What is the Poshmark Affiliate Program? A Comprehensive Review
In early 2019, Poshmark launched its new affiliate program. You might be wondering what’s an affiliate program, how you become an affiliate, and what you have to do to start earning money.
I’ll answer all those questions for you in this post and share with you some insight into the ins and outs of affiliate marketing so that you can decide of the Poshmark Affiliate Program is right for you.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means that I may receive compensation when you click on a product link or purchase an item linked on this site. Click here for details.
***If you don’t have a Poshmark account, you can receive a free $10 bonus when you sign up with my code SFGIRL2015.***
In This Article
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing technique in which you earn money by promoting another company’s service or product.
Payment is based on the number of customers or sales that the company receives as a result of your efforts.
In this case, Poshmark has its users like you and me promote the platform. We get paid a small amount in return for our efforts. There’s a lot that’s currently unclear about the program (see below). What’s clear is that PM is trying to increase its user base and is using a very modern way to do it.
Social media marketing is all the rage in marketing right now.
Nowadays, people are spending more and more time on social media bringing a rise in social media influencers with real power to influence viewers opinions and spending habits.
Common people turned social media influencers are typically seen as more relatable than big-name celebrities, making their marketing more effective.
Social media campaigns can also be cheaper for companies than traditional marketing campaigns focused on television, radio, and print advertisement. Therefore, it makes sense that Poshmark would focus its efforts on marketing through social media channels.
Companies like Poshmark get more publicity, signups, sales, and ultimately profit. The flip side is that social media influencers get paid $$$ to do the marketing.
You might be surprised to learn that top influencers make healthy full-time incomes doing this type of work. It’s a win-win for both parties.
Common terminology
Affiliate – An affiliate is “an individual who promotes products or services for a merchant in exchange for receiving compensation for the sales or leads they drive”. You can view the definition here as part of an entire glossary of affiliate marketing terms.
Campaign – a specific promotion or project by an affiliate. This usually consist of promoting one particular item or service and is bound by dates. In this case, my campaign is to post to IG between 2/28 and 3/14 in exchange for earning up to $10.
Disclosure – Notification to viewers that you are compensated for promoting a service or product or the purchase of a service or product through your website or social media channel.
This is legally necessary per the Federal Trade Commission. You can read the FTC’s endorsement guide here.
Poshmark's affiliate requirements
In November 2018, Poshmark sent out an email about their new affiliate program. I don’t remember the exact requirements it stated to become an affiliate, but it required having thousands of social media followers. Since I have fewer than that, I sighed and moved on.
Then earlier this week, Poshmark launched its expanded affiliate program. The requirements have changed so now a lot more people qualify to join the program.
You should receive an invitation if you’re already a Poshmark Ambassador. This program is completely different from being an ambassador. If you’re not sure what that is or how to become one, take a look at this post on the benefits of being a Poshmark Ambassador.
You should also receive an invitation if you’ve connected a social media account that has over 5,000 followers. You only have to meet one of the above requirements, not both to join the program.
I’m a PM ambassador so I receive an invitation yesterday. An hour or two after I accepted the invitation, I received another notification that I was accepted and a campaign was waiting for me.
I’ve read that this the wait time is different for everyone. Some people accepted the invitation and did not receive notice of a campaign.
I wouldn’t be surprised if PM is staggering the campaigns or they’re slow to process all the acceptances.
For those who are interested in the details, I only connected my Instagram account of about 200+ followers, which is considered a small following.
I really enjoy brainstorming pictures to take, curating my IG content, and interacting with other users, but I haven’t found IG beneficial to the growth of this blog. I decreased my activity on IG late last year and have a small following to show for it.
Nonetheless, I still received a PM affiliate campaign. I’ve heard of people with even fewer followers than I have receiving campaigns, so I don’t believe there is a strict minimum number of followers to qualify.
Related posts:
Connect your social media accounts
To connect your accounts on the app, go to “Sharing Settings”. On the website, you would go to “Account Settings” and then “Sharing Settings.”
Note the difference on the page between “Set Sharing Settings” and “Add Social Media”. Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumbler are listed in sharing settings meaning that PM can share for you.
If you click to connect your Pinterest account, you’ll see that you give PM permission to create boards and save pins for you. If you connect your Twitter account, you allow PM to post tweets for you.
