How To Make Money on Pinterest in 2023
How To Make Money on Pinterest in 2023
When I first used Pinterest to pin my favorite home décor and DIY crafts to my boards, I had no idea that you could make money online using Pinterest. The thought never crossed my mind because I was just a normal user looking for something beautiful, relevant, helpful, and inspiring.
Where else would I have gotten the idea to make money by flipping furniture for a profit? From DIY Pinterest content creators!
Beyond all of what I just said, I soon learned that Pinterest is a search engine (NOT a social media) where users look for inspiration and solutions to their problems.
This is where making money on Pinterest becomes possible for you and I’m going to go through everything you’ll want to know about earning money with Pinterest!
HOW MUCH MONEY CAN YOU MAKE ON PINTEREST?
Your time is valuable, so is it worth your time to learn monetizing strategies to make money on Pinterest?
How would you react if I told you that you could make $20, $50, $100, or even more than $200 per day on Pinterest?
And nope, these side hustle ideas don’t require experience at all.
I personally started with absolutely no experience but eventually learned how to earn money with Pinterest during my spare time to make money online!
Overall, how would that extra cash help you? Would it help you pay off some debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, or put a bit extra toward your vacation savings fund?
I know some peeps like making quick and easy money with the best survey sites like Swagbucks because it’s fast and completely free to use. I personally like it too for the extra $20 to $50 a month!
The extra money you earn with the top online survey sites won’t be able to replace your full-time job, however, the potential income you can make with Pinterest may just surprise you – it really did surprise me!
Wherever your imagination takes you, I’m here to tell you that making money with Pinterest is possible!
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST
Pin It! This guide is fairly detailed so you may want to bookmark this page and come back to it if you can’t finish it today.
There are two popular ways to make money on Pinterest.
One way is to start a money-making blog (my top recommendation), and the other method doesn’t require a blog, which I talk more about later on.
In either case, you don’t need any experience to start!
I, myself, started with NO experience and was able to eventually make over $5,000 per month at my own pace within the first year (I will mention later that I struggled for many months before making my first $1,000)!
UPDATE: Though earnings can be volatile, it completely blows my mind that I am making OVER
$10,000now $20,000 per month just by driving free traffic to my blog using Pinterest!
And trust me, I’m not special in any way!
In fact, I had A LOT of self-doubts because I always thought you had to be either really tech-savvy or a great writer to start a blog and make money on Pinterest. But no, this is far from the truth!
As long as you have basic computer skills such as typing (which most of us do in 2023) AND you have a strong willingness to learn and actually implement what I’m about to say, then you are ready to start using Pinterest to your advantage.
Before we dive into the other methods, let’s first talk about how to make money with Pinterest with a blog. This is one of the best and most rewarding options in my honest opinion!
HOW I MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH A BLOG
Just like you, I always thought I’d be working the traditional 9-5 job for the rest of my life!
It wasn’t until I discovered that bloggers were making extra money or even earning a full-time income with Pinterest that led me to try this out myself.
And TA-DA!
Here I am… writing about my own personal experience on how I make money on Pinterest in less than a year!
Thinking back, I’m VERY glad that I took the leap of faith and tried the idea of starting a blog because it allowed me to earn a full-time income from home and leave my cubicle life behind for good. I’m now able to live the life I always wanted and focus on things that are important to me — spending quality time with my family and friends and creating happy memories.
To be totally transparent, I struggled for many months and learned a ton before making my first $1,000.
I only tell you this because I don’t want you to think this is some sleazy “get rich quick” scheme. It will require work and effort, but your earnings potential will be unlimited!
I know you’re super excited about this opportunity, so let’s get right into it!
ARE YOU EXCITED TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH A BLOG?
Are you a beginner and don’t know where to start? Join my FREE 7-day course where I will teach you how to start your profitable blog the right way!
Today, I’m consistently earning over six-figures per year with my very small blog and I want to teach you how I did it in less than 2 years.
I like keeping things real — I have to admit that I’m NOT an expert (and I don’t claim to be one), but I can offer you valuable tips and share my experience so you can avoid making mistakes as a brand new blogger.
In my free e-mail course, I will guide you from starting your blog to growing your Pinterest traffic and making your first income online!
This is the course I wish I had when I first started my blog!
