Is Tailwind worth it? What I think after 5 months of using it
Pinterest is a very active social media and if you do not use it to promote your website, you might be missing a lot.
As with any social media, automation is pretty much a must when it comes to Pinterest. I realized it a while ago and finally, decided to invest in a Pinterest tool that everybody is excited about: Tailwind.
However, you need to pay to use it. And as with any paid tool, the first question that probably pops up in your mind is: Is Tailwind worth it?
BTW, I presume that if you landed on my post, you already know what Tailwind is š That’s why, in this post, you won’t read about what Tailwind is or how to work in it.
Instead, what you will read about is how to understand whether you should spend moneyon Tailwind and its power-ups. I will try to answer these questions:
Is it the right tool for you?
Will you and your blog benefit from it?
Is it worth spending money?
Also, I will tell you about my experience with Tailwind:
How it helps me to grow traffic
What’s working and what’s not
Tailwind cons
And finally, you will get a bonus section š in which I share my experience with growing a Pinterest account from scratch. And the bonus section contains its own bonus subsection! š
Let’s dive in! š
My stats: Where I started and where I am now
I had been wanting to try Pinterest since forever but something was always stopping me š
Finding good images, pinning, re-pinning, following… this all looked sooooo tedious and boring I am a lazy š¼ and can sustain a lot of manual work only for a short period of time.
That’s why I kinda started working on my Pinterest and then dropped it, and this cycle repeated several times. I was doing some Pinterest automation via Amplifr, mainly tasking my VA to schedule images once in a while.
I did all my pinning for my biggest niche website (it’s Mother Website) and managed to grow up to:
8 followers 40 users a month website traffic
š¤¦š»āāļøššš
Got lost in my Elephants š, Rats š, and other creatures? Read here to find out what the website nicknames mean
At the beginning of December 2018, I sold one of my websites and decided to invest money back into the business.
I had heard a lot about Tailwind before and finally decided to buy it to try it! š
Now I have:
1,460+ followers (I follow 413 users) 90 new followers weekly on average following my account (about 15-20 a day) 1.7 million monthly unique viewers 8,300+ website session monthly, which makes 46% of the total website traffic
Here’s how the Pinterest traffic looks like for Dec 2018 – May 2019:
During this time, I published and pinned several posts:
šš» 4 articles with X best ideas for Y (image lists) with 20-35 images I chose from Pinterest šš» 2 Skyscraper posts chock-full of images šš» 6 Question posts with 2 of which going viral šš» 4 Product articles that did not get much traction
Is Tailwind worth it? I can say that for me, it definitely is!
But will it be worth for you? Let’s see š
Who should use Tailwind?
Whether Tailwind is good for you, it depends on how experienced you are in blogging or niche website building.
Just starting?
If you are just starting with blogging or niche website building, maybe, you should not jump right away into Tailwind. It won’t be worth it, most likely. š«
Instead, I would suggest adding more content to your website so that you would actually have something to promote on Pinterest. Create some posts and make sure each has at least 2 Pinterest friendly images. Also, get yourself familiar with how to create such images quickly.
The best kind of posts would be the one with an image list š¼š¼š¼ where you gather a lot of images in one single post. Then, you will have plenty of content to share.
An example of an image list post: Our top 10 most creative breakfast ideas via bbcgoodfood.com
Experienced in blogging?
If you are already a savvy blogger or niche website owner and you know that you can churn out new Pinterest friendly content on a regular basis, then you can get Tailwind even for a new blog.
In this case, while waiting for your blog to beef up with content, you can start joining group boards and sharing other people’s pins to “warm up” your Pinterest account. This will help to attract followers that will be ready for your new content šš»
Is Tailwind worth it?
As you could have already guessed, the answer depends on a few factors.
So, you would need to make at least $10 a month for 12 months from the Pinterest traffic to cover the cost of the tool. Or, $120a year.
BTW, if you buy any Tailwind plan via my affiliate link, you will get a $15 discount (and I will get $15 as well).
As I mentioned above, if you are just starting and your blog does not have much content, Tailwind will probably be a waste of money for you. Especially, if your website brings zero income yet.
