Pinterest Question

[Es]

I have been posting to pinterest both my products and other people's products as an affiliate and it looks like on all my products, the referral code has been dropped. When I post it the link is there, but then within a week the referral code is gone and there's just a generic Zazzle advertising replacing it. I saw other people had the same problem if you use the pinterest link on the product page to share the item, your affiliate code gets stripped. Is this something Zazzle can reach out to Pinterest about?

Thank you.

[KC]

Using Chrome, have you tried hovering over the "Zazzle.com" text at the bottom of the pin image, and seeing if the full link appears at towards the bottom left of the browser screen? Or following the link to see if the code is there?

Also are you definitely checking on your own personal pin, and not one that shows up in "similar" searches - which could definitely be an original Zazzle link or someone else's pin?

ETA This is something that was a solution a while back when it looked like Pinterest had stripped links - the codes were hidden/condensed (but still functional) OR it was someone else's pin entirely. Not sure if that is what you are seeing.

[Marcia]

I was curious so I thought I'd try your suggestion, @KC. I've been in the promoter program forever, it seems, but I went to some of my oldest Pinterest boards, checking out my oldest pins which SHOULD have had my referral number attached. None of them did. But what I DID notice as I've scrolled down, some of the pins that were just a few months old & on, started showing "Zazzle" underneath the description! And some of the titles/descriptions completely disappeared when I know they were there when I originally posted them, because I check for that all the time. The lack of descriptions/titles were spotty, but once "Zazzle" started showing up under them, that seemed to have taken over my pins. And all the older ones had "Zazzle" under the title/description.

So what does that mean??? So should I have been getting Pinterest referrals that have now turned into 3rd party? I get a lot of 3rd party sales & always assumed that it was due to the ads that Zazzle runs on Pinterest. 

I agree that something seems weird here & would appreciate someone checking this out. 

Thanks in advance.

[Marcia]

Hi Scott,

I just rechecked my very old Pinterest pins. Especially the ones that originally had my ?rf number, way before the promoter program existed. If I hover over the pin, in Chrome, & look at what shows up at the bottom left of the browser, as @KC suggested, I don't see the ?rf#. However, if I click on the pin & then hover over the title, my old ?rf# shows up, "Zazzle" branded pin or not.

So I guess it's all good, afterall?

Still, don't understand, however, why some of the pins have "Zazzle" underneath the title, some don't, some have my store name & others, any copy below the pin photo is missing. They were all pinned directly from Zazzle and what shows up seems random. One of life's great mysteries, I guess?

[Scott · Accepted solution]

If you're logged in to your Zazzle affiliate account and then share a product you'll get a URL like this:

https://www.zazzle.com/z/582x8upz?rf=238590328741241673

This is broken down into three things:

1. www.zazzle.com - this is our website

2. /z/582x8upz - this is a link-shortened URL. It contains a few important bits of information: a link to the product page, template information, and your affiliate/referral ID.

3. ?rf=238xxx - this is the affiliate information listed again because showing the referral info at the end of the URL made some Creators feel a bit more at ease with the new shortened URL. From a technical standpoint this is entirely unnecessary, and if it's deleted (by Pinterest or whoever else) the affiliate info will still be included in the URL.

We created this new link shortener functionality ourselves, which means that external tools won't be able to decipher the URL properly. The up side here is that an external user cannot simply strip out the referral information without stripping out ALL of the information. So, if you post a link that looks like the one above then it's safe to assume that your referral information is in tact.

[Es]

Thank you Scott.

[Windy]

I checked my pins. A lot of them have the canned Zazzle description, even some that I know I entered my own details. I pinned two new items today, and "made my own pins" for both, which is what you are supposed to do to avoid the problem of the canned Zazzle description. Both now show the canned Zazzle description. 

I hate Pinterest with a passion. I don't understand it.

I don't know how to check if someone else's pin is recent. 

I don't know how to check if a pinner has been recently active. (I would prefer not to follow a pinner who has not been seen since 2014.)

When I find a nice pin, I have no way to know how to get to the board the pinner posted that pin on. Maybe I would like to follow that board. I have zero idea how to do it.

The account I work on every week for Zazzle products gets no traction. The account I completely ignore was at one point getting thousands of views a day (but that was never an account I used for selling).

If I log out of one of my accounts, it takes me hours to fiddle around and get back in to the Pinterest I use for my Zazzle products.

The default to Zazzle description has been driving me nuts for months. The only way I know around it, is to post the product to my blog and then pin from the blog. That method will always result in my description sticking.  But I know that every time you put up a bump in the road between the pin and the product, you lose a lot of the people who might otherwise buy the product. 

The most recent referral sale I have from my pins was made in March of 2021.

I should probably stop using Pinterest.

[Tania306]

I find the Pinterest integration to be wonky.  I would love to edit the descriptions to add the FTC affiliate tag lines.  I was also under the impression that Pinterest does not like shortened URLs. 

For now, I'm mostly uploading directly and using the full referral link.

[FM]

@Scott 
I've got the same issue, yet unsolved. It happens for MANY products. 

1. I'm logged in.
2. I got this shortened link, as seen in the screenshot below.
3. I pinned the product. My referral code was there for 24 hours, then it's gone. 
4. Just so you know - Pinterest don't allow shortened affiliate links. I asked them and they answered clearly that they don't allow shortened links. Maybe that's the problem?