How to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest without a blog and make awesome money
Did you know that you can do affiliate marketing on Pinterest even without a blog or website? You can earn $300 per week or more easily if you use proper Pinterest marketing strategies.
So if you are wondering whether it is possible to earn money from Pinterest without operating a website, the answer is YES.
Earning affiliate money on Pinterest without a blog is possible and lucrative because Pinterest allows direct affiliate links on the pins.
In contrast, the popular social networks Facebook and Twitter block the direct affiliate links. Therefore you can't directly use product links in the posts on these platforms.
So you just need to find affiliate programs that do not require a website for approval and then design pins that look stunning.
Unlike other popular social sites, pinners on Pinterest always look for something to try and have a strong buying intent. Therefore, many smart affiliate marketers take advantage of this social selling hub to make hundreds of dollars per week.
Is it easy to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest without a blog? Bloggers mainly earn handsome money through affiliate marketing by creating content and writing about the products in their blogs.
But writing blog posts is time-consuming, expensive, and requires a lot of hard work.
So if you don't even want to start your own blog or don't have that kind of writing skills, you can still make passive income by designing great pins and linking them directly with product pages.
Therefore, instead of driving people first to your website and then to product landing pages, you can directly send them to product landing pages where they can make purchases.
And whenever people buy through your referral, you can earn a commission on those sales.
Moreover, it is also lucrative to make money through Pinterest because pins have an unlimited lifespan and can generate sales for you forever.
Here is the step-by-step guide to making money from Pinterest affiliate marketing without a blog.
#1 Choosing the Right Niche
Researching and choosing the right niche is the first thing you should do before you start making money from the Pinterest platform.
Although you can almost find any category, some niches are more popular on Pinterest.
#2 Use business account
Pinterest business accounts are different from a normal user account and have access to many helpful marketing tools.
With a business account, in addition to analytics, you will also have access to ad campaigns. Compared to other social sites, paid ads on Pinterest are less expensive and can yield better ROI.
When creating an account, properly optimize the profile with the keywords that best describe your niche and work.
#3 Join appropriate affiliate programs
Affiliate marketing success mainly depends on the niche and programs you select. The wrong selection of affiliate programs can waste both your time and money.
Therefore, signing up for profitable programs is another essential step to successful affiliate marketing, whether you do it with or without a blog.
So dig deep into Google and search for affiliate programs that are high remunerative in your niche and do not need a website to become their affiliate.
Although most popular affiliate networks require you to have a website, you should be able to find some affiliate networks or direct affiliate programs(in-house individual programs) that either need social media account or no website at all.
You can join popular affiliate networks Clickbank and JVZOO even if you don't have a blog.
#4 Curate a board for affiliate products
Pinterest boards are places where all types of pins, whether your pin or other people's pins are stored.
The success of Pinterest marketing also depends on how you create, maintain boards and save quality content under them.
If you save your affiliate product pin under an irrelevant board, it will likely receive less traction from Pinterest and pinners.
Therefore name and description of the board should be relevant to your niche and contain primary keywords.
In addition to saving your affiliate pins to the board, you should also add relevant pins from other people. The appropriate content and blog posts give more context to your board.
The more relevant and quality pins your board will have, Pinterest will prioritize pins from the board in the search.
Daily pinning regularly will make your board more important in the eyes of Pinterest rather than adding pins in one go and forgetting for the rest of the week or month. Adding content daily to the board makes it more active and engaged.
Don't fill your board only with your affiliate pins; add other people's content.
The key to successful Pinterest marketing is curating a few boards related to your work of interest and regularly adding pins(other people's content+ your own pins) under them.
#5 Join group boards and tailwind communities
You need to drive more eyeballs on your affiliate pins to get more sales. And this is where group boards and tailwind communities can help you widen the reach of your affiliate pins.
Group boards are native applications of Pinterest, while tailwind communities are part of the popular pin scheduling tool tailwind. Both these entities work based on reciprocity, and therefore you need to follow the rules laid down by their owners.
You can easily find relevant group boards and communities in your niche where you can pin your products and also find great content from members.
#6 Design a stunning affiliate pin
You may have a great product that is very useful for pinners, but if not promoted through a compelling pin, you will not be able to generate clicks and sales.
No matter how good the product or blog post is, only pin design can make or break your marketing campaign on Pinterest.
So to become a successful affiliate marketer on Pinterest, create visually compelling pins having an excellent ad copy.
