If you see Pinterest as an irrelevant and invaluable niche platform for bloggers, you should reconsider. It’s possible to make money on a Pinterest account with the right advertising approach and support. In some cases, you have to spend money to make money. In other cases, you can make money for free! Here’s everything you need to know.
Pinterest is a social media platform that functions as a visual discovery engine by using highly aesthetic images. The most popular categories on Pinterest include home decor, weddings, beauty, crafts, design, fashion, cooking, and holidays. Pinterest users come to the platform looking for ideas and inspiration that fall into those main topics.
From there, users take the information from the platform and incorporate it into their own lives. As a result, Pinterest is a very actionable platform since pinners are actively looking for information and guidance rather than aimlessly scrolling through updates from family members and friends.
Now that you know more about how to use Pinterest and how it works, you’re probably wondering who uses the platform. Here’s what you need to know about who uses Pinterest.
Pinterest mainly caters to Millennials between the ages of 25 and 40. In February 2021, 32% of U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 29 used Pinterest, 34% between the ages of 30 and 49, 38% between 50 and 64, and 18% over the age of 65. The median age of Pinterest users is 40, but most active users on the platform are under the age of 40.
Pinterest also mainly caters to women as users on the platform overwhelmingly identify as female. In March 2021, 78.1% of Pinterest users identified as female, and only 21.9% identified as male.
In addition to age and gender, Pinterest users fall into a few other key demographic categories:
The beauty of Pinterest is in its simplicity. Other apps try to do too much — Pinterest is not one of them. Pinterest knows its space and focuses on what it does well. So how does it work?
Pinterest is based around “pins,” which are essentially bookmarks that allow users to save appealing content. These days, Pinterest graphics can be either photos or short video clips. When you first launch Pinterest, you’re taken to the home page of your Pinterest profile, including a collection of tailored pins based on things you’ve pinned in the past.
You can also navigate to the “search” page, where you can search for pins based on your interest. For example, you can search for master bedroom decor ideas, Thanksgiving recipe ideas, or wedding dresses. When you find a pin you like — either on the home page or through a specific search — you can save these pins to “boards.”
Pinterest boards can either be private or public. You can name and organize them as you like. For instance, you might want to create a “Home” board, a “Food” board, a “Beauty” board, or a “Wedding” board, and group boards are another option. If you don’t want to search through all your different boards manually, you can use the search feature at the top of the page to quickly locate the pin you’re looking for.
Finally, there’s a “Create” tab where you can create your own pin or board. If you want to create your own pin, you will need to upload the visual in a photo or video format. From there, you will need to give your pin a title, a short pin description, and a destination website where users can learn more information about the pin and learn how to achieve the look or recipe for themselves!
Based on what we’ve covered about Pinterest so far, you might be wondering if it’s even possible for you to make money on a so-called “visual discovery engine.” And while we understand your skepticism, we also need to point out a few key points about Pinterest that contribute to its money-making capability:
The most obvious way to make money on Pinterest is through paid advertising to drive traffic. Paid advertising on Pinterest is different from other platforms, so here’s what you need to know so that you can make money on this exciting platform:
Even though we’ve already covered some of the strengths and benefits of the Pinterest platform, this is an area worth diving into so that you can gain a better understanding of everything the platform has to offer to a beginner:
Pinterest offers three different advertising goals to choose from when building your campaign: building brand awareness, boosting engagement, and increasing web traffic. Here’s what you need to know about each goal so that you can select the right one for your brand:
Once you have decided on the right advertising goal for your campaign, you need to choose the right advertising format. Pinterest strategies include five different templates to choose from: image ads, video ads, shopping ads, carousel ads, and collection ads. Here’s a breakdown of each ad type:
The old saying “you have to spend money to make money” definitely reigns true on Pinterest. The good news is that compared to other platforms, advertising on Pinterest is quite cost-effective. And while it’s hard to provide a specific estimate since costs vary based on your ad goal, format, placement, keyword, and bidding strategy, here are some numbers to give you a better idea of what it costs to advertise on this platform:
These ranges are quite large, so keyword research is important to identify the best and most cost-effective keywords for your advertising strategy.
If you want to get the most bang for your buck on Pinterest, then you need to follow these best practices to improve the effectiveness of your paid advertising campaign for your own products:
If you’re not ready to get into paid advertising right away, here are five other ways that you can make money on Pinterest:
For starters, you can connect Pinterest with your blog. While Pinterest users are looking to shop, they’re also looking to learn. If you already have a blog associated with your business, then connecting the two should be straightforward.
On the other hand, if you don’t yet have a blog, this is the perfect opportunity to start one! Starting a business blog isn’t just beneficial for Pinterest traffic and advertising; it’s also beneficial for search engine optimization (SEO) through relevant keywords.
So if you’re a food-related company, you could start a blog on your website by writing about your favorite recipes. From there, you can create pins on Pinterest with photos of these recipes that link directly back to the blog post telling people how to make the recipe. Users on Pinterest will then come across your pins, and your blog or website on the platform, and your blog content will show up on Google.
Another way to make money on Pinterest involves using affiliate marketing — a form of influencer marketing perfect for this platform. With affiliate marketing, a business provides individuals with unique affiliate links that they then insert into posts or pins. Pinterest users then see these pins with these links and use them to make a purchase.
Since these links are unique, they are trackable — so you can see which affiliates are driving business for your brand. You can then pay them accordingly for their efforts and results.
If you’re still trying to figure out Pinterest, you may want to consider partnering with other brands so that you can help each other make money through a mutually beneficial relationship. Some of the best brand partnerships are with brands that offer complementary products. For instance, say that you’re a food-related brand offering organic meal service with healthy recipes.
You could partner with a cooking utensil brand that offers pots, pans, spatulas, etc., and work together to create content that’s appealing to your target audience. You will both need to agree on the concept of the pin, the photography, the brand placement, and the pin’s offer — if any.
One easy way that you can make money on Pinterest is to make your pins shoppable. The best thing about this method is that it doesn’t cost you anything — all you need is a Pinterest business account. From there, you can post content that shows off your products.
You then tag each item with a link to the product on your website so that users can “shop the look.” For instance, if you’re a clothing brand, you can post an image and link to the top, bottoms, and shoes for a completely shoppable pin.
Additionally, you can integrate your Shopify with your Pinterest profile. Among other features, this allows users to click directly on Pinterest images that link to your Shopify shop.
Perhaps the best way to make money on Pinterest is to work with a specialized Pinterest marketing agency. An agency like MuteSix can help guide you through advertising on this platform — helping you with creative development, ad placement, targeting, and so much more.
With MuteSix, you’re not just limited to Pinterest. MuteSix can help you advertise on countless different platforms ranging from Facebook to Instagram, TikTok to Snapchat, email to SMS, and everything in between.
Now it’s time to cash in on everything you’ve learned and start making money on Pinterest! If you need help along the way, feel free to reach out to the marketing experts at MuteSix for a complimentary consultation, where we’ll show you how we can take advantage of this platform to grow your brand and your profits.
Sources:
To Convert More Customers, Focus on Brand Awareness | Forbes
How to Make Money On Pinterest In 2021 | Millennial Money Man