How to Make Money on Pinterest and Thrive on the Platform

Pinterest is where people go to discover inspiration and try out new things. Pinterest’s one of the top 4 social media platforms in the US. 31% of millennials in the UK with a household income of £100K are on Pinterest. Both of these factors make Pinterest a great place to make money for users like you and me.

Now, there are many ways to make money on Pinterest, being an individual creator, a merchant, or a business. Let’s take a quick look at the ways in which you can earn on this visually rich platform:

Affiliate Marketing

Pinterest, being a visual-first platform, is an ideal choice for affiliate marketing. All you need is a Pinterest business account, eye-catching graphics paired with interesting descriptions, and affiliate links.

It isn’t a platform for doom-scrolling or keeping up with the others! It’s where people come to discover new ideas, try new things, and get inspiration.

Pick a niche, pick affiliate programs/networks that you’ll be part of, and start pinning posts with genuine recommendations. Even you can claim a website on Pinterest and direct people to buying guides.

When you’re curating affiliate-friendly content, ensure to give importance to Pinterest SEO. Add keyword-optimized descriptions, alt text, and pin titles. Don’t engage in the practice of link cloaking or shortening links, and you’re good to go!

Become a Pinterest Virtual Assistant

Are you familiar with how Pinterest works? Do you know your way around Pinterest? If yes, you can get paid by helping other people pin images and ideas.

As a Pinterest virtual assistant, you’ll help maintain the accounts of bloggers, businesses, and creators. Now, you might wonder why will businesses and e-commerce shops hire Pinterest virtual assistants.

Two reasons, really! First off, most businesses don’t have time to maintain their accounts. Second off, most businesses haven’t tapped the full potential of Pinterest because they’re looking for someone who knows the platform better than they do. That’s where Pinterest VAs go in.

What tasks will you be expected to do as a Pinterest virtual assistant?

• Design pins
• Schedule posts
• Auditing accounts
• SEO optimizing accounts, boards & pins
• Interact with Pinners

Getting started might be difficult. But marketing your services on social media platforms might make it easier. Also, go up on gig platforms and advertise your services. Once you crack one client, you’ll find your way to the lot.

Sell Digital Products on Pinterest

Did you know you can set up shop on Pinterest? In fact, you can upload your products directly and start sorting them into product groups.

You can also link your Shopify shop or other third-party integrations. And start promoting via pins, idea pins, and video content.

Furthermore, you can also create product catalogs and product feeds using third-party integrations. Post that, you can create shopping ads, tag products on your pins, and update merchant details. Follow these steps:

• Have your catalogs ready. For this, check whether you’re in a region where this is supported by Pinterest
• Add your data source(s) in UTF-8 format to feature your products on Pinterest
• Create product groups by organizing similar products together. You can sort them together by availability, condition, custom label, gender, item ID, item group ID, price, or product type
• Promote product groups via shopping ads and multi-image ads. You can also try dynamic retargeting to encourage previous visitors to interact with your products
• Track the performance of your shopping ads, course-correct, and optimize them better

Drive Traffic to Your Blog or E-commerce Website

As businesses on Pinterest, you get the chance to claim your website and redirect traffic there. Social media success is all about cross-promoting.

So, add Pinterest to your blog, and redirect Pinners and your followers to your blog or e-commerce website.

Likewise, you can utilize these website visits to encourage them to purchase your products and services. That can open doors for direct shopping, affiliate marketing, course sales, or anything you can envision really!

Apply for the Pinterest Creator Fund

It’s the world of creators and influencer marketing. While all brands rely on creators to talk up their brand, social media platforms rely on influencers to produce new and original content.

Pinterest’s no different in that regard. So, to encourage creators to keep producing engaging content, it released a creator fund in 2021.

It’s a practice that encourages the growth and success of underrepresented creators who have a lot of creative potential. Pinterest believes in providing financial and educational support to its cohort of creators to keep them inspired.

Workshops are also organized to provide hands-on training to creators, in addition to financial support. Creators have received a $25K grant in cash and ad credits. While the cycle is closed for now, you can take a look at future opportunities by signing up for their creator newsletter.

Consider Paid Partnership Deals

If you’re looking to make money on Pinterest, you know brand deals are a solid way to get the big bucks! After all, even Pinterest wants you to. Anyway, here are the steps to create a sponsored post on Pinterest and make money:

• Publish engaging content that makes brands contact you for partnerships and deals
• You can also connect with brands on Pinterest or anywhere else
• Finalize terms of the paid partnership: whether it’ll be a monetary exchange, and if so, what are the payment terms and conditions
• Have your eye-grabbing image/video pin ready for publishing, and create a pin
• Add the paid partnership label, and tag the brand you’re partnering with

Please note that the paid partnership label is only available on idea pins for now and can be accessed through the mobile app.