Make sure that you’re okay with the conditions before connecting those platforms to PM.
At this point, I don’t think it’s worth it because you’re relinquishing a lot of control over your accounts and from what I have seen, the current campaigns focus on other platforms.
I prefer to focus on the other platforms of YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
The campaigns seem to be only on YouTube and Instagram so far. You’re not providing PM permission to post for you, only allowing PM to see you accounts.
How much will you get paid & when?
Based on what I’ve seen online, these are the amounts offered for this campaign.
$10 if you have 0 – 19,999 Instagram followers
$150 if you have 20,000-50,000 Instagram followers
$20 for a YouTube video if you have any followers
There may be more opportunities available that I’m not aware of. My campaign allows me to earn $10. If I click on the question mark symbol next to the amount, a pop-up appears stating that earnings are determined based on your reach and engagement.
It takes 3-5 days to verify your campaign submission. As for getting paid, the website states
“Poshmark will pay Independent Affiliate the aggregate Affiliate Fee earned in a month within thirty (30) days after the end of the applicable month.”
If I complete my campaign and it’s approved in March, I should get paid by April 30th.
What Poshmark hasn't stated
You can read more about the affiliate program terms and conditions here.
Here are some things Poshmark hasn’t stated that I would like to see addressed:
What constitutes reach and engagement.
PM hasn’t stated exactly what these two terms mean to them. I suspect reach means how many followers you have on the social media platform you’ve connected.
In affiliate marketing, two of the most common ways to earn are through per click and per sale. I suspect engagement here means how many sales are made through your direct tracked link or the amount of money you’ve brought in through your tracking link.
Exactly how your earnings are determined.
Similar to above, Poshmark hasn’t stated how you will earn the money. The most generous affiliate programs I’ve seen offer 40% of a sale, but these are rare to come by. More commonly seen is earning 1-5% of a sale or a flat rate per sale (e.g., $5 on a $100 purchase).
Some companies pay more if you bring in a new customer versus a returning customer, so that may factor into your earnings. Will you earn more if you convince someone new to sign up for PM? It’s all unknown at this point.
Update (3/4/19): Poshmark is paying affiliate the full amount upon successfully completing the campaign. If you were offered $10, you’ll receive $10. It’s not based on click-throughs or purchases.
How long your tracking link will remain valid.
Some companies allow your tracking links to remain valid only for the length of the campaign. In my case, my campaign ends either on 3/14 or 4/11, so the link may be valid only until one of those dates. After that, anyone who clicks on my link could make a purchase but I would not get credit for it.
Some companies provide links that are valid indefinitely. Someone could click on my link a year from now and I could earn money if it leads to a sale. We know though that there is a limit on earnings, as PM has stated I can earn up to $10 this time around.
Update (5/13/19): Poshmark requires you keep your tracking link up on social media for 72 hours. The link would still continue to work after that.
How long someone has to make a purchase after clicking on your link.
Some retailers have a short window for a potential customer to make a purchase. Amazon only gives 24 hours from the time a person clicks on your tracking link to when a sale is made for you to earn a commission. I work with other affiliate programs where cookies last 30 days or more.
Update (5/13/19): Thankfully Poshmark doesn’t require someone to make a purchase for you to earn money. You simply have to meet the requirements of the campaign and you will be paid.
How you will be paid.
I’ve seen different interpretations of whether or not payment will be made in the form of PM credit or cash that you can transfer out of PM. It’s caused a lot of confusion and brought up a lot of questions that could have been easily answered with more information at the start.
Update (6/1/19): Some campaigns pay PM credit and some pay cash. PM credit can only be spent on the platform. You can find cash payouts under “Redeemable” in your PM profile.
What else should you know about affiliate marketing before you join PM or any affiliate program?
1 | Disclosures
As mentioned above, you must disclose that you are an affiliate any time you post a link in which you could potentially earn money. This information should be in plain sight for the viewer to find before he or she has a chance to click on an affiliate link. Notice I put a disclosure at the top of this post.
2| Read the fine print very closely
Read the details of the campaign closely as well as any additional terms and conditions of working with the company. If you do one thing incorrectly, you can invalidate your entire effort and not get paid.
You’ll be lucky if a company lets you fix your mistake and then pays you for your work, but they can just as easily argue that you didn’t meet the requirements and move on.
