How to turn Pinterest into a passive eCommerce money-making machine in 2023

Do you want to have an edge over your competitors and make money in eCommerce? ???

If so, you have to utilize every possible source of traffic.

The great thing about Pinterest is that it is a platform with the greatest average order value per customer, with a whopping 154$ for paid and 68$ for unpaid ads.

If you want to grab a piece of that eCommerce pie here is a step-by-step guide that will help you turn your Pinterest account into a passive money-making machine.

How many people use Pinterest and with what purpose? ?

In the year 2019, Pinterest has grown to 335 million active users and is now the third social network by size, behind Facebook and Instagram.

That’s a huge market for you to tap into.

84% of pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy and 98% of all users are open to trying out new things.

Can you hear cha-ching?

Who is the target audience?

The majority of Pinterest users are female, with 72% as of April 2020, so it’s no wonder that the most popular pins by industry are fashion, home decor, groceries, and arts and crafts.

In the U.S. 42% of all females aged 18-64 use Pinterest, surpassing any other social platform out there.

It’s especially popular with parents as a buying guide, with 8 out of 10 U.S. moms active there, and 62% of all parents have purchased something they saw on Pinterest.

That means that your Pinterest advertising dollars will not be wasted.

According to a study done by Nosto eCommerce marketers who use Pinterest will see average order value of a whopping 154$ for paid and 68$ for unpaid advertising which leaves all other platforms in the dust.

Ecommerce and Pinterest during 2020

It’s 2020 and the impact of coronavirus cannot be understated.

But every crisis is an even greater opportunity in disguise.

While brick and mortar businesses are failing, online spending is increasing, especially in fashion, retail, health, and home decor.

• Health eCommerce (+9%)

• Home Decor (+7%)

• Retail (+6%)

• Fashion (+5%)

Can you see the trend here?

Precisely the same industries that are making big bucks in 2020 are the same ones that are popular on Pinterest.

It doesn’t take a genius to add two and two together. ?

More people (and more females) are buying stuff online and they use Pinterest to decide what to purchase.

So, you better hop in the Pinterest hype-train because by the time eCommerce gurus start promoting Pinterest as the hot new thing, it will already be too late.

How to create a passive eCommerce money-making machine on Pinterest in 7 easy steps

By now you should already be properly hyped up and ready to go, so here are the concrete steps you should take if you want to add another zero to your bank account.

1. Create a business page and take some time to understand the community

The first step would be to create your business account which will give you more options compared to a regular profile.

The process will guide you along the way. Include the type of business that you will be promoting.

Next, include the platform that you’re using to sell your merchandise.

And lastly, the guide will ask you to choose one of 3 options to start building your page such as:

• importing your products

• making an ad

• or simply showcasing your brand

Before you decide to implement any marketing efforts, take some time and improve the look of your page. ✔️

The first thing you should do is to put the logo of your business as a profile pic.

For best results, make the image 160×165 pixels and also include a short description that will capture interest.

Having a high-quality image will help you to get recognized more easily and will also build trust in your brand.

You can be tempted to pay 99$ for logos on websites such as 99designs or for 5$ on Fiverr, or you can use tools such as Glorify. ?

Glorify includes a Logo Maker that will let you make a stunning and professional-looking logo in mere minutes.

After you’re all set it’s time to dive deeper and take some time to learn more about the platform.

To succeed on any platform you have to understand the users.

Pinterest is first and foremost a social network, so take some time to set up your account before you start promoting your eCommerce store.

2. Create boards that the users will want to discover

Pinterest is mainly a visual medium and these are the most popular cetegories:

• Food ?

• Fashion ?

• Interior decor ?️

To have a chance of being noticed in the sea of boards that are vying for the attention of the users, you have to create content that falls in these 3 groups.

If you’re in the eCommerce niche described above, well you’re in luck, since you can easily create content that revolves around the features and benefits of your product and use Pinterest to soft sell it.

To get the most out of Pinterest for your eCommerce store here area couple of tips:

• Create plenty of boards that will allow users to engage with your content

• Be active in shared boards

• Repin your most popular posts

• To increase engagement, create user-generated boards that will allow your customers to pin their own images

• For every pin, include an image name, title and about 200 words of SEO optimized description of your pin

• To learn more about the wants of your customers always measure your marketing efforts

The reason why Pinterest is so popular as a platform that serves as a sort of buying guide is that it lets users choose how to interact with brands and businesses.

Unlike other platforms, Pinterest really puts the power of choice in the hands of its audience.

That way marketing efforts aren’t as invasive as on let’s say Facebook and Instagram.

It’s all about trying to seamlessly include your promoted material together with the rest of your pins.

3. Allow users to pin your product images

Forever 21 is an eCommerce brand that caters to millennial women. So, in order to increase exposure, they have included share Pins in all their product images.

That way when a customer is viewing their website and sees something they like, they have an option to share the photo with their network.

Needless to say, that has resulted in increased exposure and booming sales.

4. Activate Rich Pins

The next thing you should do is activate the Rich Pins option on your account.

Rich Pins will allow you to include additional information to your pins. There are four types of Rich Pins:

• App

• Product

• Recipe

• Article

Article Rich Pins are excellent for SEO purposes and they will include a bold headline together with a description of the article.

Ezra Firestone has used promoted Article Pins to turn 775$ of ad money into 41,254$ in revenue using a simple sales funnel!

When a customer clicked on the Pin, they were brought directly to the eCommerce article that promoted products in the content body.

