Making Money with Pinterest: Linking Your Pins to Amazon Products and Other Affiliate Websites
© 2012 by Aurelio Locsin.
Pinterest, the latest social site to make a big splash on the Internet, lets you share your favorite picture or video finds in the form of pins on boards. You already know that you can drive traffic to your site by pinning graphics from your articles.
But you can also link your pins to Amazon and affiliate websites as shown by the following steps. If a user happens to buy the linked product, you receive your affiliate commission.
This information assumes you know the basics of using Pinterest. It also assumes you have an Amazon affiliate account and have a Tracking ID. In a nutshell, you’ll be embedding this code in your pin links.
1. Open a browser window.
Then go into Edit mode for your pin in one of the following ways:
- Choose your username on the upper right of the Pinterest website. Then select Pins to display your additions. Move your cursor over the picture until the buttons appear on the top of it. Click the Edit button.
- After you’ve used the Pin It button from your browser, the bookmarklet window appears so you can enter a comment. Click the red Pin It button to display the Success dialog box. Click the See Your Pin button to display your addition. Then click the Edit button.
In either case, the Edit Pin window appears.
2. Open a new separate browser window.
Put your new browser side by side with the previous window. In this new window, go into the Amazon Affiliates Product Links page. (You’ll need to sign in). Note that your tracking ID appears on the upper left of the page.
Enter the product you want to search for in the Search Within For box. You can qualify the search by choosing a product category from the Within dropdown. Click the Go button to display the product selection.
3. Click on the product name.
The product page appears. Look at the URL of the product in the Address bar at the top of the browser. It should contain your Tracking ID as in the following example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M5KV3A?ie=UTF8&tag=<Tracking ID> &linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B004M5KV3A
This ID is what credits any purchases to your account.
Copy the entire address from the Address bar.
Then go to the first browser window and paste it in the Link box of the Edit Pin window. You can paste any link to any affiliate in this box if you do it after you submit your picture or video. The original picture or video remains unchanged.
4. Test the link.
From your Pinterest page, click the picture to enlarge it. Then click the link again to display the linked product page. You receive commissions from any purchases made through here.
Update on SkimLinks
Some commenters have pointed out that Pinterest used Skimlinks to change your links so they get the profit and not you. This used to be true when the affiliate program started. But it caused such an uproar that they discontinued this use. It is now no longer true.
You now get full credit for your affiliate links.
Spammer Updates
Because certain users were spamming Pinterest with their affiliate links and then started bragging how they were making thousands of dollars a day from doing so, Pinterest changed their affiliate link system yet again. This is as of March 30, 2012. The site has essentially removed all links. You can test this by simply clicking on a pin in which you put an affiliate. Although it still leads to the Amazon product, you'll notice that your affiliate information is no longer in the URL address.
It's quite likely Pinterest may change this system again in the coming weeks as it decides what to do about spammers. I'll update this article as needed, so you may want to follow this hub to keep abreast of the latest news.