How to Make Money on Tumblr

Andrey Novoselov Andrey Novoselov
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Reading time:  7  min.
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Today, there is a wide selection of social networks where you can find like minds, share experiences and even promote your ideas. Some of the platforms are focused on sending a message via texts, others accumulate visual content. Thus, it is easy to find the right one and reach out to people with the same interests. One of such networks is Tumblr: it allows people to share short posts, pictures and other types of content and promote their personal websites and blogs. So, the question is how to use Tumblr to your advantage?

How to make money on Tumblr

What Is Tumblr?

Tumblr is a creative social platform where people share any type of content, including images, music and videos. Posts are short that’s why it’s rather similar to Twitter. So, this combination of blogging tool and social community is developed for those who prefer brevity while writing.

Upon registration, you’ll get your own Tumblelog to post content in. Just like with any other blog, you can also add pages to your Tumblelog. It’s possible to like posts of other users, as well as to make reposts with one click. Followers of your blog will be notified when you post updates. Additionally, users can send each other private messages.

However, can you make money on Tumblr? As Search Engine Journal claims Tumblr is the most popular among millennials and youth from 18 to 29 years old. It a vast audience that has great potential in terms of monetization.

Why Use Tumblr

The platform interface is easy to navigate so making posts and communicating with other users is a piece of cake. For this reason, the community is very active, and you can use it for making money on Tumblr. The platform is useful to create a company blog for making a brand more popular, expanding the audience and increasing sales.

However, even if you don’t plan to publish long-read articles, it also allows sharing small posts. Plenty of retailers use Tumblr as a part of their social media marketing. Let’s see what features make Tumblr so popular today:

  • It includes a lot of rich media.
  • Allows you to build your own blog, as well as purchase, acquire your own themes top to bottom.
  • Permits to share posts from Twitter and Facebook.
  • Includes ads of any type to drive more revenue.
  • The ads are on your page if you implement them yourself.
  • It’s friendly to all users (the ads are not intrusive and no name required for blogging).
  • You can have as many blogs as you want.
  • Maps a domain to your blog free with an existing domain.

The platform is also remarkable for its simplicity, and people find it easy to make money with Tumblr. No special skills are needed to launch a visually appealing blog or maintain different types of content. Besides, according to the Quantcast stats, it’s a free and rapidly growing platform that can boast 250M page views with 33M new posts.

Making Money on Tumblr: Best Tips & Practices

In this article, we’ll shed light on some of the ways to build a community and answer the question, “How can you monetize Tumblr?” First and foremost, it is important to stay active and demonstrate expertise in the field so that people could trust you. The best way is to make several publications a week to keep followers interested.

You should create your own brand voice to stand out from the competitors. For this purpose, you can follow some bloggers, entrepreneurs or even companies to learn from their experience.

On Tumblr, people post short texts with images on the bright background. Don’t forget to insert keywords, tags and hashtags to let others find your Tumblelog and allow Tumblr to recommend it. Now, let’s see how it is possible to monetize Tumblr.

Ads

You can place ads on your blog to promote other brands’ products. There are such eminent networks as Google AdSense or Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads. One can apply for Infolinks or other alternatives to practice the effective way of monetization. Select the service you prefer, sign up for getting an account there and go full speed ahead.

Ads

Bear in mind that each network features its own requirements and nuances of the process. The main thing to consider is the rates you get per click or impression. Broadly speaking, you’ll get revenue each time the user enters your page and clicks on ads that are located on your page.

Only extremely motivated visitors will click on your ads. That’s why it’s necessary to increase engagement and direct traffic. For this purpose, you should comment on blogs of other people on Tumblr to attract attention to your page. You can also use Tumblr’s plugins to increase traffic.

Affiliate Links

Does Tumblr make money via travel affiliate programs? It is possible to generate good revenue if you place affiliate links on your Tumblr blog. The brightest example for earning is the Travelpayouts partnership platform. Just send traffic from your Tumblr account to Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Rentalcars, or another travel service to make commissions.

Even if you have just created your travel blog, you can join Travelpayouts and begin monetizing your content immediately. You can earn up to 20% on each booking for a travel service. In 2021 alone, Travelpayouts paid partners over $5M. To earn on the flights, hotels, car rentals and other travel services join the Travelpayouts partnership platform for free today.