So, no email opt-in, no retargeting, no follow up just straight to the buy button.

And here are the results:

Product Rich Pins are essential for your business since they allow you to include the price of your product directly into the pin.

Nordstrom is one of the leading companies when it comes to Pinterest promotion and here is their sales strategy.

First, they make Product Pins for each of their products:

After the user clicks on it they will be sent to the product landing page where they complete the purchase.

It’s no wonder why it works so great since 48% of Pinterest users use it to actively shop online!

That’s more than 3 times as much as Facebook with 14%.

If you’re not selling on Pinterest, it’s about time you should.

5. If you’re in home decor or fashion create Shop The Look pins

While Rich Pins will allow users to learn more about your product, when they click on the buy button they will be sent on your product’s landing page which creates buying friction.

Shop The Look pins on the other hand allow users to buy the product right there and then, inside the platform.

Currently, they are only available for fashion and home decor pins and your website has to be integrated with one of  these platforms:

•    Shopify

•    BigCommerce

•    Magento

•    IBM Commerce

•    Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Once a customer clicks on your pin, they will have the option to click on products that are showcased and see additional similar pins.

To truly make the most of it, have dozens of pins of your product available from different angles and on different backgrounds.

As you can see, the products are mostly displayed on a white background, so you should do the same.

Getting rid of the background can be time-consuming, especially since quantity is essential for success on Pinterest.

For example, if it takes you 2 minutes to remove a background from a single product image and you make 10 pins for each of the 100 products you own, that will take you 2000 minutes or 33.33 hours!

A better option would be to use a background removing software. ?

ZapBG is an excellent choice since the background removal is done in seconds thanks to machine learning algorithms that do the job for you in a click of a mouse.

Also, you can experiment with different backgrounds directly from their vast Library or you can simply upload your own.

With future updates such as bulk processing and inclusion of shadows you can create thousands of Pins in a matter of minutes!

6. Join group boards and automate the pinning

When you’re just starting out you won’t have any followers.

So, how do you grow from zero?

The answer is group boards.

Group boards are boards with multiple owners, some of them may be open while others may be close to new collaborators.

To find boards that are in your niche use tools such as PinGroupie that will allow you to search using keywords

The next step is to automate to pinning process and it goes like this:

•    Create secret boards where you will create new pins and test out ideas

•    Make sure to create pins that are optimized for Pinterest

•    Include links to your website on the Rich Pins

•    Use automation software like Tailwind to automate the pinning process

•    Count the money rolling in

This same strategy has made The Wandering RV 18,000$ with a 7% conversion rate without a single dime spent, other than subscription on image editing software.

You see, if you’re using free methods like this you’re going to have to create lots and lots of Pins.

And while you can use online software like Canva or Crello, they are not made specifically for eCommerce owners.

A better option would be to use software like Glorify, which is made specifically for marketers, agency owners, and eCommerce entrepreneurs.

They already have tons of templates that you can choose from that will allow you to create stunning product images in less than a minute.

It’s actually a god-given gift since you can easily use a Pinterest template for your product image

and capture the interest by showcasing unique features using Annotate Tool.

If you’re spending 5 minutes(if you’re a pro) to create a stunning Rich Pin using PhotoShop or any other software, the sheer amount of features that Glorify possesses will take you less than a minute.

So, for 10 Pins each day multiplied by 365 days in a year, Glorify will save you 243 hours!

Another option would be to hire a designer to do the job for you, but chances are they will probably be using the same tool while charging you a hefty price.

7. Use Pinterest as a free source of traffic

Remember Ezra Firestone mentioned above?

While he did make a killing with promoted article rich pins, he saw a huge increase in organic traffic, which brought him as much money as Pinterest ads, without a single extra dime spent.

Now, why is that?

It’s all thanks to Google which loves Pinterest images with proper titles. Not only that, but entire Pinterest boards can rank on google as well.

So, if you want to create Pinterest into a free traffic source, take some time to master the basics of SEO.

The basics of Pinterest SEO:

1. Write relevant Pin descriptions

It may be common sense, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it. To achieve relevancy you have to write Pin descriptions in such a way that describes the Pin in question. You should include keywords, but don’t just clumsily glue them together.

Tell users about your pin, where it links to, and also include a call to action.

2. Use Rich pins to rank higher

As mentioned, Rich pins will supercharge your pins, allowing you to write a more detailed description thus giving you more ranking juice.

3. Pin in the optimal ratio

Pinterest is first and foremost a visual platform. You don’t want to make your pins stand out like a sore thumb. The best ratio of your pins should be a 2:3  (600 pixels wide: 900 pixels high).

4. Optimize your boards

As you want to optimize your pins, you should optimize your boards as well. The two most important things are board name and description, so make sure they are relevant to the type of users they are catered to.

5. Create pins from your website’s images

If you’re in eCommerce you should include an option to pin all of your product images. Pinterest loves content that is created by a website’s owner. To learn more about the kind of content your users love type https://www.pinterest.ca/source/[yoursite] in your browser and learn!

Conclusion:

Pinterest is still an untapped market for eCommerce owners, especially those that cater to women. Unlike the majority of social platforms, Pinterest is mainly used to search and buy new products.

The majority of the work should be focused on creating high-quality images that will drive engagement and promote repinning.

Remember, quantity is quality, so make use of image editors that will speed up the process.

Also, don’t forget most of all the features Pinterest offers, and don’t be afraid to spend some money on ads.

The cost of advertising on Pinterest is quite low since and you can expect higher-order values that will drive your ROI through the roof!??

‍