How To Make Money On Pinterest: A Guide To Earning $10k+
Want to learn how our clients are making over $10k in Pinterest sales each and every month? The best part about it is that its all happening organically - no ads spend or additional tricks needed! Here’s how you can make money on Pinterest, too.
Ways To Earn With Pinterest Marketing
I’ve managed Pinterest accounts in almost every niche. Before you start marketing on Pinterest it’s important to figure out your individual business goals and how you’ll measure success. Some businesses are able to track sales and conversions directly with the Verified Merchant Program, while others will need to use Google Analytics and third party tools. Here are some of the most common ways businesses make money on Pinterest:
Ecommerce and online product stores
Whether you’re selling a physical or digital product through your own website, the process for earning on Pinterest remains the same. Ideally you’d want to become a Verified Merchant which essentially links your website and all of your products directly to Pinterest, giving you access to conversion insights in Pinterest Analytics where you can directly track all checkouts and sales made through the platform.
If you have a Shopify website you’ll automatically get Verified Merchant status - this is a BIG deal and highly recommend Shopify websites because of this feature alone. If your website is hosted on another platform, you’ll have to apply for Verified Merchant Status. Your pins will organically appear in Pinterest searches when users search for products related to yours and you’ll have access to conversion insights. I must warn you: the process is very challenging if you don’t have a Shopify website. You have to jump through endless hoops and make lots of adjustments to your website. Be prepared to be denied multiple times before getting it right.
If you’re not able to go the Verified Merchant Program route, you can still make money with Pinterest. You’re still able to tag your products in the pins you create which makes them shoppable. Pinterest is pushing to become more of a shopping platform so using this feature is very beneficial.
Affiliate Marketers
Whether you’re promoting Amazon products, are sharing your LTK links or have specific partnerships on your blog - affiliate marketing is one of my most successful niches on the Pinterest platform. This is especially true now that we are able to use direct affiliate links for pins!
You simply create pin graphics or repurpose your social media video content using your affiliate links. Sounds too good to be true? The hidden secret to success with affiliate marketing is the quality of content you’re creating. Video pins are currently performing better than anything else on the platform and my clients who create watch-worthy TikTok videos and Instagram Reels that showcase products and results are the ones who are earning.
Volume here is key since Pinterest loves consistent, new content. So keeping your Amazon storefront or LTK up to date with lots of new categories and products is an important part of strategy.
Service-Based Businesses
If you’re a social media manager, online coach, content creator or website/brand designer tracking accurate conversion results can be challenging. There are various direct and indirect ways for you to earn with Pinterest: converting paid clients, selling programs or downloads (digital or passive products), having someone sign up to your mailing list and convert later down the line, or similarly having someone follow you on social media and converting later down the line.
It can be hard to pin point if these conversions happened directly through Pinterest unless you’re asking clients how they found you, like I do on all my website form submissions or when doing client consultations. Tracking website traffic and measuring success with email list growth so that you can get these cold leads into your inner circle should be your main focus. You’ll also need to prioritise creating regular new content for your website to showcase your expertise (the easiest solution is with regular blog posts that provide value and mention your offerings).
Pinterest Marketing Strategies for Making Money
I’d be lying if I told you there was an exact ‘one-size-fits-all’ Pinterest Marketing strategy that works for every single business. This simply doesn’t exist and anyone who promises you this either doesn’t know what they are talking about or is trying to scam you. There are, however, foundational strategies that need to be in place. After that you test, make adjustments and keep an eye out for what works. More on this below:
Start with the basics
Make sure your account is set up correctly with the following:
A Pinterest business profile
A claimed website
A keyword-rich profile name and description
Keyword-specific board titles and descriptions
Do your keyword research. Pinterest is a visual search engine so getting your content found by a targeted audience happens only if you’re making use of the platforms SEO. Don’t try to just repurpose all of your social media content as is, you’ll need to make use of keyword-focused descriptions.
Find more details on the basics of Pinterest Marketing in this article.
Pin graphics and video
Your Pinterest pins matter and making them click-worthy is going to determine if a user clicks to your website and purchases, or keeps scrolling. Even if you show up in searches because of a keyword optimised account, its not going to be worth anything if your pins fall flat.
You’ll want to make sure you’ve got Pinterest-worthy visuals or invest in quality stock photography so that you have pins that shine.
Video currently outperforms static pins for all of my Pinterest Management clients but this could change in a month or two. Don’t have video to work with? Simply animate your graphics in Canva and they’ll automatically get more reach. I’d still pin both static and video pins incase the algorithm changes so keep an eye on those stats! Which brings me to the next point …
Analyze your success
While making sure the basics of Pinterest Marketing are covered, simply throwing things at the wall hoping they’ll stick isn’t going to be very helpful. The key to successful and profitable marketing on Pinterest is analysing your stats and metrics. While you can use Pinterest Analytics for a general overview, I spend most of my time looking at the most recent pins that have gone out individually.
I like to look for commonalities between which pins performed well and which fell flat. Perhaps there was a specific topic that’s trending, or I see that all of the videos instantly get more impressions than static (currently happening), or perhaps every time I pin a certain template design it does better than the others.
Test out strategies, watch and be patient, analyse the results and adjust as you’re going. This is the most important part! I have wedding photographer clients who are all in the exact same niche and they all have completely different strategies. Some pin 5 times a day while others pin 12 times a day. There isn’t a secret formula.
Have consistent content
My last tip would be to make sure you have enough content to work with. So many business only have a few products on their website and expect to make thousands of dollars on Pinterest. Pinterest values regular new links and content on their platform. If you constantly cycle through the same 10 links over and over again, you aren’t going to experience success.
Not looking to add more products to your website? Supplement your content with blog posts. Pinterest users love free, valuable information and its the perfect solutions for warming up your audience before they purchase.
Hello, I'm Megan!
An introvert at heart, Pinterest is the perfect platform for me. Simply posting your content using the right marketing strategies gets you an abundance of website traffic? No engagement or ‘showing up’ needed?
Who wouldn’t want to use this powerhouse of a platform …
