Blueprint For Making SERIOUS Money On Pinterest Without A Blog (2024)

So you want to know how to make money on Pinterest without a blog?

Well, It may excite you to know there are plenty of creative ways to get paid to pin, and that don’t require you to have a website.

I, too, got started pinning on Pinterest before I became a blogger. Back then, it wasn’t as easy as it is now. And I don’t just say that for the sake of it.

These days, Pinterest is more welcoming of ALL types of creators, not just bloggers.

So if you’re a complete beginner at Pinterest or have no following and no blog, then this guide will help you quickly and safely monetize on the platform.

Before you get lost in this detailed post on making money on Pinterest, **PIN THE IMAGE** so you can come back to it again!

Why Pinterest?

Simply put, people use Pinterest to shop.

And the stats back this up.

According to Pinterest, “People on Pinterest tend to buy more, more often…they put more items in their shopping carts. And they spend nearly 80% more in retail than people off Pinterest.”

Pinners don’t just come to get inspired by ideas on the platform, they also act on those ideas.

If you want to be on the receiving end of those sales, then you need to be on Pinterest.

Make Money on Pinterest with NO Blog

A profitable method to make money on Pinterest that requires little to no startup cost is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry. And the crazy thing is that nearly everyone is doing it, but only a small percentage of people are actually getting paid for it. That’s because not everyone is aware this industry even exists, much less that they can make money doing this. But that all changes today.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

The idea behind affiliate marketing is that you recommend someone else’s product or service, and you get a cut of the sale when someone purchases due to your marketing efforts.

Well known companies such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Sephora all have affiliate programs that pay you to recommend their products. They pay you a percentage of the sale when someone purchases with your uniquely assigned affiliate link.

What is an Affiliate Link?

An affiliate link is simply a way affiliate programs track and give credit to the person who made the sale.

Here for example is my uniquely assigned affiliate link for a book I promote, DotCom Secrets.

Within the link is my affiliate tracking ID – ‘558129.’ This lets the affiliate program know to credit the sale to me when someone purchases this book with my link.

Since affiliate marketing is becoming a more prevalent way to earn money on Pinterest, I’ll focus on this method of making money on Pinterest without a blog.

3 Ways to Start Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

These three methods are all viable ways to make money doing Pinterest affiliate marketing.

• Add Affiliate Links to Idea Pins

• Beacons Link in Bio Affiliate Shopping Page

• Create an Affiliate Bridge Funnel

Let's take a dive into each of these methods.

Add Affiliate Links to Idea Pins

Idea Pins are the evolution of Pinterest Story pins.

They are multi-page video pins that can be stitched together to create a full story, and are often considered similar to Instagram reels. Though with Idea Pins, you can create much longer video stories up to 20 minutes in length.

The added benefit to creating pins in this format is you can add affiliate links directly to Idea Pins through a feature called product tagging or shoppable pins. If you’re great at making short product video reels, then this is a method to consider when it comes to making affiliate sales on Pinterest.

In order to get started, you must be signed up with a Pinterest Business account. If not, then this option will not be open to you.

(But stick around because the next two methods can be done with a personal account!)

How it works is you add your affiliate link right onto the video, where viewers can easily see it and click to the product from the video.

Pinterest has a built in affiliate disclosure that you can toggle ‘on’ and will display a ‘sponsored products’ tag underneath the video. If you want to see this in action, then here’s an Idea pin I created with my Amazon Associates affiliate link tagged on the video.

One of the downsides to doing affiliate marketing this way is that not all affiliate programs are supported on Pinterest Idea Pins. You can read all about it, as well as how to get started in my post on How to Pin Affiliate Links on Idea Pins.

Want to create inspiring and engaging Idea Pins that get re-pinned over and over again? Then check out my friend Nadalie’s Pinterest Idea Pin Starter Kit course here. At checkout use promo code: PILAR25 for an additional 25% off!

Beacons Link in Bio Affiliate Shopping Page

This next method is one of the newest and most up-to-date ways to earn money doing affiliate marketing on Pinterest. Best of all, it doesn’t require you to have a Pinterest Business account. So it’s a strategy that anyone can use!

The premise behind this is you use a one page creator hub, such as a Beacons.ai link, to house all your affiliate links. Creators on TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest are placing these links in their profile bio’s, where one would normally place their blog link.

