Pinterest is a social media platform that has its own unique set of features and rules. If you’re building a performance marketing plan and want to run paid ads on social, you should learn how to advertise on Pinterest. There are various reasons to put effort – and budget – into Pinterest ads.
In this article, we’ll guide you through a step-by-step process on how to use Pinterest for marketing purposes. We will also explain how to create Pinterest ads that will perform effectively and drive traffic to your website.
What Is Pinterest?
Pinterest is among the top 20 social media networks globally, and it sits within the top 5 among US users. It’s a platform where users can share images and videos called ‘pins’ via virtual pinboards. The primary purpose of Pinterest is to act as a visual discovery engine where anybody can find ideas and spark inspiration.
The platform was launched in 2010 and rapidly grew into one of the largest social media networks. Today, over 445 million people use Pinterest to search for images and videos, save pins to their profiles, and engage with other Pinterest users. . If this platform were a country, it would be the third largest in the world.
So, What is Pinterest Advertising?
Pinterest ads are regular pins, the difference is that brands pay for them to appear where users are exploring. These ads will show in a defined audience’s home feed, category feed, and relevant search results.
Using Pinterest for Marketing
Learning how to use Pinterest for marketing campaigns will result in a greater impact on the metrics that matter to you and your business. The platform can help drive traffic to your website, increase your brand awareness and even increase your sales by 3x.
To get started, you need to create a Pinterest Business account. This will unlock pro tools and give access to analytics and ads manager.
Once your business account is ready, you can run ads on Pinterest. You’ll be asked to select your brand’s category: the options include Beauty, Fashion, Home, Food and drink, and Health and fitness. After you’re set up, you get customized recommendations based on your business, category, and details.
When managing your business account, Pinterest Business offers branded content as well. This opportunity allows creators to connect with brands for sponsorship opportunities.
Setting up a Pinterest Business account helps you with:
1. Running Ads
Ads on Pinterest promote your brand to users actively searching for products like
yours, but also to users who are passively browsing.
2. Creating Pins
You can create organic and pay-per-click campaigns. If you want to drive organic traffic, focus on writing compelling descriptions for each pin. Moreover, if your intention is to increase conversions, run a PPC campaign and send users to a landing page.
A key advantage is that you can promote pins you’ve created or saved before.
3. Building Your Profile
After setting up a profile on Pinterest Business you can showcase and promote your
products with a merchant profile. You can claim your website and link your account to
Shopify or WooCommerce account. Additionally, you can add details and information about your business and apply to the verified merchant program.
4. Working With Creators
Brands can work with content creators on Pinterest. Creators can tag shoppable
products, add affiliate links and include partnerships in their Idea pins with the paid
partnership tool.
Creating Content for Pinterest
If you’ve got your business account in order and you’re ready to start creating pins, follow these recommendations to get the best possible outcome:
1. Design Eye-catching Pins
Pinterest allows you to personalize each pin you create and share. You can crop, trim or add logos and text when uploading a new image or video to your account.
Remember to create a content calendar to keep your pins fresh, seasonal, and varied. Stay ahead of your content schedule using Pinterest templates to easily create and customize your content and start pinning like a pro.
2. Post Regularly
Posting new content is key to getting more Pinterest followers. You can schedule several pins throughout the day using a Pinterest Business account or third party Pinterest tools.
Posting between 5-30 pins a day is optimum to get you on the right track.
3. Invite Your Community To Get Involved
Use descriptions to invite pinners to contribute and share your content, as well as follow your account and interact with your brand regularly.
Responding to your followers' comments will make it clear that your account is healthy and active.
4. Comment On Your Followers’ Content
Engaging with your followers' content–as well as the pins of influential Pinterest users–is an excellent way to build a community. Comment on their boards or re-pin any User Generated Content about your brand – particularly if they feature your product in their pins.
5. Know The Best Times To Pin
The best times to pin are 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST and 8:00 PM – 1:00 AM EST. However, it also depends on your audience, their location, and their online behavior. Use Pinterest analytics to determine the best time for you to post on your business account.
6. Create Searchable Content
When creating a pin, you should add a title and description to help tell your story.
If it’s relevant, Pinterest users will see your content in their home feel, which is vital to building high-quality content that drives engagement. You can also add alt text and a destination link when you post your pin.
How to Build a Pinterest Ads Campaign
Once your Pinterest Business account is up and running, you can start creating ad campaigns. It takes only a few steps to set up and publish your ads.
- Choose if you want an automated or manual campaign
- Select a campaign objective.
- Establish a campaign name for internal use and status (e.g. Active or Paused).
- Set a campaign budget and schedule. Your ads can run continuously or on or between specific dates.
- Set your campaign goal, including a metric to measure performance, and receive personalized recommendations on how to optimize your ads.
Automated Campaigns vs Manual Campaigns
Automated campaigns combine an advertiser’s goals with Pinterest's best practice recommendations to help you get results with less manual work. In this case, you will have to input the following:
- Campaign goal
- Age or location targeting requirements
- Daily budget
- Ads
However, if you choose to run a Manual campaign, you will determine every targeting details and budget. When selecting objective for the campaign, here are the options you’ll choose from:
- Build awareness. Help people discover your brand.
- Video views. Promote videos to help users find your brand.
- Drive consideration. Get people to click on your Pinterest ads.
- Get conversions. Drive people to your website and promote your product with shopping ads.
