Clarification about referrals/Pins

[Beautiful_Vibe]

I joined the referral program I guess but I've been confused ever since lol. Trust me, I've read it over, tried to understand other posts etc.

When we "Pin" our product, does that not count as a link that would be considered a referral link? It automatically puts the "rf..." 

I've only had 4 referrals ever and for products I'm pretty sure I never linked to. Two are my products, two are not. I've pinned a lot of things... 1000s

How are people doing Pins and affiliate marketing? Are 4 referrals after several years the norm? What am I missing?

[Polenth]

For the basic referrals (not the promoter thing), you get paid for whatever the customer buys if they came in on your link and the cookie was set. They might buy something else entirely. Your pins with the rf code are your referral links, so it sounds like a few customers did use them... and then bought something else.

[sheindesigns]

I've pinned 1000s and have a total of 8 referrals in 2+ years of steady pinning (mine with RF# and others). 

[Echo]

These last two months, I have been trying to build up linkovers, and currently I have about 150 daily linkovers, but sales have been pretty disappointing.

[Sea-Change]

I've pinned and posted (Tweeted) thousands and thousands of items, and I created (but need to more fully launch) a blog for futher promotion. I started to get semi-regular referrals last spring, and I continue to see lots of Pin saves, but the last two months have been crickets for referrals.

I suspect I am still helping to boost Z's website traffic, but perhaps customers coming in via my link aren't buying or have suppressed their cookies (that track referrals). I'm continuing to explore Pinterest strategies so I hope that will help, but I'm also weighing where else to spend my time.