Let’s do calculations
But let’s say you monetize your website with ads and it’s already making money š¤
You can do some math to figure out if Tailwind is worth spending money:
Use it for a few months, maybe 5-6
See how much traffic you get from it
Check Publisher Revenue per 1000 views ( RPM) you got from the Pinterest traffic
Estimate how much traffic you need to recuperate the cost
Or, for the sake of simplicity, you can take the numbers for the last month and assume that you will always be getting at least that much.
My results
From what I see with my 1 Website, the AdSense revenue from Pinterest is not very lucrative.
In May, I got $61.72 from Pinterest traffic:
I assume I will get at least as much for the rest of the year (June – November) until I need to renew the Tailwind subscription.
Based on that, here’s what I get:
7 * $61.72 = $432.04
I spent $239.64 on 1-year Tailwind Pro subscription.
As you can see, by the time I need to renew my Pro account, I should recuperate the cost and actually make a profit š
My plans
However, I donot plan to stay with AdSense.
Once my traffic grows, I plan to switch to a better-paying ad network: Ezoic first (read my Ezoic review) and then Mediavine. This will make my revenue higher, help to recuperate my costs faster, and make more profit.
Also, remember that Pinterest should be only growing with time. This means you will likely be getting more and more money in the future.
Unless you get hit by Pinterest anti-spam hammer or something like this. There is always a risk, even if you do not break any rules. BTW, Tailwind published a post about how to avoid being flagged as a spammer; check it out here.
So far, I got the Tailwind Plus for Mother Website, my biggest website.
Now, I am considering getting it for Website. I will first test waters by paying on a monthly basis and later, I will decide whether Tailwind is worth it for this website.
Got lost in my Elephants š, Rats š, and other creatures? Read here to find out what the website nicknames mean
Tailwind Tribes
One of the distinguishing features of Tailwind is Tribes. Tribes is a set of topic relevant communities where you share your pins and re-share pins of others.
The basic plan comes with 5 Tribes memberships and 30 Monthly Tribe submissions.
To increase the limit, you can buy three power-ups:
Should you do it? Are Tailwind Tribes PowerUps worth it?
Me, I got the Tribes Pro power-up.
I am a member of 10 tribes (and use them all). Each month, I can pin up to 80 pins (and use it all).
According to Tribes insights, since the beginning, I got the following numbers:
I think these results are not super good for the amount of time I spend on it
šš» Tribes require a lot of manual work to re-share pins:
ā you need to choose the pin ā then to choose what boards you want to share it ā write a description if the pin does not have one; otherwise, Tailwind won’t allow you to post.
šš» It also takes time to understand what pin to add to which Tribe to maximize the chances or repinning.
šš» Also, if you leave a Tribe, your pins will disappear from it. I understand why this takes place but for me, it’s very restricting and makes it super hard to commit to a particular tribe.
Because of that, I’m thinking of not renewing the Tribes Pro plan I have š£
Tribes might be useful at the beginning when you need to grow your account. They give you a unique opportunity to get your pins in front of the massive following of bigger accounts.
Well, guess what – my account is already strong! I do not think it’s worth it for me anymore, at least for š Website.
However, it might be possible that Pinterest may reward your account for sharing pins of others. I have not found anything that would deny or confirm it. In this case, Tribes help you with that šš»
Tailwind Smart Loops
One of the Tailwind features I liked the most is Smart Loops. It allows you to schedule pins in a smart way that prevents you from spamming and helps to repin your most successful pins āæ
Tailwind also offers also three power-ups that allow you to use more smart loop pins. Here is the pricing:
Are Tailwind Smart Loops power-ups worth it?
I think it does.
I have the SmartLoop Max plan that allows me to use up to 1000 SmartLoop posts. I tend to max it out and rarely go below 900 loop pins.
Here are my stats:
Now, compare this to the Tribes stats above šššš¤£
And all this is pretty much hands-free. I just need to add new pins and new boards to the loops and clean them once in a while šš»
I love Smart Loops; it helps a lot when I have nothing to post š
And it all goes pretty much hands-off. I still need to optimize the pins I am loop-pinning but it takes maybe 1-2h a month.