1. START A BLOG AND MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST!
I highly recommend starting a self-hosted blog with THIS web hosting company before you learn how to make money on Pinterest.
It is really cheap to invest in a web hosting plan plus you get a FREE domain name ($15 value) when you sign up through this special link here and go for at least the 12-month plan.
I personally started my blog with them too when I was a beginner and wanted to give blogging a try.
I know you might be thinking of starting a blog for free on WordPress.com or Blogger, but DO NOT go that route!
It would be near impossible to make money when you sign up for a free blog because no one will take you seriously.
On top of that, applying to ad networks and affiliate programs will be extremely tough. So believe me, you will want to start your blog the correct way by following my easy step-by-step tutorial here. You will thank yourself for doing this!
SPECIAL NOTE: I‘m super excited to let you know that you can start your blog with Bluehost for as low as $2.95 USD/month when you use this exclusive link here. That’s an upfront investment of only $36 for the whole year, which is over 60% off regular pricing. Plus, when you sign up for at least the 12-month plan, will receive a FREE domain name ($15 value)!
I really don’t know when this exclusive special ends so take advantage of this offer before it’s gone.
If you’re interested and would like to learn more, you can visit my tutorial, How To Start a Blog for Beginners here.
2. WRITE RELEVANT AND HELPFUL CONTENT.
Now that you’ve started a blog, write 5-10 blog posts related to your niche that will solve your readers’ problems.
Before you start writing, take a step back and figure out who your target audience is.
I always recommend choosing something you enjoy talking about.
Don’t choose a topic just because you think it will make money. Sure, it may work out, but can you really keep writing about something you don’t have a genuine interest in?
The last thing you want is for your blog to feel like a chore.
This diagram will help you determine what you can write about while solving your readers’ problems.
- Passion: I’m not going to tell you to quit your job and chase your passions without any financial support. But what would you do with your life if you were financially independent? I know this is tough to answer, so this free personality test is amazing and can help you figure it out as long as you answer truthfully!
- Skills: What are you good at? What do you usually get compliments on?
- Market demand: What are people searching A LOT for on Google and Pinterest? I recommend using SEMrush for some guidance. Billions of people out there want answers and solutions to their problems!
Remember that readers need your help with something. Most of them aren’t here to read about your problems. When they land on your page, they will subconsciously ask:
“What’s in it for me?”
Your ideal spot is to hit all these 3 elements (passion, skills, and market demand)!
I know it’s easier said than done, but if you really put the time and effort into figuring this out, you will be rewarded!
PRO TIP: You don’t have to be an expert in your field to be considered skilled. For example, you could document your learning journey and teach others your mistakes and what you’ve learned. Lessons add a ton of value to your readers (as long as it’s what people are searching for A LOT)!
3. SET UP A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT.
Start your Pinterest journey and take your first step in monetizing Pinterest by signing up for a business Pinterest account. This is 100% free to sign up for and use.
Make sure to include relevant keywords in your profile bio like what I did in the image above. This will allow users to find you more easily.
But before you create a business Pinterest account, be sure to learn how to start a blog and use Pinterest for blogging.
HOW TO CREATE A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT: I also have this tutorial that will walk you through creating your Pinterest business account. You can and should only do this AFTER you’ve started your blog using this tutorial here.
4. CREATE PINTEREST BOARDS AND PINS.
Now you can start creating boards and making pins for your Pinterest account. I recommend using Canva to make pins when you’re a beginner. The service is free and easy to use.
Like your bio description from step #3, make sure to sprinkle relevant keywords into your personal boards and pin descriptions. By the way, when I say “sprinkle” I don’t mean keyword stuffing!
In the past, I’ve made the mistake of stuffing keywords in my pins. It’s no wonder why I wasn’t getting any traffic when I first started. Without any traffic to my blog, there was no way for me to make money on Pinterest, so don’t make the same mistake!
Example of keyword stuffing that you should try to avoid:
Example of a conversational description that sprinkles targeted and relevant keywords:
5. JOIN GROUP BOARDS AND MAKE NEW PERSONAL BOARDS.
When you read other bloggers’ posts on how they increased their Pinterest traffic by over 1,500% and made money on Pinterest, they will harp a lot on joining group boards. You’ll hear:
“GROUP BOARDS!! YOU NEED TO JOIN A LOT OF GROUP BOARDS TO EXPLODE YOUR PINTEREST TRAFFIC!!”
