Do you want to learn how to increase page views and boost your blogging income?
Pinterest has evolved over the years, yet it remains one of the most effective channels for driving traffic to blogs. It’s one of the top sources of visitors to my sites and has been a consistent traffic driver for years.
Today I’m pleased to share an interview with Carly Campbell, a full-time blogger and creator of Pinteresting Strategies, a leading Pinterest course. Carly began blogging in 2016 after seeing a pin about making money online, and Pinterest quickly became central to her growth.
She now earns a six-figure income from her blog through a combination of display ads, affiliate marketing, product sales, and other streams, with Pinterest playing a major role in driving traffic.
I’ve followed Carly’s work for years and trust her Pinterest expertise. She stays ahead of changes and offers practical, tested advice.
In this interview, Carly explains how she uses Pinterest to grow two websites, including a new site that already generates over 1,500 outbound clicks per day.
Some of the questions she answers:
- Which blog niches perform best on Pinterest and which should consider skipping it?
- What does her current Pinterest strategy look like?
- How often does she pin and does she use scheduling tools?
- Does she prioritize fresh pins or repinning older content?
- What are her thoughts on AI and pin creation?
If you want to grow blog traffic and income with Pinterest, this interview is a valuable read. For a deeper dive, consider Carly’s Pinteresting Strategies course.
How Carly Uses Pinterest to Make Money Blogging
Below is an outline of how Carly leverages Pinterest to generate income from blogging.
1. About Carly and How She Started Blogging
Carly is a full-time, stay-at-home homeschooling mom and blogger. In late 2015 she discovered a Pinterest pin that mentioned making money online, which inspired her to launch her first blog in early 2016. She invested heavily in learning and worked more than 60 hours per week on her site during its first year.
Pinterest clicked for her early on, and within the first year she replaced her desk job income. By the time her baby was born she was earning about $5,000 per month. Blog income has fluctuated over time due to seasonality, platform algorithms, and other factors, with some months exceeding $20,000 and others below $5,000, but it has consistently outperformed her previous job.
Carly’s growing interest in Pinterest led her to create a course that helps others improve their Pinterest traffic. In July 2024 she launched a new site focused specifically on Pinterest strategies. That site saw strong early revenue—more than $4,000 in Q4 before it reached six months—and now earns ad revenue through Mediavine while achieving roughly 1,500 outbound clicks per day.
2. What Is Pinterest and How Does Carly Use It?
Pinterest is an idea discovery platform focused on inspiration and planning. It’s different from typical social media and distinct from search engines. Understanding that users come to Pinterest to ideate is essential to using the platform effectively.
Carly primarily uses Pinterest to drive pageviews back to her blog, which is where she monetizes that traffic.
3. Which Niches Work Best on Pinterest?
Not every blog will thrive on Pinterest. The platform favors visual, idea-driven content. Niches that perform particularly well include DIY, home decor, beauty, fashion, recipes, and kids’ activities—topics where seeing matters.
There’s also potential for “pain” niches that affect many Pinterest users—such as personal finance, parenting, and relationships—but expectations should be tempered because these topics are less visual. Niches that neither require visual content nor have a substantial Pinterest audience are less likely to succeed on the platform.
4. When Did Pinterest Become a Game-Changer?
Carly saw meaningful Pinterest traffic within six or seven months of starting her first blog. For newer perspective, her most recent site—monetized and eight months old—now receives about 2,000 daily pageviews from Pinterest and began generating good traffic within two months of launching, aside from some seasonal dips.
5. How Do Blogs Monetize and What Has Worked for Carly?
Carly reports six-figure annual earnings from multiple streams. Diversifying income is key for stability. Display ads were her original foundation, but ad revenue fluctuates with traffic and advertiser spending. She also earns through affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, course and product sales, and runs a membership that supports people’s Pinterest strategies.
Building an email list also helps detach income from immediate traffic dips, creating a safety net.
6. Carly’s Current Pinterest Strategy
Pinterest remains foundational to her sites. Carly now works with a virtual assistant to maintain consistency across multiple sites. Their target is about 10 pins per day, using Pinterest’s native scheduler to queue pins. While the native scheduler can be clunky, tools and browser extensions are being developed to enhance the workflow.
7. Fresh Pins vs. Repinning Older Content
Both approaches are important. New content and new URLs should be central to a Pinterest strategy—many older accounts decline because they pin the same URLs repeatedly and stop creating new content. At the same time, proven older posts can continue to perform well and should be repinned, especially when supported by fresh pins for new and established posts.
8. Example of a High-Performing Pin
While Carly avoids publicly sharing her current top-performing pins, she described one pin that went viral for about two years and generated significant ad and affiliate income. Its success stemmed from a strong planning angle and a personal-story promise, showing that compelling titles and context matter—even when visuals are less dominant. Performance also benefited from strong, relevant boards and supporting content in the same niche.
9. Are Pin Descriptions Important?
Yes. Pinterest uses the text in descriptions to understand and contextualize pins. Carly recommends writing unique descriptions for each pin, including four to five relevant keywords to clearly communicate the pin’s topic to Pinterest’s systems.
10. Can New Sites Get Traffic from Pinterest?
New sites shouldn’t expect instant results, but they can generate traffic if they follow proven strategies. The first step is to learn how Pinterest works and apply a clear, consistent strategy.
11. Common Pinterest Mistakes
The biggest mistake is not understanding the platform. Many bloggers assume Pinterest operates like Google and that simply pinning content will attract unlimited traffic. In reality, Pinterest users are ideating and planners; success requires understanding user intent and tailoring content and pinning strategy to that behavior.
12. Carly’s View on AI and Pinning
Carly takes a cautious approach to AI. She uses AI for text generation—pin descriptions and titles—but avoids AI-generated images, which she finds unsettling and potentially misleading. She worries about how AI images may blur the line between real and fabricated visuals and prefers to maintain control over visual content for now.
Many questions about AI’s long-term impact remain unanswered, so she uses AI for efficiency in writing but not for creating pin images.
13. About Pinteresting Strategies
Pinteresting Strategies is a current, updated Pinterest course designed for anyone who wants to understand how Pinterest works and build a pinning strategy tailored to their content and niche. The course reflects recent, battle-tested strategies and aims to deliver actionable, up-to-date guidance—especially for visual niches.
Carly shared feedback from a student who regained traffic after Google algorithm changes by applying the course strategies: within weeks the student’s Pinterest outbound clicks rose dramatically, illustrating the course’s practical value.
Recommended reading:
- How I Make $280,000 Each Year Working Just 20 Hours A Week
- How I Grew A $5 Million Blog
- How I Make $110,000 A Year As A Food Blogger
- 29 Best Stay At Home Jobs To Make $40,000+ Each Year