(Hence, why they are commonly referred to as a ‘link in bio’ page.)

These links have gained in popularity over recent months, and they are much more prevalent now on Pinterest than they were in prior years.

Even though I have my blog linked to my Pinterest account, I still use a Beacons.ai link for my other social media accounts.

On my Beacons.ai link in bio page, I link to many of my top affiliate offers. Additionally, I use the page to share my YouTube channel, affiliate blog, as well as point to my other social media handles.

I recorded a YouTube video specifically showing you how to do Pinterest affiliate marketing with a Beacons.ai link. You can watch the video tutorial on YouTube.

Create an Affiliate Bridge Funnel

This third method is how I got started doing affiliate marketing on Pinterest prior to having a blog. It's not the easiest strategy on the list, but it will increase your chances of making high ticket affiliate sales. So if you plan to promote $100 – $5,000 affiliate offers on Pinterest, then I would suggest taking this route.

An affiliate bridge page is a simple funnel that’s sole purpose is to drive traffic to another site. In our case, it’s to an affiliate offer. This affiliate funnel also bridges the gap between you and the affiliate offer, thus increasing your chances of making an affiliate sale.

Done-For-You Classic Affiliate Bridge Funnel

The classic Affiliate Bridge Funnel looks something like this:

Squeeze Page >> Bridge Page >> Next Funnel

In this classic rendition, you entice a prospect to give you their email address in exchange for an irresistible freebie offer.

Email marketing is one of the easiest ways to earn passive income with affiliate marketing. Here’s a FREE Guide to show you how to get started.

The Squeeze Page

Let’s say for example you signed up to be an affiliate for a frozen meals subscription program such as FreezeEasy. One way in which you can entice someone to opt-in to your Affiliate Marketing Funnel is to offer a free Paleo Diet Recipes e-book. This would be your ‘Squeeze Page.’

The Affiliate Bridge Page

Once the prospect enters their email address, they're taken to your ‘Affiliate Bridge Page.’

This is where you introduce yourself via a short video, or simply a paragraph about yourself. Share on this page why you are recommending a certain affiliate product that goes hand-in-hand with the freebie you just gave them.

Here’s just a quick example:

“Hi! My name is Pilar. I’m glad you took me up on the 25 Free Paleo Recipes for Weight loss! Two years ago, I lost 30lbs with these exact recipes and I know they’ll help you too! As much as I love these recipes, it was always a challenge to cook the delicious meals on weeknights after an exhausting day at work.

That’s when I discovered MyFreezeEasy! They have Freezer Friendly Paleo Meal Recipes that save me tons of prep time and help me stay on track with my weight loss journey! They take all the guesswork out by also providing me with shopping lists for my paleo freezer meals as well as instructional videos on how to package and cook them. I invite you to check them out and take them for a free test drive today. Simply click the button below and you’ll get access to your Free Freezer Meal Plan!“

The Next Funnel

Now that you’ve bridged the gap between your prospect and the affiliate offer, you then send them over to the actual affiliate offer. A great affiliate program generally has a sales funnel system in place that will make the sale on your behalf.

If you want the exact affiliate bridge funnel mentioned in the above example, then you can download the done-for-you sales funnel here. You’ll have 14 days to take it for a test drive absolutely free.

How do Beginners Make Money on Pinterest?

Now before you start any of the methods mentioned above, make sure you follow the tips in this next section. It'll help you optimize your profile for traffic and sales.

In order to profitably do affiliate marketing on Pinterest, you’ll need to decide on an affiliate marketing niche, or area of focus to concentrate your efforts on.

Decide on a niche, and then follow these next steps to expedite your success on Pinterest!

1. Choose a Niche

A niche is a specialized segment of a particular market. For example, within the Health and Wellness industry are smaller subsets of specialized interests such as paleo diets, muscle building for men, herbalists, acupuncturists…you get the idea.

Best Niches for Pinterest Marketing

Having a defined niche on Pinterest will help you attract a targeted audience of buyers interested in purchasing your affiliate products. This targeted traffic is one huge reason I’ve been able to consistently make affiliate sales on Pinterest.

You may be wondering, “Well which niche should I choose?”

