The BEST Advice for Using Affiliate Links on Pinterest

Here is the best advice for using affiliate links on Pinterest from across the web to grow your blogging income. Do you have a strategy to earn?

One of the income streams bloggers tend to favor in recent years is affiliate marketing because it can drastically increase earnings! That being said, just adding a large number of affiliate links to the world’s favorite pin board will likely yield less sales than you’d think.

It’s not about quantity with affiliate links on Pinterest. Quality sells.

There are affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy.

Disclosure on Pinterest

Raised by an attorney, you know I’ll never steer you wrong when it comes to disclosures. I have personally emailed the FTC to clarify terminology I should be using.

NO. AFFILIATE. SALE. is good enough to risk being named in a lawsuit (with a company or individually, when they get around to that). 

Disclosures that will NOT work on Pinterest:

1. aff – won’t technically work anywhere, according to the FTC
2. afflink – same as above, complete bunk
3. affiliate – Are your eyebrows raised? They were for me. The FTC requires that the reader understands the compensated relationship. Regardless of what we bloggers believe, not everyone knows what “affiliate” entails.

Disclosures Which Will 100% Work on Pinterest:

1. ad
2. affiliate ad
3. advertisement

Best All-Around Articles for Using Affiliate Links on Pinterest

How To Earn Using Affiliate Links on Pinterest

Ahem… I wrote an article on how to use affiliate links on Pinterest. It’s pretty good if I say so myself.

In the article, I talk about the most effective ways to actually make SALES using affiliate links on Pinterest. Things like:

1. go slow
2. take your own pictures, if possible (cover your rear legally and it’s more personable)
3. write {very} compelling copy – you only have a small amount of space here
4. disclose (properly)
5. promote

Read the full article if you missed it, set up your strategy, and start earning by using affiliate links on Pinterest!

Pinterest doesn’t like shortened links (oh, the tragedy), so you need to pin the actual link. Yes, even that looooooong, ugly one from the affiliate networks. #sadtrombone

For Decor, DIY, and Craft Bloggers (from a Top Earner)!

It’s no secret that I researched many courses on affiliate marketing in my time online. The only one I promote is Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers. In this article on how to use product affiliate links on Pinterest, you’ll get advice from the author of that training on warnings for using affiliate links on Pinterest. Buuuuut, she doesn’t stop there. She doles out tips on:

• how to pin (the screens to select)
• creating boards to showcase affiliates on Pinterest
• how to maximize shopping guides already on your blog!

Pinning Affiliate Links on Pinterest and Promotion

If you don’t know how to physically pin something you don’t source from a website, this article tells you. However, in my opinion, the better read is the strategy article the same author wrote for Social Media Examiner on affiliate use on Pinterest.

In this second article, the author details using promoted pins to expose more pinners to your affiliate links. We can spend money to make money, right?

Working Smart – Use What You’ve Got

I’m a big fan of the “use what you’ve got” strategy. And this article on learning how to best utilize Pinterest for affiliate income proposes a blogger develop a testing system to see which of their proposed strategies you should employ. Should you:

• pin new affiliate links on Pinterest?
• use what you’ve got and change the URL for popular pins on Pinterest?
• mix it up and use both?

I’ve still not yet implemented this strategy. Have you changed an existing pin’s URL to reflect an affiliate link? I’d love to hear any success stories (or the opposite) you have with this strategy!

Summary

Using these articles, any blogger can create a strategy to begin successfully using affiliate links on Pinterest to increase their blogging income. After pinning this to your favorite Pinterest blogging board, what is your next step? What are you doing to sell affiliates on the big pin board in the sky?