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There are plenty of other affiliate offers on the market to get paid on Tumblr in the fields of home décor, real estate, travel, web hosting, etc. But, it’s crucial to choose those ones that resonate with your content. Don’t post too many links in order to save your account and let it grow hassle-free. If you abuse affiliate links, your account might be banned.

Affiliate links

It’s also possible to publish sponsored posts to make more money. In any case, you should remember that the most important thing is to provide high-quality and engaging content rather than just promote the services of your sponsors.

Tumblr affiliate links can be added to captions for pictures, so when users repost them, links will be visible. It’s a good way to direct traffic to your main website where you should place as many affiliate links as possible.

Advertise Your Work

If you prefer your own wings to Tumblr affiliate marketing, place links to your store, blog, YouTube channel, and other networks. You can also support the shop that is based on such platforms as Bonanza or Zibbet (the choice is determined by your product category). You can also provide links to your social media. It’s a good way to sell any type of product, including e-books and courses.

To generate visitor interest in your offers, create and publish infographics (they perform flawlessly on Tumblr), post pictures with the samples of your design works, as well as quotes from your blog/book. For instance, AnnaStreetStudio promotes custom handbags and purses, a wide range of accessories, makeup bags and jewelry for any occasion. Plenty of professional photographers own their accounts on Tumblr to showcase their work.

In addition, you have an opportunity to create your own store on Tumblr. For this purpose, you should take certain steps.

  1. Register a free account on Tumblr
  2. Pick an appropriate theme
  3. Customize the title for every product on the dashboard
  4. Add a product description with its benefits and advantages

As a result, visitors will see the title, the post about the product’s key features and a button.

Share Your Travel Blog Content

If you want to squeeze your blog for more income, use any Tumblr affiliate program or post photos and videos as a guide to various sites and landscapes or tutorials. You can publish quotes to promote some places of interest, ways of traveling or tips to offer win-win solutions for travelers. Formats and content of posts depend on your niche in travel.

For instance, the Insatiable traveler blog shares tips on how to improve your photography skills and a helpful list of Do’s and Don’ts for every country.

Book Reviews

If it’s impossible to monetize Tumblr via affiliate marketing or promoting your own goods, you can write about other products. If you’re an avid reader and have a good eye for books, you can try your hand at writing reviews. It’s possible to review any genre of literature, including documentaries, business handbooks, textbooks and more.

Here is an example of a review on the Captive Prince trilogy. We can see the title and an eye-catching description on the top followed by a bright high-quality photo of the books. Besides, one can review not only books but also video clips and other musical content, as well as movies, TV shows, etc.

Sell Ad Space

If you’re not going to stream posts permanently, you can sell space on your page to other publishers to generate revenue. For this purpose, your Tumblr blog should be submitted for approval first and then you’ll need to make it popular.

It means you should comply with basic requirements such as a huge amount of traffic, unique and relevant digital content as well as top-notch design. The process of selling is identical to other platforms. The only difference is the necessity to code the ad into your Tumblr theme.

Keep in mind that in the case of a direct ad space sales, you should spend time and effort finding advertisers and contacting them personally for negotiations. It’s also important to understand the impartial value of your target audience and assess the potential profit.

Create and Sell Tumblr Themes

This way of monetization requires the highest level of creativity because plenty of users are able to find decent free themes on their own. That’s why your task is to offer something unique to make others pay for it. If you have a fertile imagination and a keen sense of fashion, you just need to improve your technical skills in creating Tumblr themes.

So, to sell them successfully, you should think of colors, navigating menus, images and typography, social-sharing buttons and the zoning of space.

Teach Others to Use Tumblr

With time, you’ll learn more about Tumblr. Then you could use your knowledge and skills to add one more method of monetization and start teaching rookies. You can do it via textual and photo content or video tutorials. Don’t forget to insert useful links and explain each detail in a clear manner.

How to Use Tumblr to Generate Income Online

Monetizing Tumblr demands effort, time and creativity, just like any other platform. You can use Tumblr AdSense, affiliate links or any other ways of monetization that have been mentioned above to generate income. The key advantage of Tumblr is its flexibility that allows for fast implementations of all blog ideas. Its extreme simplicity will let you turn into a guru within a short period.