Join the Verified Merchant Program

While we have discussed the benefits of claiming your website and driving pinners to your own blog, there’s another exclusive program on Pinterest that can help you thrive. Made for merchants and businesses who have set up shop on the platform or would like to, Verified Merchant Program (VMP) helps you sell as a verified seller. Here’s what it means:

• When you’re verified, your pins might appear organically when people are looking for products/services
• You’ll have a blue tick mark, meaning you’re verified and legit
• You’ll be eligible to distribute your products within Pinterest without limitations
• Likewise, you’ll be able to showcase price and product information on all your product pins

Now that you know what VMP benefits entail, you must also know that verified merchants see a 17% higher conversion rate than others. You need to be eligible for this program, and the eligibility criteria go something like this:

• Your account must be at least 3 months old, and your business website must be 13 months old
• Image, the description must be defined in your Pinterest profile
• The products or services you sell must be aligned with Pinterest merchant guidelines

To have better chances at being a verified merchant, have your catalogs uploaded and connect your sources. Please note that ill practices can have you suspended from Pinterest.

Moreover, the VMP program is only available in 11 countries now:  Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

Make Your Pins Shoppable

Earlier, Pinterest had a creator rewards program to encourage creators to produce original content and monetize their efforts. However, it discontinued the program in November 2022 to help creators focus on other monetization channels, like making their pins shoppable.

Beneficial for influencers, individual creators, and businesses, you’ll be able to tag products directly in your pins. This doesn’t require you to set up shop.

You can just recommend any product you want to your user base. Whether they’re affiliate links or a part of your brand deals depends entirely on you.

Pinterest’s tagging feature enables users to speed up purchases.

Sell Pinterest Templates

If you would rather not sell other products and services but your own, Pinterest templates are a great way to make money on Pinterest. Make templates that work for creators and businesses, and see the magic!

To give you an idea, Pinterest templates are nothing but pins that are easily customizable. They speed up pin creation time and help others save time. Once you create templates using free resources and add some generic customizable blocks, you’ll be ready to sell them.

You can use any online marketplace to sell them or even approach brands on Pinterest with your template bundle.

How to boost your earnings on Pinterest: Steps to follow

If you want to make money on Pinterest as a creator or a business, there are a few things you need to do before you can start earning:

Set up a business profile

Applicable to influencers and businesses, a Pinterest business profile is a necessity for making money on Pinterest. You can either set up a new business account or turn your private profile into a business one. Here’s how to set up a new business account from scratch:

• Go to https://www.pinterest.com/business/create/
• Enter your email, DOB, and password
• Click on Create Account
• Once done, you can set up a profile picture, a rich description and start pinning

If you have a personal Pinterest account but want to convert it to a business one, follow the steps below:

• Log in to your personal Pinterest account
• Go to Settings > Account Management
• Next, scroll to Account Changes > Convert to a business account
• Click on Convert account
• You’ll be shown another window where you’ll see what you’re getting access to
• Click on Upgrade at the bottom, and you’re good to go!

Once done, you’ll have access to business tools like ads, analytics, and audience insights.

Optimize your Pinterest profile

If you want to make money on Pinterest, you need to have a profile that’s optimized for Pinterest SEO. No matter which method you choose to earn on the platform, you need a profile that helps build trust and increases chances of discoverability and conversions.

• You can start by adding a profile image, preferably a closeup, or your brand logo
• You can also add a cover image to denote what your profile’s all about. Have a tagline? This is the place to show it
• Next comes the description. Add a description within 100 – 500 words, and ensure that you’re using popular keywords to get discovered
• Add your pronouns, add a username by which you want to be looked up on the platform
• You can claim your website to drive traffic to your blog/website
• You can also add an address, contact details (email & phone), and a retail store location

Optimize your pins

This is just about optimizing/setting up your profile. The real task begins when you start curating posts, creating boards, and pinning content. Here’s what’s non-negotiable:

• Create boards with names that are keyword optimized and easy to search for
• Add board descriptions that help convey what to expect from the board
• As for pins, add pin titles that are simple search queries
• Pin descriptions should be no less than 100 characters, should define the purpose of the pin, and also have some high-volume keywords
• Don’t forget to add alt texts to your images
• You can choose to prioritize local SEO in your Pinterest boards and pins if you’ll be reaching out to a local audience
• As for images, using brand images is the best. But, using high-quality stock-free images is also a suitable option

Stay in the know of Pinterest’s Creative best practices

For creators and businesses, Pinterest has outlined certain requirements it wants them to follow.

• Try to have images with good lighting, high-resolution assets, and great framing
• Include CTAs and encourage your audience to save and follow
• Make your pins more discoverable by adding context in the text/description section
• Publish content that’s original and new consistently
• Pick images in the 2:3 aspect ratio
• Use your logo on pins for branding, but don’t make it too over the top
• Keep your text overlay description readable and suited for a mobile-first audience
• When adding a link, check whether it’s working; and whether it loads quickly
• For videos, start strong with a hook, and don’t make videos that exceed 15 seconds
• Don’t rely solely on audio for video; also have text captions
• Choose a good cover image, and don’t forget to optimize your pin description
• Try to follow the specs outlined by Pinterest for the best results

Pin it!

Pinterest is a great platform to earn money via affiliate marketing, paid partnerships, verified merchant programs, or selling templates. You can either decide one way or try out a mix of a few ways to boost your earnings.

For example, you can put out sponsored content/brand deals, make your product pins shoppable by adding products, and do affiliate marketing on Pinterest by pinning for profit. Or, handle accounts of brands and businesses as a Pinterest virtual assistant to earn from multiple clients at once.

Stay updated with the Pinterest landscape by checking predictions it releases every year. Always be in the know-how of new features Pinterest’s releasing so that you can accelerate your earning possibilities.