How to Sell Affiliate Products on Pinterest

This guest post is by Krizia of CreateProfitableVideos.com.

Since I’m not a creative entrepreneur or blogger, I’m not able to benefit from the great opportunity to sell my products on Pinterest.

I define “creative entrepreneurs or bloggers” as the jewelry designers, accessory designers, interior decorators, kitchen supply shops, and photographers who are dominating Pinterest and have seen their sales skyrocket.

I could feature some of my online training programs, coaching sessions, and service packages, but that just isn’t as sexy or interesting as many of the hottest products sold on Pinterest.

Pinterest encourages commerce on the site, and that’s a rarity among social media platforms. They make it easy for you the vendor to market a product and they also make it easy for users to find products they might be interested in buying.

So I decided to repurpose a feature that my assistant was already adding to each new video interview on my Women Entrepreneurs HQ online show. For the show, I interview successful entrepreneurs. When we feature them, I always ask for the last book they’ve read, and the book that was the most instrumental in their lives.

My assistant features those books via my Amazon affiliate link. We use those Amazon features on Pinterest, and because I’ve asked my assistant to add the price of each book, all my additions are now part of the Pinterest Gifts page—and they’re categorized by price.

This is a brilliant way for non-creative bloggers and entrepreneurs to take advantage of Pinterest’s commerce-friendly features.

I know it might sound complicated, but I can assure you that adding affiliate products to Pinterest is super-easy. I’ve removed all the guesswork for you by detailing step-by-step how you can add your own affiliate products to Pinterest to boost your affiliate commissions.

Before I get started, I want to show you where all the Gifts are featured on Pinterest, because this will give you a good idea of the power of this feature.

Where to find gifts featured on Pinterest

When you sign into your account, you’ll want to click on the Pinterest logo to land on your homepage, featuring the latest pins from people you follow. On your homepage, you’ll notice a Gift tab at the top of the Pinterest site:

When you click on the dropdown button, you can select gifts by price range, or you can click and select to view all the latest products for sale added by users:

You’ll notice that all products have price tags. This means users know the price of a product before clicking on the photo to find out more (I’ve added red arrows to show you where the price appears):

How to add your first affiliate product to Pinterest

Now, let’s take a look at how you can add your own affiliate products to Pinterest.

1. Categorize your affiliate products by creating separate boards

Right now, I have one board for my Amazon books and another board for products related to video marketing and I intend on adding more boards as I add more affiliate products.

2. Add a new board

To add a new board you’ll first need to click on the Add button at the top of your homepage.

3. Select Create a board

4. Name your board

Make sure the name is search engine friendly. It might be tempting to use a “cutesy” name, but remember that Pinterest is a search engine, and optimized boards can show up on Google search results. I’ve selected to name my board Books for Success.

How to optimize Pinterest to get more traffic and clicks to your affiliate product

6. Add your URL

Don’t forgot to always add your URL to everything you pin on Pinterest so people can find your blog. Since each additional pin contains my affiliate links, I’ve added the URL to one of my main sites in the description box.

Upload your affiliate product to a Pinterest board

7. Upload a pin

Instead of adding a pin (because you need to include your affiliate link), you’ll need to upload a pin—that is, a photo—from your computer:

8. Select the right board

You now need to select the appropriate board … in other words, the board you just created for all these affiliate products. So I’ll select the Books for Success board:

10. Add a description and URL

You now need to add a description and add the URL to where you want people to land or your affiliate link. Although you’re allowed 500 words, keep the description short and sweet because you want to make sure your affiliate link or the link to your main site shows up:

11. Point people to your blog via a URL and hide your affiliate link behind the image

In order to add your affiliate link behind the image, you’ll need to go back and edit the pin you just uploaded. You can add your affiliate link inside the description box, but if you do, you’ll want to make sure it’s “cloacked” (aka masked) or you’ll want to use the services of a link shortener like bit.ly.

If you add a long “affiliate” URL that screams “affiliate link!” it’s unlikely anyone will click on it:

12. Edit your pin

In order to add an affiliate link behind the image—and one that will be accessible every time someone clicks on the image—you’ll need to edit the pin you just uploaded. Once you click on the red Pint It button, you’ll be redirected to a page where you can edit the pin:

How to add your affiliate link to Pinterest

13. Add your link

This part’s easy: you’ll simply need to add your affiliate link inside the Link box. This will allow the image you uploaded to be fully clickable, and it’ll automatically redirect Pinterest users to any product or service you’re promoting via your affiliate link.

14. Add your product to Gifts

In order to get you product added to the Gifts page, and to get those cool little price tags featured on your pin, you simply need to add the price to the description box:

15. The price appears

The second Pinterest’s search engine recognizes you’ve added a price and the dollar sign, it will automatically add the cool price in the upper left corner of your image:

16. Within a few seconds, your new pin, containing your affiliate link, will be featured on the homepage of every one of your followers:

I’ve noticed that it’s hard to tell how long it will take for pins with price tags to appear under the Gifts category, because there are so many new additions going up all the time. That said, your pin is automatically added to the homepage of your followers!

There are quite a few little steps to adding affiliate products to our Pinterest profile, but as you can see, it’s quite easy.

In my example, I’ve used an Amazon product and I used my Amazon affiliate link, but you can use the same logic for pretty much any product. The advantage with Amazon is that you could actually include the affiliate link as it appears in the description box without putting off viewers, because everyone has come to associate Amazon with quality!

If you haven’t yet explored adding affiliate products to Pinterest, I encourage you to get started. It’s a great way for bloggers to increase sales of affiliate products, and it’s also a great way to increase the visibility of your blog among Pinterest users!

Krizia (aka Miss K), is an Entrepreneur, Video Marketing Strategist, Video Show Host, Video Blogger, Speaker and International Author! Krizia launched http://www.CreateProfitableVideos.com to help entrepreneurs create AMAZING and IMPACTFUL video messages and discover How to Use video to Attract MORE Clients, Sales and Profits!