These posts haven’t been updated since Pinterest made changes in 2018. Nowadays, content creators don’t rely on group boards as much as they used to. However, they are still used from time to time as I see some group boards do give me a boost in traffic.
If you’re a brand new blogger with no followers, you can still join a few group boards that are closely related to what you blog about.
For example, I am a personal finance blogger, so I would only join group boards that are all about finance, saving money, making money, and so on. That way I can pin and post my articles about personal finance, budgeting, earning extra money, etc. on those boards for Pinterest users to see.
On the other hand, if you blog about crafts, then you’ll want to become a contributor to group boards that only allow you to pin your posts related to crafts.
Or, if you’re a food blogger, then you’ll want to find members of group boards that blog about food and recipes.
Pinterest favors smaller group boards (relevant to your niche) with fewer contributors. While joining 3-5 group boards within the scope of what you blog about, I highly recommend you create personal boards for you to pin your content because Pinterest has shifted its focus to your personal boards.
In short, focus on making new personal boards while joining some high-quality group boards with fewer contributors.
PRO TIP: An alternative to joining group boards is to start using Tailwind Communities. This will allow you to upload your pins to each community (like a group board) where members will share them. Aside from the Communities feature, I also use Tailwind to schedule my pins to both group boards and my own personal boards. Since using Tailwind, my traffic increased from 500 to over 1,500 daily page views (sometimes hitting as high as 4,000 per day)!
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH A BLOG BY DRIVING TRAFFIC
This is the moment you’ve been waiting for!
You are now ready to learn how to make money on Pinterest after you’ve mastered the following:
- Wrote 5-10 epic blog articles related to your niche that is inspiring and/or solve a problem.
- Signed up for a Pinterest business account and verified your domain.
- Created eye-catching pins with clickable images and titles like these ones here.
- Joined a minimum of 10 group boards and made 10 personal boards related to your niche.
- Optimized your bio profile, boards, and pins by sprinkling relevant keywords throughout.
Here are a few ways you can start making money on Pinterest after having your blog and Pinterest account set up!
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH A BLOG: To get a better idea of how blogs make money, or how bloggers get paid, I highly recommend reading this blog post that teaches you how to make money with a blog for beginners. I talk about my personal experience and how you can get started, so you can replicate my success.
1. DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG.
Pinterest traffic is honestly a new blogger’s BFF! When you have a new blog or website, I recommend focusing your efforts on learning how to drive traffic from Pinterest and monetize your blog! It’s definitely a lot easier and faster to get traffic from Pinterest than Google when your website is new.
When Pinterest is used correctly and consistently, you can drive a lot of traffic to your blog and make money through display advertising.
Again, you need to write blog posts that are helpful to your readers! Depending on how many ads you put and which ad network you’re with, you can potentially make between $6 to $20 per 1,000 page views each day.
UPDATE: Over the years of blogging and using Pinterest to earn a full-time income online, I’ve had many readers and students request me to create a comprehensive Pinterest guide to show them how to get traffic to their blogs, so they can start making money on Pinterest. I finally created and launched The Golden Compass To Pinterest Traffic for bloggers here.
In this Pinterest traffic course, I also included a bonus e-book that teaches beginners how to monetize your blog on Pinterest. I talk about the exact monetization methods I used to earn over $200,000 a year!
Here is my experience on how I first made money on Pinterest with Google Adsense followed by Mediavine when I was still a beginner.
My income has increased since then, but I kept these examples on this page to demonstrate that beginners like you can do it too!
2. APPLY FOR ADSENSE (AS A BEGINNER) AND THEN MEDIAVINE (AS AN INTERMEDIATE BLOGGER)
When you’re a brand new blogger, you can always start earning money with display ads on your blog by applying for Google Adsense.
Adsense won’t pay you a lot, but it’s a good way to gain a little bit of experience online before making the switch to a better ad management network like Mediavine or Adthrive.
Here’s my experience and what I documented when I initially wrote this post as a beginner. A lot has changed, but showing you my beginnings will help you get started…
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH ADSENSE:
Yes, you can make money with Pinterest by displaying ads on your blog with Google Adsense.
When you’re a brand new blogger, I recommend applying to Google Adsense because they do not require you to have a minimum amount of page views.
