- What Amazon and Pinterest allow
- My own numbers from testing this
- Why linking straight to Amazon is the wrong move
- Step by step: doing it the right way
- The disclosure rule people skip and regret
- The uncomfortable bit about scale
- Where this fits if you're building a small business around it
- Frequently asked questions
- Further reading
The short version: Yes, you can use Pinterest to promote Amazon affiliate links, Amazon officially reversed its ban on this back in 2016 and Pinterest allows it too, but the naked link approach performs badly. The people quietly making real money from this combination are sending Pinterest traffic to a blog post or landing page first, not straight to Amazon, and they're disclosing on every pin.
What Amazon and Pinterest allow
There's a persistent bit of folklore in affiliate Facebook groups that Amazon bans Pinterest links outright. It doesn't, not since 2016, when Amazon updated its Associates Operating Agreement to permit affiliate links shared on social platforms including Pinterest, provided the link is clearly an Amazon URL (not hidden behind a shortener that disguises the destination) and the pin carries a disclosure that you earn commission on qualifying purchases.
Pinterest's side of the rules is simpler: they allow affiliate links in pin descriptions and as the pin's destination URL, and they expect you to disclose the relationship in the text, either in the pin description or as an overlay on the image itself. Pinterest treats undisclosed affiliate content as a trust and safety issue, not a hanging offence, but repeated complaints from users who feel misled can get pins removed or a board flagged.
So the legal and platform answer is a clean yes. The performance answer is more complicated, and that's the part most guides on this topic skip past.
My own numbers from testing this
I ran a Pinterest board for a client in the home office niche for one quarter, forty pins linking to a "best standing desks under 300 pounds" roundup post that I'd written with Amazon affiliate links embedded in it. The board pulled around 12,000 monthly views by month three, click-through to the blog post sat at 1.8 percent, and of those clicks only about 4 percent went on to convert into an Amazon purchase inside the 24-hour cookie window. Total revenue for the quarter: 340 pounds, on an average order value of 49 pounds. Not life-changing, but it cost almost nothing to run beyond the pinning time, and it kept compounding after we stopped actively posting because Pinterest pins have a much longer shelf life than a tweet or an Instagram post.
The number that matters most there is the 24-hour cookie window. Amazon's standard affiliate cookie lasts one day (it stretches to 90 days only if the shopper adds the item to their cart within that first day). Pinterest is a save-for-later platform by design, people pin things they might buy in three weeks, not today. That mismatch between Amazon's short cookie and Pinterest's long browsing cycle is the single biggest reason conversion rates on this combination sit lower than people expect, and it's the part most posts on this topic quietly avoid because it makes the strategy sound less appealing than "just add your Amazon link to a pin and watch the money roll in."
Why linking straight to Amazon is the wrong move
Technically you're allowed to put your Amazon affiliate link directly as the destination URL on a pin. I'd argue you shouldn't, for three reasons.
- A naked Amazon link gives you zero context. Someone lands on a product page with no idea why you recommended it, no comparison, no reason to trust your judgement, so they bounce.
- You lose the chance to capture their email or retarget them, because Amazon owns that visitor the second they land there.
- You can't A/B test copy, add related products, or build authority, all of which a simple blog post or landing page gives you for free.
The people getting meaningful, repeatable income from this route are almost always sending Pinterest clicks to a piece of content they own first: a comparison post, a "10 best gifts for" roundup, a single product review with photos. If you're new to how the money flows through affiliate links before it reaches your bank account, this guide on how affiliate marketing pays and what to expect as a beginner lays out the payment timelines and thresholds clearly, and it's worth reading before you build anything on Pinterest.
Step by step: doing it the right way
- Get Amazon Associates approval first. You need three qualifying sales within 180 days of applying or your account gets closed, so don't apply until you have a live piece of content ready to send traffic to.
- Build one piece of content per product cluster. A blog post or a simple landing page, not a bare Amazon link. Five hundred words with real photos, comparisons, and your genuine opinion outperforms a link every time.
- Design vertical pins at 1000 by 1500 pixels. Pinterest's own data consistently favours the 2:3 ratio; square or horizontal images get pushed down in the feed.
- Add the disclosure in the pin description. Something like "This pin contains an affiliate link, I earn a small commission if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you." Don't bury it, don't rely only on a tiny hashtag.