So that you’re not racking your brain too much on this, I’m going to help you narrow this list down a bit.

First, you want to consider a niche that will fit well into Pinterest’s User Base. Below are some useful Pinterest statistics to help you with this.

Pinterest Demographics

• Woman make up more than 60% of Pinterest’s global audience

• Male Pinners and Gen Z Pinners are up 40% year over year.

• 45% of people in the US with a household income over $100k are on Pinterest.

• US Millennial Pinners are up 35% year over year.

• People who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey, compared to other social media platforms.

All of the above suggests that Pinterest has cemented itself as a product discovery platform for all ages.

So even though TikTok and other social platforms are a popular source of entertainment, Pinterest is where people come specifically to discover new brands and make purchasing decisions.

Furthermore, it’s good to note that Pinterest users tend to be interested in the same topics year after year. So when considering a niche to get into, it would be a good idea to choose a niche within these popular Pinterest Categories below.

Popular Pinterest Categories

• Fashion

• Home Decor

• Health and Wellness

• Beauty

• Food and Drinks

• Travel

This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise since most of what we as humans tend to be interested in is Health, Wealth and Relationships. And one could reasonably argue that all the above mentioned popular Pinterest categories could fit into those three areas of interest.

For example, some of us go to the gym so we can look and feel great not only for ourselves, but for our partners. Fitness also strengthens our mental well being and overall health.

So now it’s time to choose.

Decide on a niche that fits into the overall outline above AND that interests you. If you’re going to make money on Pinterest, you’ll need to stay consistent with pinning on the platform. And the best way to start and stay motivated is to choose a niche that interests you.

If you’re still finding it tough to decide on a niche, then take a look at the Pinterest Predicts report. It’s a glimpse into the future of what Pinterest believes will be the trend within each audience and category for the upcoming year.

Next up, you’ll need to set-up a Pinterest Business account if you don’t already have one. Thankfully, this is an easy and straightforward process.

2. Set-up a Pinterest Business Account

Create a log-in and password and follow the simple prompts that Pinterest gives you to open your account.

I would highly recommend upgrading to a Pinterest business account.

This type of account will open a range of other monetization features to you, including being invited into the Pinterest Creator Rewards program. It’ll also give you access to a wider range of analytics to help drive better marketing decisions and rank your pins higher on Pinterest.

While you do not need a business account for 2 of the 3 affiliate marketing methods mentioned here, it would be helpful to have one. There’s so much more you can do with a professional account versus not having one.

Now, it’s time to optimize your new account in order to get your pins and profile discovered on Pinterest.

3. Optimize with Pinterest SEO

In order to get your affiliate links found on Pinterest, you’ll want to conduct keyword research first and have this ready for the next steps.Doing this upfront work will set you up for success with Pinterest affiliate marketing.

As a search engine, Pinterest curates its feed based on searches by its users, and pulls key terms from these searches to relevant pins from content creators.

The best place to look for relevant keywords in your niche is to look no further than Pinterest’s own Guided Search Tool.

Simply enter a phrase associated with your niche into the search tool, and Pinterest will tell you what the most popular searches are right now in your niche.

In the example above, I have added the keywords ‘affiliate marketing,’ which is relevant to my niche, into the guided search tool.

The keyword phrases populated underneath the search bar, starting from left to right, are in order of the most popular terms being searched for right now.

With this in mind, Your keyword terms would be:

‘Affiliate Marketing for Beginners’

‘Affiliate Marketing Reels’

‘Affiliate Marketing Quotes’

‘Affiliate Marketing Strategy’

‘Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest’……and so on and so forth.

Where to Add Pinterest SEO Keywords:

1. Pinterest Username

2. Your Display Name

3. Your About Section

4. Pinterest Board Title

5. Pinterest Board Description

Now that you know how to find keywords and the 6 places to add these, let’s go over creating Pinterest boards.

4. Create Pinterest Boards

Each Pinterest board you create should be related to a theme or topic that your ideal audience would be interested in.

Let’s take for example, the I Heart Umami Pinterest Account to get an idea of the kind of niche specific boards to create.

This particular account is all about healthy asian-inspired meals including: paleo, low-carb, Whole30 and Keto recipes. Only people interested in this niche specific healthy living would be inclined to follow I Heart Umami.