I feel like the SmartLoop power-ups are definitely worth it.
How much time does it take?
Now, let’s talk about another resource that is as precious as money: Time ā°
Tailwind does make handling Pinterest easier but it still requires a time investment.
Especially, at the beginning.
When I just started in December 2018, I was spending a couple of hours each day on Tailwind for one website and I kept doing it for about 2-3 months šµ
Now, I spend maybe 2h every 2-3 weeks per website. I add new images from new posts, adjust the smart loops, and work with Tribes.
As of Tribes, I found a way to make it easier to work with it š
The Plus plan of Tailwind allows you to have collaborators. So, I trained my VA š¤ to share pins from Tribes. She adds them to the approval queue and I review and schedule it. It helps a lot!
Cons of using Tailwind
And of course, Tailwind has its own disadvantages.
Well, I found only one, actually.
šš» It is not hands-free.
To make it worth it, you need to add new content on a permanent basis.
It’s either new articles being published or old content being re-worked. This might be expensive and time-consuming š£
The SmartLoops feature can help with that, technically.
However, the loop pins also need to be updated once in a while. In addition to that, if you want SmartLoops āæ to do most of the pinning, you would need to buy more expensive power-ups to be able to auto-post a big number of pins.
At the same time, this is, probably, a con of any social media scheduling tool. If you do not have any new posts to publish, you wouldn’t need to pay for it š¤·š»āāļø
Bonus How to start with Pinterest this year
This is a bonus section that has nothing to do with Tailwind Well, almost
Here, I will talk about what is working with me on Pinterest. I will mention Tailwind once since it does help me with one thing
As I mentioned above, I am using Pinterest intensively with Mother Website and do not plan to stop there.
Recently, I started growing Pinterest for my Website. I am using the same approach I outlined below to grow it – and I am already seeing results. In fact, it is similar to what Tailwind themselves suggest – but with a twist š
BTW, I learned all of my Pinterest strategies in Authority Hacker Pro course. But, of course, I do not share everything here – you can learn some of the neat tricks only in the course š Read my Authority Hacker review to find out what else it contains.
Let’s jump right into it!
Creating images
šš» For image list posts š¼š¼š¼ (for example, “X best breakfast recipes”), I create one Pinterest friendly image where I use a few images from the post and a heading.
šš» For regular posts with fewer images, I try to create at least 2 Pinterest images and put them in the beginning and at the end of the post.
šš» I try to use only vertical images everywhere, especially for the posts with an image list.
šš» Recently, I started optimizing image Alt fields for Pinterest including Pinterest friendly description and hashtags #ļøā£
šš» On the Pinterest images, I most often write a title of the article and add a few more words explaining why this article is worth reading.
šš» On the image, I try to use 2 or 3 colors and fonts.
šš» Also, I make sure the copy is readable when zoomed out. šµš»āāļø I feel this increases CTR in Pinterest since, by default, Pinterest shows thumbnails.
Creating your boards
In total, I have 34 boards and one of them is a group board where I am the admin š®š»āāļø
šš» All my boards are quite specialized and represent narrow topics.
šš» I add keywords to both the title and the description.
šš» I do not use hashtags #ļøā£ either in the board titles or descriptions.
Growing your followers
In the beginning, you will need to apply some efforts to grow your following base. Later, with Tailwind and regular pinning, the number of followers should grow organically and totally hands-free.
How to start
In the beginning, I spent some time to follow others by doing classic follow-unfollow āÆ
Here’s how to grow your followers at the beginning when your Pinterest account is young:
find other accounts in your niche by searching for your keywords
go into each Pinterest account you found
follow their followers
they will follow back! š
At some point, you may want to unfollow some of these accounts (the ones who are not from your niche) to keep a healthy ratio between following/followers.
After using Tailwind for a couple of months
After using Tailwind for a month or two, I started seeing big organic growth in my following. I then stopped doing manual following since it’s labor-intensive (and I am a lazy š¼, remember? )
Now, my followers’ number keeps growing regardless of whether I follow others or not.
