?
To stay on the safe side, I have opted to create no more than three pins for each product and make them all different.
Different text, different look, different image (when possible) or simply showing the image in a different way.
I use Canva (your affiliate link) to easily create my pins. They will also allow me to change image sizes and show different parts of it. This all helps to make my pins different.
Rumor has it that Pinterest systematically bans new users just to see if they react or if they are bots.
Should that happen to you, just use the link they offer and ask them why your account was banned. Tell them that you have read and follow their guidelines as best you can and excuse of you broke one of their rules unknowingly.
Most people get their account back within 24 hours.
Enough with this dull (but necessary) stuff. Now let us have some fun.
Where Do You Find Pin-Worthy Products to Promote?
If you have already chosen your niche, it is just to go searching for products to promote.
The main part of Pinterest users are women. So, any female targeted niche will work. A lot is physical goods, though, which they sell on Amazon.
But the problem is that you need to keep an eye on both Amazon’s rules and guidelines and Pinterest’s.
Both can be very picky.
So, if you can find other sources, it will serve you better. One such source is Skimlinks (your affiliate link), which offers clothes, beauty products and a lot more. Another is ShareASale (your affiliate link) where you can find a lot of different physical products as well as digital products.
Speaking of digital products… You can offer them on Pinterest.
Just use some kind of image that illustrates what you are promoting.
Planning Is Your Straight Line to Success
This is especially important since you are doing bite-sized affiliate marketing.
When you only have 15 minutes, you have no time to waste. You must know exactly what to work on and when it must be ready.
Plan your affiliate marketing, preferably three months into the future.
Why plan this far ahead? Because it can take three months for a pin to really gain traction. If you want to start easy, go for one week at first, then expand to two weeks ahead and add one more week every time you have the energy.
You can do the planning during some of your time-bites, or you can do it Saturday or Sunday if you otherwise do not work during the weekend.
Depending on your niche, you can do all of the following planning:
• Pick the products you are going to promote.
• Get the affiliate links.
• Keep a spreadsheet with dates you plan to share that link.
You can safely pin three pins per day for one product and spread the pins out 10 to 12 days apart. And a spreadsheet makes it easier to keep track of. You can make one for free on Google Sheets.
I would recommend one column for the product name, one for the affiliate link and three columns for dates.
During the week, you just need to create the pins and post and schedule them.
Make Sure to Consider Holidays and Seasons
If you promote clothes, for example, make sure you always consider the season three months into the future.
Create and pin Christmas offers in September at the latest. Go for easter right after New Year. Always thinking three months ahead.
It will quickly become a habit.
If your chosen niche is not seasonal, this gets a lot easier of course. Then you can just share whenever you feel like it. And should you later decide to add a blog to your affiliate business, you can get traffic to it from your by then established Pinterest account.
Just about anything Pinterest related is object to change.
Sizing your pins, too. Right now, the best size according to Pinterest themselves is a vertical (portrait) image with a 2:3 aspect ratio, and the example they give is 1,000 x 1,500 pixels.
Canva (your affiliate link), which is one of their approved partners, offers pin templates that are 1,000 x 1,500 pixels. So, you do not go wrong when you use one of these.
You can also create your own Pinterest templates from scratch on Canva. Or even buy from others.
Get Started, Get into the Rhythm and Make Money
You can do this!
Pinterest is maybe the best platform to use for your bite-sized affiliate business because they want their users to click links and go away from their site.
Everybody else wants to keep their members.
You should definitely profit from Pinterest’s generosity, get started, get into the rhythm and make money.