How to Make Money on Pinterest Selling Digital Products

Pinterest was responsible for about 35% of my digital product traffic in my first year of selling online. Not paid traffic — free, organic, consistent traffic from pins I'd made in an afternoon.

Most people treat Pinterest like a social media platform and wonder why it doesn't work for them. The ones who understand what Pinterest actually is — a visual search engine — are the ones generating consistent sales from it.

Here's exactly how I'd approach Pinterest to sell digital products, from scratch.

Why Pinterest Works for Digital Products

Pinterest is not like Instagram or TikTok. You're not posting for engagement or followers. You're creating pins that show up in search results when people search for specific things.

When someone searches "freelance project tracker template" or "notion productivity template" or "digital planner for iPad," they see pins. Those pins link to product pages. If the pin is compelling enough, they click. If the product page is good enough, they buy.

This is why Pinterest works especially well for digital products:

• Digital products have clear visual use cases (templates, guides, planners)
• People searching for templates and planners are purchase-ready
• Pins have long shelf lives — a pin you create today can still drive traffic 2 years from now
• No paid promotion required to generate consistent, compounding traffic

Setting Up the Right Way

Before you pin anything, set up correctly.

Create a Pinterest Business Account. Free, takes 5 minutes, and gives you analytics plus access to Rich Pins.

Claim your website. In your Pinterest settings, you can verify ownership of your website by adding a small meta tag. Once claimed, your URL shows up on every pin that links to your site — adds credibility and improves click-through rates.

Enable Rich Pins. Rich Pins pull metadata from your product pages and display it in the pin — like your product title and description. This makes your pins look more professional and complete. Worth setting up.

Create 4-6 boards. Each board should have a clear, searchable name. Don't get clever — get descriptive. "Notion Templates for Productivity" is better than "Notion Life." "Digital Planners and Organizers" is better than "Get Organized."

Creating Pins That Actually Convert

This is where most people go wrong. They create beautiful pins that don't get clicked, or text-heavy pins that don't perform visually.

Here's what works:

1600x900px or 1000x1500px (2:3 ratio is Pinterest's preferred format)

For digital products, the highest-performing pin formats are:

Lifestyle text overlay. A clean background (solid color, texture, or simple photo) with bold headline text that speaks to a specific pain point or outcome. "Finally: a client tracker that actually makes sense" outperforms "Download my client tracker."

Product mockup. A screenshot or mockup of your actual product (the template, the spreadsheet, the PDF cover) with a simple text overlay. Shows buyers what they're getting.

Before/After or Problem/Solution. "Drowning in client emails? → Here's the system I use to stay on top of everything." Visual representation of the transformation.

The copy on the pin matters enormously. Lead with the outcome, not the product. "Stop losing track of client deadlines" is better than "Freelance Project Tracker."

The Pin Description Strategy

The text description under your pin is searchable. This is SEO in miniature — use it.

Write 200-400 words of natural, helpful text that:

1. Describes the problem your product solves
2. Explains who it's for
3. Includes specific keywords people would search (the product type, the niche, the format)
4. Ends with a clear call to action ("Click to download" or "Grab this template")

Don't stuff keywords robotically — write naturally but be deliberate about including terms your buyer would search.

The Posting Strategy

For someone just starting out, here's the posting approach I'd use:

Week 1-2: Create 20-30 pins for your first product. Multiple designs (try different headline approaches, different visual styles), multiple board placements. This isn't spamming — each pin is a slightly different entry point for different search terms.

Ongoing: Post 3-5 pins per day. This can be a mix of new pins for new products and re-pins of your existing content with updated designs.

Best times: Evening hours in your target audience's timezone (8-11 PM EST is generally strong) and weekend mornings.

Don't obsess over this — Pinterest's algorithm values fresh, consistent pinning more than posting at precise times.

What to Link To

Your pins should link directly to your product page, not your homepage or blog. The person who just saw a pin about your "freelance project tracker" wants to land on the page where they can buy the freelance project tracker — not your home page where they have to hunt.

If you're selling on MadeThis.com, each product has its own URL that you can use directly in pins.

Realistic Traffic Timeline

Pinterest is not instant. Here's what to expect:

Month 1: Low traffic. Your pins are new and Pinterest hasn't decided yet how to distribute them. This is normal.

Month 2-3: Traffic starts to tick up as Pinterest starts distributing well-performing pins more broadly.

Month 3+: Consistent, growing traffic. Some pins will outperform others — you'll start to see which visual styles and headlines drive the most clicks. Double down on what works.

The compounding effect of Pinterest is real: pins you create today will still be driving traffic 18 months from now. The upfront work pays off well beyond the initial posting period.

The Low-Hanging Fruit Most People Miss

Group boards. Some Pinterest group boards in digital products, Notion, productivity, and related niches will let you join and post. A single pin in a group board with 50,000 followers can drive significant traffic.

Video pins. Pinterest has heavily promoted video content in recent years. A 15-30 second screen recording of your template or product in use, with text overlay, consistently outperforms static pins in many categories.

Seasonal content. "New Year planner template," "Back to school Notion setup," "Q4 financial tracker" — seasonal positioning can generate significant spikes around relevant dates.

If you're selling digital products and not using Pinterest, you're leaving consistent free traffic on the table. The platform rewards exactly what digital product sellers have: visual, specific, problem-solving content that buyers actively search for.

If you're ready to start, set up your product store on MadeThis first — you'll need somewhere for your Pinterest traffic to land. Then start creating pins and test what works.