- Use SiteStripe to generate your Amazon link and route it to your own content, not the Amazon product page. Your blog post then holds the actual affiliate link, tagged with your tracking ID.
- Pin consistently rather than in bursts. Five to ten pins a week spread across relevant boards beats twenty pins dumped in one day, Pinterest's algorithm rewards steady activity.
- Check Amazon's reporting by tracking ID. Set a separate tracking ID for Pinterest traffic in Associates Central so you can see, in cold numbers, whether the effort is paying for itself.
The disclosure rule people skip and regret
The FTC in the US and the ASA in the UK both expect a clear, upfront disclosure whenever you're being paid or given free products in exchange for a recommendation, and "affiliate link" written in tiny grey text at the bottom of a pin description doesn't cut it if a user has to hunt for it. Amazon itself can suspend your Associates account for undisclosed links, and I've seen it happen to a fellow marketer who pinned dozens of product links across boards with no disclosure at all, her account was suspended within six weeks of a bulk pinning push, and reinstating it took a written appeal and roughly three weeks of no earnings while Amazon reviewed it. It's a completely avoidable problem and it costs you nothing to add one sentence.
The uncomfortable bit about scale
Here's what doesn't get said enough in "how to make money with Pinterest and Amazon" posts: this works as a slow, steady side income, not as a route to quitting your job by month three. Pinterest rewards accounts that post consistently over months, sometimes over a year, before the algorithm starts sending real volume to your pins. If you're treating this as a get-rich-quick play, you'll give up around week six when the numbers look thin, which is exactly when most accounts are still building the trust signal that eventually pays off. If you want a wider view of what realistic, sustainable income from this kind of work looks like rather than the inflated screenshots people share on social media, I'd point you to this honest breakdown of building real passive income, which covers Pinterest alongside other channels and is far more upfront about timelines than most of what's out there.
There's also a structural point worth being blunt about: Amazon's commission rates on most categories dropped in recent years, sitting at 1 to 3 percent for the majority of product categories now, with only a handful (like Amazon-branded devices or certain luxury beauty categories) paying higher. That means the Pinterest traffic you're generating needs to convert on high-ticket or high-volume items to be worth your time, a single 12-pound kitchen gadget selling once a week isn't going to move the needle, but a recurring roundup post that gets pinned and repinned for a 200-pound item category can.
Where this fits if you're building a small business around it
If you're weighing Pinterest and Amazon affiliate links against setting up a broader affiliate strategy for a small business, it's worth reading up on what affiliate marketing is and how small businesses can use it, because Pinterest works best as one channel inside a wider content plan, not as the whole strategy on its own. I've watched businesses treat Pinterest as their entire affiliate engine and burn out within a few months when the algorithm shifts or a board loses reach, versus businesses that treat it as one spoke on a wheel alongside email, a blog, and maybe YouTube, which weathers the ups and downs far better.
Realistically, Pinterest suits certain niches far better than others. Home decor, fashion, recipes, wedding planning, gift guides, fitness gear, these all convert well because Pinterest users are actively searching for products in a buying-adjacent mindset. B2B software, financial products, and anything requiring a long sales cycle simply doesn't work here, the platform's audience isn't in that headspace when they're scrolling.
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Frequently asked questions
Does Pinterest allow Amazon affiliate links directly on pins?
Yes, both Amazon and Pinterest permit affiliate links on pins as long as the URL isn't disguised through a cloaking tool that hides its destination and the pin clearly discloses that it contains an affiliate link.
Do I need a website to promote Amazon affiliate links on Pinterest?
You don't need one legally, but you should have one practically. Linking straight from a pin to an Amazon product page gives you no way to add context, build trust, or capture visitors for future marketing, so conversion rates end up noticeably lower than routing traffic through your own blog post first.
How much can you earn from Pinterest and Amazon affiliate links?
It varies wildly, but a realistic small-scale example is a few hundred pounds a quarter from forty active pins in a niche like home goods, with commission rates on most Amazon categories now sitting at 1 to 3 percent, meaning volume and average order value matter far more than the number of pins you post.
Can I get banned from Amazon Associates for how I use Pinterest?
Yes, mainly for failing to disclose affiliate links clearly, using link cloaking that hides the Amazon destination, or not generating three qualifying sales within 180 days of approval. Suspensions do happen and reinstatement can take weeks, so treat disclosure as non-negotiable from your first pin.