Pinterest Ad Formats and Best Practices
You can set up several ad formats on Pinterest, including static pins, videos, or carousels.
The best pins for advertising purposes are visually attractive and appear like organic content. Follow these tips to create pins that will make people want to know more about your brand.
- Showcase your brand. Make your product the hero.
- Include a logo. Every pin should have your logo on it. Make it small and avoid the lower-right corner since the platform covers this space with product icons.
- Add straightforward text. This copy goes on the image or video and should add value to your asset.
- Optimize your copy. Besides copy on assets, you must write clear titles and descriptions that follow ad specs.
- Double-check your links. If a pin includes a link, double-check that it makes sense and that the website you’re looking to direct traffic to loads quickly.
Because Pinterest focuses on a creative audience, it allows pinners to create content in various formats.
Those using Pinterest Business can build many types of pins. Follow these specs to ensure your ad is the right size, dimension, and includes the right number of characters.
1. Static Ads
Static pins and ads are the most basic type of Pinterest ad, and they feature only one image. You can create Static ads by uploading an image from your computer or mobile device.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: Desktop 20 MB, in-app 32 MB
- Aspect ratio: 2:3 or 1000 x 1500 pixels
- Title: Up to 100 characters. Only the first 40 characters show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Up to 500 characters. This does not appear when viewing the pin. The algorithm uses descriptions to determine whether a pin is relevant to the audience.
2. Shopping Ads
Shopping ads are promoted single images or multi-image ads that display a product relevant to users’ interests.
The specs for these ads are the same as above.
3. Collections Ads
This format combines one large – hero creative – and three smaller assets or secondary creatives. While you can only create Collections ads on desktop, these ads only appear in the Pinterest mobile app feed.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 10 MB
- Quantity: Must have 1 hero creative and between 3 and 24 secondary creatives.
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 2:3 for hero creative. All secondary creatives must have the same aspect ratio.
4. Video Ads
So a promoted pin on Pinterest is like a fancy image that gets more eyes on it. But a promoted video pin is even cooler, it's like a mini video that tells a story and grabs people's attention.
Here's the video ads spec that make it look good.
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Max file size: Up to 2 GB
- Video length: From 4 seconds to 15 minutes
- Aspect ratio: Square videos (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16)
- Title: Up to 100 characters. Only the first 40 characters show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Up to 500 characters. This does not appear when a user is viewing the pin. The algorithm uses descriptions to determine whether a pin is relevant for the audience.
5. Carousel Ads
Carousel ads feature multiple images to swipe through, like Instagram or Facebook carousels. You can showcase different pictures of a product or multiple products in the same carousel.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 20 MB per image
- Quantity: 2-5 images per carousel
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 2:3
- Title: Up to 100 characters
- Description: Up to 500 characters
6. Idea Pins & Ads
Idea Pins are multiple videos, images, and custom text in the same pin. These are created natively on Pinterest but can be promoted only in countries where Idea Ads are available.
- File type: Image: .BMP, .JPEG, .PNG, .TIFF, or .WEBP / Video: .mp4, .m4v, or .mov (iOS and Android only)
- Max file size: 1 GB
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Video length: From 3 to 60 seconds
- Resolution: 1080×1920 pixel size (9:16 ratio)
- Aspect ratio: 9:16
- Title: Up to 100 characters
The Benefits of Pinterest Advertising
Pinterest can benefit brands in many ways, from driving awareness for a product or service to enabling users to shop directly from the platform. It also boasts one of the lowest CPCs in the social media ecosystem.
According to Pinterest Business, 80% of users have discovered a new brand thanks to Pinterest. And, 45% of people in the US with a household income of more than $100,000 are on Pinterest.
So, if you play it right, your brand will grow in more ways than one. Building great Pinterest ads can help you and your business to:
- Sell more products. Pinterest works as a social commerce platform. Adding a meta tag to your site allows you to unlock Pinterest Catalogs and sell your items using product pins.
- Generate more leads. The platform is a visual search engine, and users’ search intent is often transactional. You can link pins and ads to a lead generation page.
- Drive traffic to your website. Besides descriptions and meta data, you can include links to your website and other social accounts.
- Grow brand awareness. Branded content can be part of a Pinterest user search looking for purchase inspiration. You can create pins and boards for each of your products and promote these.
What Types of Businesses Succeed on Pinterest?
As predicted in Pinterest’s Trends to watch for 2022 report, these were the most popular Pinterest categories based on search demand over the past year:
- Food and Drink
- Women’s Fashion
- Beauty
- DIY and Crafts
- Holidays
- Travel
- Art
- Design
- Quotes
- Education
Given the breadth of topics of interest to Pinterest users, you can create content based on what people are looking for on the Pinterest Platform, but that also fits your brand.
If you want to stay in the loop and know everything about what’s trending on the platform, visit Pinterest Trends. This handy tool enables businesses to learn about what content is popular and create campaigns accordingly.
You can filter each search by trend type, region, date, age, gender, interests, or keywords.
Conclusion
Are you ready to start running your first Pinterest ads? Remember, you can always look at the platform’s creative best practices or join the Pinterest Business Community for more inspiration.
One last piece of advice: don’t stress too much about developing the perfect campaign straight away. If this is your first time using Pinterest for Business, explore different types of ads, creative, and targeting to build an audience that engages with your brand.