Canva is popular among pin designers, which provides customizable free pin templates, and Tailwind Create is another free tool to create hundreds of beautiful pins in seconds.
Once you are finished with the pin design, upload it to Pinterest and optimize the title and description with keywords.
#7 Use of keywords and Pinterest SEO
Given that Pinterest is a search engine using keywords in fields like pin title, description, board descriptions, and other important places can result in high visibility for your content.
Pinterest uses keywords to discover fresh content and judge relevance to a user query. Pinners also search for new ideas and content by using keywords.
Therefore to get more exposure and visibility, you need to research keywords for your product and use them in the pin title and description.
Let's not forget that Pinterest is also a visual search engine. It has a robust Lens technology to identify the content based on the design elements used in the image. You can find a new audience if you use relevant graphics representing the affiliate product.
#8 Use Idea pins for affiliate marketing
Idea pins are the latest pin format developed by Pinterest to meet the audience's demand for short videos.
Idea pins were launched to monetize the work of content creators and retain users on the Pinterest platform itself. It doesn't allow adding a link to a blog post(as a destination website), but creators can tag products.
Tagging of products creates a fantastic opportunity for affiliate marketers to earn money without operating a website or blog.
Moreover, with Idea pins, you can record multiple short videos and add more images and descriptive texts to explain the idea or usage of a product in a better way. You can create an Idea pin right on the Pinterest platform using native editing tools.
Adding an affiliate link to an Idea pin is easy. After creating the Idea pin, select the page you want to tag the affiliate product.
When you click on the Stickers icon(bottom right corner), a "Pick a sticker" window will pop up where you can pick up the product sticker. Select the "Use a link" option and put the affiliate link there.
#9 Create multiple pins
More pins mean more opportunities to attract new users and generate more affiliate money!
Successful bloggers and marketers add multiple pins for each blog post they publish on their blogs, and therefore it has been an effective strategy so far to drive more traffic.
So try to create multiple pins(3-5) for each affiliate product using slightly different graphics and text overlay.
These siblings or sister pins may have a snowball effect because once one of them goes viral, the other pins too automatically attract more traction.
#10 Follow Pinterest rules
Although Pinterest permits adding affiliate links, it is strictly against spamming its platform, and therefore it is crucial to go through community guidelines and paid partnership guidelines before you start affiliate marketing on this.
Here are some Dos and don'ts that you should keep in your mind:-
#1 Be honest with your audience and avoid clickbait tactics.
#2 Add a link only to the product that you have promised on the pin image.
#3 Don't promote products or content that it prohibits.
#4 Always disclose in the pin description that it is an affiliate link, or you can simply use #affiliate or #affiliatelink hashtags.
#5 Don't use link shortening or cloaking services.
#6 Check the terms and conditions of the affiliate programs you wish to promote. For example, Etsy doesn't allow direct affiliate links on Pinterest.
#7 Add value to your audience through various graphics, texts, or Idea pins.
#8 You can promote affiliate products on group boards, but check their rules and don't fill them only with your affiliate pins. Add other helpful content(articles, blog posts, tutorials) for the users.
How is affiliate marketing with a blog different than without a blog?
Although the ultimate aim of both these affiliate marketing methods is just to earn money by promoting other people's products, promotional strategies are different for them.
When you own a blog, you first need to drive people to your blog posts or articles where you educate more about the products for which you insert affiliate links in the content.
So when blog visitors click on the links or anchor texts of the products, they will be taken to the vendor's site(product landing page), where they can buy them.
But in the case of direct affiliate marketing through Pinterest(without a blog), the shoppers will be taken directly to the product pages. Therefore through graphics, video, and text overlay on the pin itself, you need to convince your prospects to buy.
Without having a blog, Pinterest affiliate marketing is straightforward, easy, but at the same time a little bit challenging because the conversion rate might be low comparatively.
But using Idea pins(up to 20 pages), you can convince prospects better by including short videos, images, and texts.
Conclusion
Earning lucrative money on Pinterest without having a blog or website is a reality if you have good products to sell and design eye-catching affiliate pins. It's all about how stunning pins you create and use the right promotional techniques.
The other tested ways of making money on Pinterest apart from selling affiliate products are partnering with brands for sponsorships, offering virtual assistant services, and creating your own products(like printables and digital books).
Of course, having a blog or website provides more bandwidth to explain offers in detail and creatively; however, if you don't have time and money to run a website, you can still do affiliate marketing on Pinterest and make passive money.