3 | Taxes
I’m not a lawyer or tax expert so what I write here cannot be taken as legal advice. But when you earn money as an affiliate, it counts as income and you have to pay taxes on it.
It’s a good idea to keep track of how much you earn through Poshmark this year and declare it on your taxes when you file them next year. This is true even for credits. Credits count as earned income.
4| Authenticity as a social media influencer
As an influencer, it’s good practice to promote only things that you believe in or support.
Are you someone who already talks about Poshmark and recommends it to people you think would benefit from it?
If so, then becoming an affiliate is a perfect next step to monetizing your efforts. Most people would think it’s logical for a fashion blogger or clothes flipper to talk about buying and selling on Poshmark because it relates to what they do.
If your social media accounts are about something completely different like parenting, baking, or health and wellness, your audience isn’t likely to be interested in something like Poshmark.
You risk alienating your following or at the very least, getting no clicks and sales for the effort you put in.
If this is the case for you or you want to keep your personal accounts personal and/or private, consider creating a second account for marketing purposes.
5 | Privacy
Any time you allow Poshmark or another company access to your social media accounts, you lose some of your privacy.
Poshmark and other companies ensure us that they’re protecting our data and using it only for research or relevant purposes, but we’ve seen security breaches happen.
The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data scandal is one of the most publicized ones as of late. It’s worth evaluating your privacy concerns against potential earnings before sharing access to your social media with any company.
So should you join or not?
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money when done well. It’s currently the primary monetization strategy I use on From Pennies to Plenty.
Before you make a final decision though, let me share a few more thoughts about affiliate marketing in relation to PM.
Affiliate marketing with PM will not make you much money.
I can make $10 for this current campaign, and the fine print says I can complete one PM campaign every 90 days. At this rate, the maximum I will make is $40 per year unless I move up into the next tier that pays more.
I’m going to bet that most PM users don’t have huge social media followings either, so they’re not likely to make $150 per campaign.
I plan to participate in this first campaign because I’m excited about being an affiliate and posting to IG, but it pays to be realistic about the earning potential.
Affiliate marketing usually requires a large and/or engaged following in your niche.
This is similar to what I mentioned above about authenticity. If you promote a product to 20,000 people who already look to you for fashion advice, you’re more likely to see click-throughs to Poshmark and purchases through your tracking link.
If you have 200 followers for an unrelated topic and they barely comment or like your posts, you’re not likely to see click-throughs and sales.
This is the nature of affiliate marketing. You typically need a lot of views and to provide a relevant product or service.
Additionally, top social media influencers spent a lot of time and effort over months or years to increase their number of followers to the thousands or millions that they have today.
Due to their reach, they’re able to charge a lot more than $10 or even $150 for a post or video from other brands. Poshmark’s payment is considered low for what they’re asking.
You likely won’t see a significant increase in sales in your PM closet.
I won’t say it’s impossible because some people will see sales. I would like more sales too (fingers crossed). Again though, unless you have a large following that’s already primed to shop, you’re not likely to see a large or sustained increase in sales.
Everyone starts with $0 earned.
All that I’ve said above doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try affiliate marketing, only that it may take you longer than you might expect to see large and steady earnings. I started this blog with 0 followers, 0 readers, 0 email subscribers, and no income, but it’s slowly grown over time.
If you see yourself using Poshmark long-term and you want to grow your social media presence, the Poshmark Affiliate Program is a great way to start monetizing your work.
Finally, if you’re ready to get started and aren’t sure what PM is asking you to do, take a look at IG and YouTube for users who have already completed their campaigns. This will give you a better idea of how to meet the requirements.
My first PM affiliate post. Easy peasy!
My second PM affiliate post. Took only a few minutes and fulfilled the requirements.
As for me, I’m thrilled that Poshmark has launched an affiliate program. I know most PM users are buyers and/or sellers foremost and maybe not interested in becoming a social media influencer, but I’m excited to see where the affiliate program will take me on both my selling and online entrepreneurial journey. I can’t wait to hear about what’s in store for Poshmark in the future too.
I plan to update this post more in the future as more information about the Poshmark Affiliate Program becomes available.
What do you think of the Poshmark Affiliate Program? Have you joined and completed a campaign? If so, what are you goals as an affiliate? Please share your thoughts!
