Subscribe to RSSAffiliates Pining for Pinterest
Pinterest is the new popular kid on the Internet, getting featured in media outlets like celebrity gossip does on tabloids. What people aren’t talking about however is the opportunity that exists for more ‘behind the scenes businesses.’ Those amazing symbiotic or parasitic relationships where third parties benefit from Pinterest’s new hype, sort of like Entourage™ with a cast of publishers, affiliates, and merchants.
There are a few smart blogs out there talking about these trends, some are funny, like Regretsy.com’s compare and save section that features sellers that are ripping off buyers by reselling manufactured products for higher prices. Classic and often humorous examples of parasitic relationships.
Laughs aside, let’s take a look at one affiliate that’s been seeing some positive lift from Pinterest’s new-found fame. SkimLinks, an affiliate marketing technology with a “sweet twist” helps content creators and curators automate. Most publishers spend a majority of their time working on content and selling ad space. With SkimLinks, connecting affiliate links to content seems* like a snap and appears to be popular amongst monetized ‘pinners’ as a good option outside of the Amazon Affiliate Network. If November is any indication, the Pinterest & SkimLinks relationship is budding with Pinterest beating out Twitter as their number one inbound traffic referrer with a 9.47% Share of inbound traffic to the site. On the converse, SkimResources.com (a SkimLinks url) is ranked number 10 with 0.94% of outgoing traffic from Pinterest.com, just behind large networks like Etsy.com, Bing.com, YouTube.com, and Live.com. I anticipate that merchants that work with SkimLinks will have good things happen for them if Pinterest continues on the upswing, particularly as it’s often been framed in the context of wishlists & gifting.
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Lindsey Mark works in Client Relations at Compete and is responsible for the strategic development of client retention and support policies for compete.com, with a focus on education and training efforts. She graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY so she's a certified technology junkie and open source advocate. When she's not thinking about marketing or training digital 007's at compete, she's doing yoga & blogging about gluten-free diet and lifestyle. Find Lindsey on Twitter as @linji or connect with her via LinkedIn. |
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[...] Affiliates Pining for Pinterest var addthis_product = 'wpp-262'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true,"data_track_addressbar":false,"ui_language":"en"};if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Source: http://blog.compete.com/2012/01/05/affiliates-pining-for-pinterest/ [...]
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[...] this has been going on isn’t clear, but it has been at least a month as Lindsey Mark wrote a blog post that mentioned it on January 5th. In my case, I saw a tweet from from fellow Lawrence social media [...]
[...] or its implications,” he writes.A few other bloggers and Web sites, including Compete, an analytics site, and Joel Garcia at GTO Management have also flagged this practice and raised questions about the [...]
[...] finding on its own, especially considering that the relationship between Pinterest and Skimlinks is mutually beneficial — but that the company is doing so in way that could be perceived as [...]
[...] to an ecom site that has an affiliate program, Pinterest modifies the code using a service called SlimLinks (which is essentially a slick affiliate marketing technology) and gets paid when anyone purchases. [...]
[...] darling loved by scrapbookers and traffic-drivers alike, has been outed for using a service called SlimLinks to add affiliate links to some users’ posts. After some initial confusion, outrage and [...]
[...] long this has been going on isn’t clear, but it has been at least a month as Lindsey Mark wrote a blog post that mentioned it on January 5th. In my case, I saw a tweet from from fellow Lawrence social media [...]
[...] this has been going on isn’t clear, but it has been at least a month as Lindsey Mark wrote a blog post that mentioned it on January 5th. In my case, I saw a tweet from from fellow Lawrence social media [...]
[...] users through a system that automatically converts URLs into affiliate links. Compete posted a blog post showing how this traffic relationship worked. For its part, Skimlinks encourages disclosure and [...]