The I Heart Umami boards have SEO friendly names and are well organized by themes such as: Easy Paleo Meal Prep Recipes, Healthy Asian Dinner Recipes, Whole30 Breakfast Recipes, Paleo Holiday Recipes, and Paleo-Gluten Free Healthy Stir-Fry Recipes.

But what’s even better, is that Pinterest users can choose to only follow the boards that interest them the most. This makes Pinterest Boards a perfect way to drive a highly targeted audience to your niche affiliate offers!

Next up, you’ll need to build an audience of Pinterest Followers.

5. Get Followers on Pinterest Fast

When you’re starting at ‘zero’ it can feel like an uphill battle getting that initial momentum going. If you have no followers, then no one will see your pins and you’ll make no affiliate sales.

I remember that feeling when I started my first online business, which was an Amazon FBA E-commerce business. I started with no following and no customers, and it snowballed into a business that sold millions of dollars worth of trending private label products.

So I get it. But just remember, we all start at zero. If you work on building your new account each day, then you’ll begin to see progress.

How to Quickly Get Pinterest followers:

1. Be an Active Participant on the Pinterest Platform – Re-Pin content from similar niche specific Pinners, and comment on and follow relevant boards. This will let Pinterest better understand what your profile and business are all about, so they can show your content to the right audience.

2. Follow Your Competitor’s Followers – This simple hack will allow you to tap into an audience that has already shown interest in your niche. If they followed a competitor, then they may be interested in following you as well.

3. Use Proper Pinterest SEO – We mentioned this already, but it's worth repeating here. SEO is how you get the right audience to organically find you in the Pinterest search results.

4. Join Pinterest Related FB Groups – There are plenty of groups on Facebook™ geared to helping Pinterest Pinners grow on the platform. Leverage these groups to share your profile and find new Pinterest followers.

5. Use a Pin Scheduler – Tailwind is a Pinterest approved tool that will automate the tedious task of pinning for you. It’s Tailwind insights feature will help you schedule pins based on optimal times your audience is online. Plus, you’ll be able to tap into Tailwind Communities and truly expedite your Pinterest growth!

6. Join Affiliate Programs for Pinterest Marketing

Now that you’ve started to build an audience on Pinterest, you'll want to join affiliate programs that cater to the needs and wants of your new followers.

Below, I’ll break down the different types of affiliate programs to promote in your chosen niche. Choose one or a mix of these to promote on Pinterest.

Affiliate Networks

‘An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. It allows website publishers to more easily find and participate in affiliate programs which are suitable for their website (and thus generate income from those programs), and allows websites offering affiliate programs (typically online merchants) to reach a larger audience by promoting their affiliate programs to all of the publishers participating in the affiliate network.’ – Wikipedia

Examples of Affiliate Networks include: Shareasale, Cj Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction), Awin, and ClickBank. You’ll be able to find an endless amount of affiliate programs to promote using these networks.

At the moment, I personally do not use affiliate networks to find programs to promote. That’s not to say I won’t be using these in the future.

(The majority of the programs I affiliate for, I'm also a customer of that business. Some of these include debit card affiliate programs, refer-a-friend app programs, online courses and business software tools affiliate programs.)

Pay Per Lead

What is Pay Per Lead?

Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs offer a commission based on a certain action taken by the prospect. With these programs you can earn a commission each time a new lead is acquired. A new lead can be acquired by someone simply opting into an email list, or signing up for a free trial to a software program.

This is also often times referred to as a Pay-Per-Action paying model. While these tend to be high converting easy affiliate programs, it will take a lot of volume to actually make serious money with this. That’s because many of these pay per action programs offer between $1 – $10 per acquired lead.

But definitely don’t discount this type of program. I've earned over $4,100 in referral money with my Ibotta app referral code link. It's one of my favorite programs to promote. The popular grocery savings app will pay you $10 per lead who downloads the app and snaps their first grocery receipt

Recurring Affiliate Programs

Recurring Affiliate Programs are one of my favorite to promote. These programs will pay you over and over again for the lifetime of that customer. Typically, you will find recurring affiliate programs for software companies that offer a monthly subscription service to their customers.

These can be companies such as email marketing software programs, sales funnels software, social media scheduling tools, web hosting, and more.