However, they are not the best way to make money since they pay you very little. I used to be with Google Adsense and made roughly $50 to $200 per month with 10,000 to 40,000 monthly page views.
Don’t get me wrong, I was still happy as a new blogger. But we all have to start somewhere!
I personally used Google Adsense, and you can actually check out how I earn money online from using Google as a beginner.
Aside from Adsense, there are other ad networks you can apply to when you’re a new blogger without a lot of pageviews:
- Ezoic
- SHEMedia
- Monumetric
- MyFinance (great for bloggers in the personal finance and money niche)
EARNING MONEY USING DISPLAY ADS WITH MEDIAVINE:
I switched from Google Adsense to Mediavine after hitting 25,000 monthly sessions back in July. It takes 3-4 weeks to make the switch.
UPDATE: Mediavine used to have a minimum requirement of 25,000 monthly sessions, but that has changed in 2020. They now require your blog to be at least 3-4 months old with a minimum of 50,000 monthly sessions (~65,000 page views). I have two blogs, which both recieve over 100,000 monthly pageviews each, so they both would have still got accepted by Mediavine either way.
As I increased my Pinterest traffic to my blog a few months after July, I started earning a passive income online of at least $1,000+ USD per month by displaying ads like the one you see here…
I definitely saw a HUGE improvement in ad earnings once I made the switch from Google Adsense to Mediavine!
See below for my results…
BEFORE: USING PINTEREST AND GOOGLE ADSENSE METHOD
As you can see, I used to make on average $5 to $10 per day from ~1,800 daily page views from Pinterest using Google Adsense.
AFTER: HOW I MAKE MONEY WITH MEDIAVINE USING ADS
I officially became a member of Mediavine on August 17. As you can see below, I was able to make $348.39 in 9 days (August 17 to August 25)!
In a day with 1,800 page views, I would make ~$25 per day with Mediavine. There was even one time when I made $71 in a day when I reached 4,000 daily page views!
My earnings improved by 300% because I was able to drive traffic to my blog by using Pinterest! Here are screenshots of my first Mediavine ad earnings after moving away from Google Adsense!
UPDATE: I have to be honest with you. My monthly earnings are volatile, but it surprises me that I was able to make over $4,000 per month just with display advertising alone. It doesn’t even include the other ways I make money with my blog (e.g. over 60% comes from affiliate marketing and 15% to 20% comes from digital products since the time of writing this). This mix does and can change depending on the algorithm, season, and trends.
Because of the results that I was seeing with this blog, Finsavvy Panda, I started a second blog to replicate my traffic results, and here is proof that I am earning IN ADDITION to this blog here by purely monetizing with display ads – $4,643.71. Again, this doesn’t include the other methods I use to make money with my blog:
Another update on how my second blog earned a monthly income purely from display ads – $10,159.58:
HOW TO GET PINTEREST TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG
To be very honest, I was able to increase my traffic and earn money on Pinterest because I invested my time to learn how Pinterest works.
After learning how to use Pinterest and pinning out my pins and images with these 30 Pin Savvy Templates, my traffic skyrocketed from 0 to 18,000 and is now consistently OVER 100,000 monthly page views!
I started using Pinterest as a traffic source and after implementing the Pinterest strategies necessary to get visits to my blog, I was able to apply for Mediavine and increase my ad revenue by over 300%!
In other words, I went from making ~$6 per day (Google Adsense) to ~$25 per day (Mediavine) when I was a beginner.
When stated in terms of months, that’s $180 per month (Google Adsense) vs. $750 per month (Mediavine).
As of today, those monthly advertising earnings with Mediavine increased substantially as you saw in my screenshot above.
With that said, you can tell me whether investing in a few Pinterest resources is worth the small investment!
PRICELESS TIP: Don’t be afraid to invest in the right blogging education. There’s no such thing as 100% guaranteed returns (nothing in life is guaranteed). But think about how much money you spend at concerts, going out with friends, and on the daily Starbucks lattes. What’s a small investment worth to you? I’ve said this many times and I will say it again. Investing in yourself is the best investment you could ever make!
It’s not the Bitcoin, weed stock or penny stock that are the best investments…
“The best investment you can make is in yourself” — Warren Buffett, multi-billionaire investor.
