Pinterest is a social media channel that is often overlooked when it comes to advertising. But who doesn’t have at least one Pinterest board with saved recipes that look delicious? Or of future dream vacation destinations?
In this blog, we’ll give you the lo-down on Pinterest Ads. We’ll cover the following topics:
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest describes itself as a “visual discovery engine” for users to find ideas and inspiration. Posts (images, videos, infographics, etc.) are called Pins, and people can create boards, then save and organize the Pins they enjoy.
By clicking on a Pin, users can visit the website to learn more about it and even make a purchase directly!
Users will have a profile and can create subfolders within boards, such as categorized sections like “Living Room ideas” and “Dining Room ideas” under the mainboard, “Home Decor.”
Common industries that have a presence on the platform include food, financial services, beauty, fashion, retail, telecommunications, entertainment, home, automobile, travel, and tourism. But if you go to Pinterest and type in any keyword, even long-tailed keyword, you will find content and others that share the same interest.
Common industries that have a presence on the platform include food, financial services, beauty, fashion, retail, telecommunications, entertainment, home, automobile, travel, and tourism. But if you go to Pinterest and type in any keyword, even long-tailed keyword, you will find content and others that share the same interest.
Pinterest User Demographics
Here are some statistics to further convince you Pinterest is a force to be reckoned with.
- 80% of Millenial women and 40% of Millennial men in the United States are on Pinterest.
- 49% of US users’ annual income is $100,000+.
- Half of Pinterest users use the app to shop.
- Pinterest users spend 80% more in retail than those who don’t use the app.
- Pinterest users are 3 times more likely to click through to learn about a product or service than any other social platform.
- Pinterest ads cost 2.3 times less per conversion.
How Does Pinterest Advertising Work?
Pinterest is a social platform that gauges consumer intent by capturing people in a “future-oriented mindset.” Pinterest says,
Every time that someone searches on Pinterest, they’re thinking about what they want to try next. Because Pinterest is grounded in the future, we get an earlier indication of where consumers are headed and can help brands and agencies predict what is to come for their category.
Advertising on Pinterest is for businesses to tell their stories through visuals. They are effective for these marketing objectives:
- Boosting brand awareness
- Driving website traffic
- Driving conversions
- Increasing video views
- Increasing sales
Audience Targeting
With a Pinterest Business account, advertisers can promote their most popular pins or create brand new images or videos. You will then set up ads through Pinterest Ads Manager, and users will be able to see your ads in their home feed and specific search results.
Ad Creation & Management
Advertisers can target users’ demographics like age, location, and interests and serve various ads, which blend into the colorful platform.
Pinterest typically decides the type of ads to display to the user based on their historical activity. So let’s say I’ve been looking up inspiration for a new haircut or self-care tips, then it’s more likely that ads for beauty and wellness products would show up for me!
Advertising Model
Like Google and Microsoft Bing, or Facebook, Pinterest also uses a bidding model for ad placements. You will be bidding against your competitors on keywords and placements relevant to your niche.
Campaign Planning & Seasonality
This means that brands should be planning out their Pinterest Ads a few months in advance!
Here is Pinterest’s 2020 report on how to prepare for the Holidays early. It has excellent stats and consumer insights, as well as visual examples of effective creatives.
Types of Pinterest Advertising
- Standard Pin
- Video
- Shopping
- Carousel
- Collection
Advertisers can get creative and showcase great, branded visuals to capture people’s attention and tell a strong story.
Standard
Video
Shopping
Brand advertisers can create a “Shop” tab on their accounts. Then, they upload their product catalogs and turn them into individual Pins. People can then see a variety of the products offerings when they’re browsing. Shopping pin ads are often used to promote the latest collection and other eCommerce products.
These pins are helpful because it can incorporate your product details, so users can tap on them to learn more, click through to your website, and even complete a purchase!
Carousel
Carousel ads are essentially Standard Pins, but users can swipe through multiple “cards” (images or videos) in one Pin. You are allowed 2 to 5 cards per Pin.
Each card can have its own title, description, and link. So you could have users go to 5 different links from one single Carousel ad.
Collection
Collection Pins and ads show one main image above 3 smaller pictures. Pinterest designed this streamlined format to help retailers drive eCommerce sales.
It works like this: a user sees a primary video or image in their feed. Then when they click on it, they are taken to the collection: a little shop front where brands can showcase up to 25 products. It creates an enjoyable shopping experience for Pinterest users!
Static vs. Video Ads on Pinterest
Pinterest Advertising Best Practice
- Visually compelling
- Tell a good story
- Make people want to learn more
2. Optimize copy for your pins. Show up for relevant searches with clear descriptions and titles.
3. Text Overlays go on your ad creative. Be sure to keep it short so it’s legible on mobile.
4. Your landing page should match whichever ad users click on. Ensuring relevancy is what creates a good user experience.
5. Video ads should hook audiences immediately in the first 2 seconds. Use a strong cover image so people can have one glance at your ad and know what it would be about.
6. For your video creative, show, don’t tell. Many users have audio turned off, so utilize visuals, overlayed text, or captions instead of audio and dialogue.
7. If your ads target different countries, you should create separate ads for each country and translate the text overlay and copy to the local language.
8. Use Pinterest analytics to track your ad performance (metrics such as impressions, saves, clicks). Be proactive: if any ads are underperforming–make optimizations!
9. You can find Pinterest’s most up-to-date, complete list of advertising specs here.
Pinterest Advertising Costs
- Brand awareness: $2.00-5.00 for 1000 impressions
- Engagement: $0.10 – $1.50 per engagement
- Traffic: $0.10 – $1.50 per click
As mentioned above, your ad costs will depend on how competitive your field is and may vary with Pinterest’s bidding model.
Here’s an example: your company is a new food prep subscription box, and you want to run a brand awareness campaign. With HelloFresh, GoodFood out there, it’s probably going to be a tight competition! So, instead of the minimum of $2, you can expect to be spending $5 or more.
War Room can be your digital advertising partner! We specialize in hyper-targeted, programmatic advertising. We’ll create a customized strategy and execute ad campaigns with your business goals in mind.
Check out our Case Studies or What We Do to get a better sense of our expertise.
Drive Results with Strategic & Effective Pinterest Ads
Get in touch with our digital ad experts today!