Tailwind stats tell me I get about 91 new followers per week. I can also see that it’s about 15-20 new followers on a daily basis. Last week, I got 143 followers.
Joining group boards
If you want your pins š to be seen by many pinners ššš (and believe me you do š), you should join group boards.
I’m a member of 33 Group boards and I believe it is the main factor in these 1.7 million viewers my Pinterest account gets every month.
Bonus š A Facebook group with Pinterest group boards
In my search for group boards, I stumbled upon a Facebook group that was created specifically to share your group boards with others. It has dozens of boards on various topics š
The group is closed and you will need to submit a request in order to be added. You will also need to fill out a questionnaire before being able to join.
I found 4 or 5boards to join and the owners were responsive and quickly added me šš»
I think the FB group could be useful for you as well if you struggle to find or join group boards.
However, it seems that Pinterest makes it hard to find group boards easily. Check out this video by Caffeinated Blogger to see how to do it.
A neat trick for joining group boards
I have a repo of group boards in a spreadsheet. There, I track who I contacted and when as well as the status of my request.
It often happens that not only the owner of a group board can add you! š²
There are tons of group boards out there that are abandoned by their creators but have active members.
I was once asked to add somebody to a board I did not own… and I was able to do so! That was an Aha! moment for me. I realized that other members of a group board can add you even if they are not the admins š
This way, I was able to get to a few boards some of which had a low number of participants and a high number of followers.
So, if you asked the board owner and did not get a reply, ask somebody else from the board š
It may not always work since the other members of the board may not have permission to add others. In any case, it’s worth trying.
Leveraging Tailwind
When it comes to finding and joining group boards, this is where Tailwind Tribes may come handy šš»
When you share someone’s pin, Tailwind encourages you to thank the sharer. I was getting these meaningless “thanks” and ignoring them until I realized I can use it for joining group boards.
Now, each time someone thanks me in the Tribes, I jump into their profile and see if they have any interesting group boards šµš»āāļø
If they do, I go back to the Tribe chat and ask them to add me.
They are still feeling grateful and trying to get me on these boards! š¤
Do group boards help to make your pins go viral?
Each time a pin goes viral, it brings a ton of traffic to your website. You will see spikes in your traffic:
And since group boards may provide better visibility for your pins than your own profile, the question is: Do they help pins going viral?
They definitely can.
But not always š±
Out of my 10 most popular pins, only 3 went viral after being pinned to a group board. The rest were pinned to my own boards.
Group boards definitely help with pin visibility but I am not sure it helps with making your pins go viral.
Final words
So, is Tailwind worth it? š¤
I hope you guys got an answer to this question. If you think you need this tool, go ahead and register via my affiliate link.
Then, if you upgrade to any paid tier, both you and I will get $15 on the Tailwind account! For $15, you can get a free month of the Pro plan or a cute discount on a yearly plan.
And of course, let me know what you think in the comments! And if you like my post, share it with your friends š¤
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Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I will receive a small fee if you choose to buy after clicking on any of these links. Thank you if you do! š¤
As you know I have recently bought two websites. Let's look at their performance and what I plan to do to increase it. I have no idea how realistic my plan is...…
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Automated page speed optimizations for fast site performance
I am a lazy š¼ and can sustain a lot of manual work only for a short period of time.
Website) and managed to grow up to:
8 followers
40 users a month website traffic
1,460+ followers (I follow 413 users)
90 new followers weekly on average following my account (about 15-20 a day)
1.7 million monthly unique viewers
8,300+ website session monthly, which makes 46% of the total website traffic
1 Website, the AdSense revenue from Pinterest is not very lucrative. 
Website, my biggest website.
Website. I will first test waters by paying on a monthly basis and later, I will decide whether Tailwind is worth it for this website.
How to start with Pinterest this year
Well, almost 
Website and do not plan to stop there.
Website. I am using the same approach I outlined below to grow it – and I am already seeing results. In fact, it is similar to what Tailwind themselves suggest – but with a twist š
)