RELATED BLOG INCOME REPORT POSTS ON HOW I MAKE MONEY USING PINTEREST:
You can take a look at my blog income reports below where I write about my blogging progress as a brand new blogger.
This includes information on how I switched from Google Adsense to Mediavine, my Mediavine income reports, how I increased my affiliate earnings, and overall the things I learned as a new blogger when I was using Pinterest to make money online!
Just like you, I had NO experience and started from scratch!
- My Pinterest and Blogging Lessons Learned Over The Years – $27,68976 in March 2021
- Blog Income Report November 2020 – $22,343.23
- How I Became a Full-Time Blogger Earning Over $10,000 Per Month
- February blog income report – $7,498.94
- January blog income report – $6,790.93
- December blog income report – $6,840.01 (I Finally Left My Job)
- November blog income report – $5,532.13 (Happy 1 Year To My Blog)
- October blog income report – $4,798.01
- September blog income report – $4,509.50
- August blog income report – $2,797.64
- My First Blog Income Report – $703.57 (I Struggled Many Months Before Writing My First Blog Income Report)
3. MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH AFFILIATE LINKS USING YOUR BLOG.
On top of making money with Adsense or Mediavine, you can also make money on Pinterest using affiliate links.
This is also known as the affiliate marketing strategy. Learning how to use affiliate marketing on Pinterest to make money can make a huge difference to your earning potential!
There are two ways to do that — with and without a blog.
I’m going to first talk about how to achieve this using the blog method. Again, this is my preferred method because it has worked well for me.
First of all, what is affiliate marketing? And how can you make money on Pinterest with affiliate marketing?
If you’re new to this concept, affiliate marketing is just recommending products that you love and/or believe will add value to your audience.
After they make a purchase through your affiliate link, you earn a small commission without any additional cost to the buyer. In other words, you get rewarded by providing value and/or solving someone’s problem through a product or service.
First, let’s talk about how to make money on Pinterest by driving traffic to your blog posts that have affiliate links.
This first approach is my favorite way to make money because, for one, you earn from display advertising by getting traffic; and secondly, you earn from potential affiliate sales when you offer a solution to your readers’ problems.
For example, you can create and promote a pin like this one here that teaches readers how to save money on food which includes affiliate links in the blog post. You can learn more about affiliate marketing and what affiliate links are in this post here.
PRO TIP: Use Canva to make pretty pins that will drive massive traffic to your blog post with affiliate links. I use the free version and it’s more than enough for beginners.
HERE IS REAL PROOF YOU CAN MAKE MONEY ON PINTEREST WITH AFFILIATE LINKS BY STARTING A BLOG
When I was still a beginner, I made over $1,000 from Pinterest using affiliate marketing, so here I show you examples of two different affiliate networks that I’m still currently with.
I’m earning money from many other affiliate programs, but I only show these two for illustration purposes to help beginners like you see the possibilities!
AWIN NETWORK:
FLEXOFFERS NETWORK:
Once you have your blog set up with 5 to 10 posts, you can start applying to affiliate networks such as Awin and FlexOffers (shown above).
After you get accepted into affiliate networks, you can start applying to a wide range of companies and promote their products and services on your blog.
Again, only promote things that you genuinely believe in and will help your audience!
UPDATE: Here is a quick screenshot of how much I earned with just ONE affiliate network — $48,685.18! This doesn’t even include the money I earned from display advertising or the other affiliate networks and programs I work with.
HOW I MAKE OVER $10,000 PER MONTH WITH AFFILIATE LINKS BY DRIVING PINTEREST TRAFFIC
To learn more about affiliate marketing and how to monetize your blog properly, visit this post on how to make money with affiliate marketing for bloggers. This post is a full guide on how you can start making money with affiliate marketing once you’ve started your blog!
Because I took the courage to start this blog, I was able to quit my job within a year to become a full-time blogger! This is something I genuinely enjoy doing! And honestly speaking, I never expected this to happen before I knew what Pinterest or blogging was!
Now, I am consistently earning $10,000+ per month ALONE with affiliate marketing after implementing the proper affiliate marketing strategies.
In my highest earning months, I am able to make over $15,000 ALONE with affiliate marketing. Including the income from display ads with Mediavine, that allows me to earn even more with my small blog, which completely blows my mind!
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