How To Post Affiliate Links On Pinterest (The Method That Actually Works)

Most people who try Pinterest affiliate marketing give up after two weeks. They pin their affiliate links, get no clicks, and blame the platform. The platform is not the problem. The method is. Pinterest has quietly become one of the best free traffic sources for affiliate marketers, but only when you approach it the right way. In this post I am walking you through the exact six-step process Alston laid out in the video above, the same one that most people never finish watching, which is exactly why most people never get results.

Pinterest users are not scrolling for entertainment the way people do on Instagram or TikTok. They are searching for answers. They have higher household incomes than users on most other platforms, and they are actively looking for products, services, and information that solve a real problem. That means the traffic you build here is far more likely to convert. The six steps below will show you how to build that traffic the right way, without getting your account flagged or your pins suppressed.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear niche selection framework for Pinterest affiliate marketing
The alphabet technique for finding high-traffic Pinterest keywords
A board structure that gets your content discovered by the right buyers
The blog-first method that keeps Pinterest from suppressing your affiliate links
A Canva carousel pin workflow you can run without a paid account
A posting strategy built around idea pins, Pinterest’s highest-boosted format right now
How to build two assets at the same time: Pinterest traffic and a long-term blog
Not sure which niche or affiliate program fits your background? Find out free at finder.platformproof.com

Why Pinterest Works When Other Platforms Don’t

When someone opens Facebook, they are looking for an argument or a meme. When someone opens TikTok, they want to be entertained for the next hour without deciding anything. Pinterest is different at a structural level. People open Pinterest because they are trying to figure something out. They are planning a kitchen renovation, looking for ways to pay off credit card debt, researching side hustles, or comparing travel rewards cards. They are ready to take action. That intent gap is the whole reason Pinterest converts at a higher rate for affiliate marketers willing to do the work correctly.

Pinterest has also been described by Alston as an untapped opportunity, and that framing holds up. Most content creators are grinding away on YouTube or Instagram, leaving Pinterest boards mostly uncrowded for dozens of high-intent niches. You can build real monthly traffic in a niche on Pinterest far faster than you can rank a new blog from scratch on Google, especially if you combine both, which is exactly what this six-step method does.

Step 1: Pick a Niche Based on What Pinterest Users Actually Search

The starting point is niche selection, and Alston is specific about how to do this. Do not pick a niche based on what you feel like talking about. Go into Pinterest and look at what people are actually searching for. In the video, Alston types “credit cards” into the Pinterest search bar because personal finance is a category where people are actively seeking information and are willing to spend money. Credit card hacks, credit card travel rewards, paying off credit card debt, these are all topics with real search volume on the platform.

The criteria that make a niche work on Pinterest are straightforward. First, there has to be active search happening. Second, there have to be affiliate programs related to the topic, either products, financial services, software tools, or courses. Third, the niche should have enough sub-topics to support 10 to 15 boards and dozens of keywords, because volume matters here. Picking something too narrow means running out of content angles fast. Personal finance, home improvement, health and wellness, digital tools, and travel are all categories with strong Pinterest search and solid affiliate ecosystems.

Step 2: Do Keyword Research With the Alphabet Technique

This is the part most Pinterest tutorials skip entirely. Pinterest is a search engine, and it behaves like one. If you are not targeting the right keywords, your pins will not be found regardless of how good they look. Alston’s method here is called the alphabet technique, and it works like this: take your niche keyword and type it into the Pinterest search bar, then add each letter of the alphabet one at a time and record what autocomplete suggestions come up.

In the video, Alston types “credit card” followed by each letter. When he gets to H, he finds “credit card hacks.” That single keyword opens up a full board and multiple pin angles: credit card hacks for travel, credit card hacks for personal finance, how to pay off credit card debt when you’re broke. Each of those is a separate pin topic. Working through the full alphabet for your core niche keyword gives you a list of 20 to 40 keyword variations, and each of those can anchor one or more pins.

Why does this matter for volume? Because success on Pinterest in 2023 requires consistency. Alston recommends uploading 10 to 15 to 20 pins per day, and some accounts push 30. You cannot maintain that pace without a pre-built keyword list to pull from. The alphabet technique is how you build that list before you ever open Canva.

Step 3: Build 10 to 15 Keyword-Focused Boards

Boards are Pinterest’s organizational structure. Think of each board as a dedicated channel for a specific keyword or sub-topic within your niche. Alston compares boards to Facebook walls: they hold your pins and make them discoverable both through the board itself and through the individual pins inside it. That dual discoverability is why the number of boards you have matters.

The target is 10 to 15 boards. Each board name should be a keyword from your alphabet research. In the credit card example, potential boards include “credit card hacks,” “credit card travel rewards,” “how to pay off credit card debt,” “personal finance tips,” “Navy Federal credit card,” and “Visa credit card tips.” Every board name is something a real Pinterest user would type into that search bar. That alignment between what people search and what your boards are named is what gets your content indexed and surfaced.