For example, a software company that charges their customers a $97/month subscription plan, where you make 40% recurring commissions, will earn you $38.80 per month for each month the customer stays with the plan.

You made the sale once, yet you get paid over and over again for it. How cool is that?

Recently, I put together a list of the 50 Best Recurring Affiliate Programs to promote. Check it out and pick one that suits your audiences the best.

How to Find More Affiliate Programs to Promote

If you need more help finding affiliate programs to promote, the simplest thing to do is to use the Google search bar to find them. Simply enter ‘your niche’ + affiliate program, and browse thru the search results.

Here’s an example of the My FreezEasy affiliate program I found in this manner that caters to food bloggers:

7. Create Stunning Pinterest Pins

Pinterest is a visual search engine platform. So the first step in getting people to click over to your affiliate links is to create stunning pin designs that entice them to click through.

You can do this easily these days through graphic design platforms such as Canva.

The Canva platform is free to use, but also offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise. I initially had the free account which served me well, but have since upgraded to Canva Pro for access to more premium design elements.

If you’re a novice designer such as me, then this is a great platform to use. Simply choose from their stock of free images and templates to create eye-catching pin designs.

But if you really don’t have a design eye and prefer to outsource the pin design process, then you can easily find freelancers to help you using sites such as Fiverr.

Two important things to keep in mind when creating your pin designs:

1. Pinterest’s interface is portrait-oriented so vertical pins are preferred

2. Pinterest currently states that the optimal size is a 2:3 size ratio (think 1,000 x 1,500 pixels and 600 x 900 pixels)

8. Schedule Pinterest Pins

Tailwind

Tailwind is a Pinterest approved tool that will automate the tedious task of pinning for you. It’s Tailwind insights feature will help you schedule pins based on optimal times your audience is online. Plus, you’ll be able to tap into Tailwind Tribes and truly expedite your Pinterest growth!

Pinterest Scheduler

Pinterest has a free scheduling tool right within the app. So if you're just starting out, then you can try out this method first. But you won't get access to important analytics or Tailwind Communities to help drive more traffic to your pins.

Avoid This Pinterest Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Many bloggers who may not be familiar with the Pinterest Affiliate and Spam Guidelines, will often recommend that you simply grab your affiliate links and start pinning away! Ugh…Please don’t do that.

Coming from someone who’s actually done affiliate marketing on Pinterest without a blog for 8 months, I can tell you that strategy will get you NOWHERE.

As a matter of fact, it may get your affiliate links flagged on Pinterest, or even worse, your account banned completely. Here’s an example of what your audience may see on their end if you start spamming them with your affiliate links:

“Blocked link. Sorry! We blocked this link because it may lead to spam.”

And unfortunately, this is something that could have been easily avoided.

Back in May 2016, Pinterest became one of few (maybe even the only) social media platform to openly allow users to directly pin affiliate links on their site.

Affiliate marketers saw this as their golden ticket opportunity to start pinning affiliate link after affiliate link on Pinterest.

The Problem?

It ruins the experience for users of the platform and people would start to rapidly exit the social media platform in droves. And Pinterest doesn’t want that.

Soon enough, Pinterest began showing less and less pins originating from direct affiliate links, thus curtailing some of the spammy affiliate marketers.

Additionally, those pinning the same links over and over again, would be flagged as spam. And in general, affiliate programs only assign you one affiliate link per product.

Stick with the three methods I shared with you here, and you’ll stay on Pinterest’s good side!

Does Pinterest Pay Pinners?

Yes, Pinterest does directly pay Pinterest Creators, but not for affiliate marketing.

The affiliate programs will pay you commissions for sales made to their products and services. Most programs have affiliate dashboards where you can sign in and check to see how much money you've earned thus far.

Final Thoughts

I have laid out for you three strategies for how to make money on Pinterest without a blog. My hope is that this will help you make your first few affiliate sales, and that these sales will encourage you to keep seeking progress in your affiliate marketing business.

To truly hit it out of the park with Pinterest Affiliate Marketing, you want to eventually start a blog. That is where you can truly leverage all of the organic juice that Pinterest sends your way and to your affiliate links!

Ready to turn Affiliate Marketing into a Full-Time Income in 100 Days?

Grab the Affiliate Sales with Short-Form Videos course to get you there!