A good board also has a keyword-optimized description. Pinterest’s algorithm reads board descriptions the same way it reads pin descriptions: looking for relevance signals to know who to show your content to. Write two to three sentences describing what the board covers, and include your target keyword naturally once or twice. This takes five minutes per board and makes a real difference in how quickly your content starts getting picked up.

Step 4: Write a Blog Post With Your Affiliate Links (This Is the Step Most People Skip)

This is where the method separates itself from everything else you have probably read about Pinterest affiliate marketing, and Alston calls it out directly: this is the step that everybody misses. Most people trying to make money on Pinterest take their affiliate link, create a pin, and drop the affiliate link right into the pin destination. Pinterest has been fighting affiliate link spam for years, and direct affiliate link pins get suppressed or flagged. The platform does not trust them, and neither do users who have been burned by clickbait pins that send them somewhere spammy.

The solution is to create a blog post about your topic first, embed your affiliate links inside that blog post, and then link your Pinterest pins to the blog post. In the video, Alston shows the process using ChatGPT to draft a 3,000-word blog post about credit card hacks, then adding affiliate links inside the post where they are naturally relevant. He notes that using ChatGPT as a first draft is fine for speed, but the final post should be reviewed, edited, and made unique before publishing. The key point is that your Pinterest pin links to genuine, useful content on your blog, which then includes the affiliate links in context.

This approach does two things at the same time. First, it keeps Pinterest happy, because your pins link to a real blog post rather than a raw affiliate URL. Second, it builds up your blog, which means you are creating a second traffic source alongside Pinterest. Every blog post you publish can potentially rank on Google over time, be shared independently, and attract email subscribers. Alston frames this clearly: you are building two assets at once. That compounding benefit is the real reason the blog-first approach is worth the extra effort.

Not sure which niche or affiliate program fits the skills and knowledge you already have?

Answer a few quick questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Step 5: Design Carousel Pins in Canva

Once your blog post is live and your affiliate links are in place, you move over to Canva to create the actual pins. Alston uses the free version of Canva throughout the video, so no paid account is required to get started. The template type to search for in Canva is “Pinterest pin,” and the format Alston focuses on is the carousel pin, which he identifies as brand new to Pinterest at the time of the video.

Carousel pins work the same way as Instagram or Facebook carousels: multiple slides that users swipe through. The reason to prioritize this format is simple. When a platform releases a new feature, it almost always boosts that format in the algorithm to drive adoption. Pinterest was doing exactly that with carousel pins and idea pins at the time of the video. Creating content in the formats a platform is actively promoting gives you a short-term reach advantage over people still posting single static images.

The carousel Alston builds in the video has a cover slide and individual content slides, one per hack. The cover says “Discover 5 Secret Credit Card Hacks” with a “swipe to learn more” prompt at the bottom. Each subsequent slide covers one hack. He uses ChatGPT to generate the five hacks, then pastes them into individual Canva slides. The important note he adds: always review and verify any ChatGPT-generated information before publishing. You are putting your name on this content, and inaccurate information damages trust with your audience.

On the design side, Alston keeps it practical: swap out stock images when you can, adjust text sizing so it reads clearly at mobile scale, and make the overall look clean enough that someone would actually stop and read it. Pinterest is a visual platform, and pins that look cluttered or cheap get ignored no matter how good the content is. You do not need design skills to do this well, but you do need to spend at least a few minutes on each pin making sure the layout is clear and the text is readable.

Step 6: Create Idea Pins and Link Back to Your Blog Post

The final step is uploading your pins to Pinterest using the idea pin format. Alston walks through this in the video: click “Create” on Pinterest, select “Create an idea pin,” then drag and drop your Canva carousel images into the upload area. Pinterest shows a counter indicating how many slides are loaded. From there, you add a title, a description using your keywords, and most importantly, a link.

Adding a link to idea pins is a relatively new feature at the time of the video, and it is the key that makes this whole method work. That link goes to your blog post, not to an affiliate link. When someone sees your carousel, swipes through your five credit card hacks, and wants to know more, they click through to your blog, where your affiliate links are waiting in context. The conversion path is: Pinterest idea pin to blog post to affiliate link. This is a three-step process, but it is the right three-step process, and it is the one Pinterest actually allows.

For volume, Alston recommends posting two to three idea pins per day. Do that consistently and you will start seeing traffic build within weeks. Combined with 10 to 20 regular pins per day spread across your boards, you end up with a high-volume presence that the Pinterest algorithm cannot help but notice. Most people post once, see nothing happen in three days, and quit. The people who stick to daily posting for 60 to 90 days are the ones who start seeing real numbers.

Honest Drawbacks

This method is real and it works, but there are a few things worth being honest about before you start. First, the blog post step adds real setup time. If you do not already have a blog, you need to build one before you can run this method. That is not a reason to skip it, but it is a cost to factor in. A basic WordPress blog on shared hosting costs around $3 to $5 per month and takes a few hours to set up. Alston mentions in the video that he has a step-by-step guide for this, and it is worth watching before you start.

Second, the volume requirement is real. Posting 10 to 30 pins per day sounds like a lot because it is a lot. Without batching and templating your Canva workflow, this becomes a full-time job fast. The way to make it manageable is to batch: pick one day per week to create 50 to 100 pins at once, then schedule them out. Pinterest has a native scheduling tool that handles this, or you can use a third-party tool like Tailwind.

Third, the timeline on results is longer than most people expect. Pinterest is a slow-burn platform compared to TikTok or YouTube Shorts. Pins can continue circulating and driving traffic for months or years after you post them, but the initial ramp-up period can take two to three months before you see meaningful traffic numbers. This is actually a feature, not a bug, because Pinterest traffic is much more durable than algorithm-dependent social reach. But it does mean you need to commit to the process before you see the payoff.

Real Numbers Breakdown

Here is what the math looks like on a conservative version of this method. Say you post 15 pins per day across 12 boards. After 60 days you have 900 pins in circulation. If your pin-to-click rate is a conservative 0.5 percent and each pin gets 100 impressions per month, that is 45,000 monthly impressions generating 225 blog visits. At a 2 percent affiliate conversion rate and a $50 average commission, that works out to around $225 per month from one niche blog. Most people running this method at full volume with optimized pins and a well-monetized blog are seeing significantly higher numbers, but the point is that the math compounds. Every pin you post is a permanent asset driving traffic as long as your account is active.

Find Your X

The Pinterest affiliate method works across dozens of niches: personal finance, home improvement, parenting, fitness, tech tools, cooking, travel, and more. The question is which niche makes the most sense given what you already know and the affiliate programs available in your area. If you are not sure where to start, the Platform Proof Finder walks you through that decision in a few minutes. Head over to finder.platformproof.com to get a personalized recommendation based on your skills and background.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you post affiliate links directly on Pinterest?

Technically Pinterest allows some affiliate links, but in practice direct affiliate link pins are frequently suppressed or flagged for spam because so many people have abused this approach. The safer and more effective method is to link your pins to a blog post and place your affiliate links inside the blog post. This keeps Pinterest happy and also builds your blog as a long-term traffic asset.

How many pins per day should I post on Pinterest?

Alston recommends posting 10 to 30 regular pins per day plus 2 to 3 idea pins per day. For idea pins specifically, the volume is lower because they take more time to create. For regular static or carousel pins, the more you can consistently post the faster your account will grow, provided the content quality stays high. Batching your Canva design work one day per week and scheduling the rest is the practical way to hit these numbers without burning out.

Do I need a business account on Pinterest for affiliate marketing?

A Pinterest business account gives you access to analytics, which lets you see which pins are driving traffic and which keywords are getting impressions. It is free to create and free to switch a personal account to a business account. For any serious affiliate marketing effort on Pinterest, you want the business account so you can track what is working and double down on it.

What is the alphabet technique for Pinterest keyword research?

The alphabet technique means typing your core niche keyword into the Pinterest search bar, then adding each letter of the alphabet after it and recording the autocomplete suggestions. For example, “credit card A,” “credit card B,” and so on through Z. Each suggestion that comes up is a real keyword people are searching for on the platform. This gives you a list of 20 to 40 keyword-based pin and board ideas without needing any paid research tools.

What is a Pinterest idea pin and why does it matter?

Idea pins are Pinterest’s multi-slide format, similar to Instagram Stories or Reels. They allow up to 20 slides and can include images, video, and text overlays. The critical feature for affiliate marketers is the ability to add a link to an idea pin, which means viewers can click through directly to your blog post. Pinterest was actively boosting idea pins in the algorithm at the time of the video, which means creating them gives you an extra reach advantage over accounts posting only static pins.

Is Canva free to use for Pinterest pins?

Yes. Canva has a free tier that includes Pinterest pin templates, the ability to duplicate slides for carousel creation, and basic image customization. The free version is enough to get started. Canva Pro adds premium stock photos, brand kits, and a background remover, which can improve pin quality as you scale, but none of those features are required to run the method Alston describes in the video.

How long does it take to see traffic from Pinterest?

Pinterest traffic typically takes two to three months of consistent posting before it picks up meaningfully. This is slower than short-form video platforms, but the tradeoff is durability: Pinterest pins circulate and drive traffic for months or years after posting, while a TikTok video might get traffic for 48 hours. If you commit to daily posting for 60 to 90 days using keyword-optimized pins and boards, you will see traffic begin to compound in a way that short-form social rarely delivers.

Which affiliate programs work best with Pinterest?

Programs that match Pinterest’s user demographics tend to perform best. Financial products like credit card referrals and budgeting tools do well in personal finance. Home goods, kitchen tools, and organizing products work in the home improvement space. Digital tools, courses, and software subscriptions perform in productivity and business niches. The key is alignment: your pins are pointing to a blog post, which means the affiliate products should be genuinely useful to someone who just read that post. If the recommendation feels forced, it won’t convert regardless of your traffic volume.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “NEW How To Post Affiliate Links On Pinterest In 2023,” YouTube, youtu.be/dK0QKTO8NPs
Pinterest Business, Help Center: Idea Pins overview, business.pinterest.com
Canva, Free Pinterest Pin Templates, canva.com
Pinterest, Autocomplete keyword research (demonstrated live in video)

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.