One of the most common questions that I get from my clients is "do Pinterest ads work?"

It's a great question, and it deserves an answer. In this blog post, we will look at how to use Pinterest ads successfully, what types of businesses can benefit from them, and if they are worth considering for your own business.

This article will discuss the following topics of conversation surrounding Pinterest Ads:

1. What are Pinterest Ads - and are they worth it?

2. How to use Pinterest ads for your business

3. Tips and tricks for a successful campaign

4. Benefits of using Pinterest ads

5. Drawbacks of using Pinterest ads

Let's get started!

What Are Pinterest Ads ... and Are Pinterest Ads Worth it?

In short, yes!

One of the most important things to remember is that you cannot simply take an ad campaign from another platform and expect it to work well for your business here, too.

On other platforms like Facebook or Instagram, businesses can get away with more text-based ads because people are there primarily looking at friends' posts (and therefore might be willing to read some small chunks of words).

But on Pinterest, users come specifically for pretty images - so they will only engage if it stands out in a good way!

Of course, you also have to come to Pinterest advertising with a good offer, strong keyword research and an idea of who your client is.

Once you have those elements in place, you are ready to start your first ad campaign.

2. How to use Pinterest ads for your business

Pinterest has three ad types:

1. Awareness - Grow your reach and build brand or product awareness
2. Consideration - Get more traffic to content on or off Pinterest
3. Conversion - Drive actions like online sales, signups and subscriptions

If you are a new business advertising on Pinterest, I recommend that you focus on #1 Awareness and #2, Consideration.

You can still achieve the "conversion" objective using a consideration campaign, and even run re-targeting campaigns using the consideration ad type.

According to Pinterest.com,

• Pinterest ads are 2.3x more efficient in cost per conversion vs traditional social media, and
• retail businesses have a 2x higher return on ad spend compared to social media.

There are five formats you can choose from when running an ad on Pinterest.

The key is choosing a beautiful image that catches the eye, no matter which format you choose. Pinterest refers to this as "visual-first".

You can choose a vertical image or a square image format.

Here are the five formats for Pinterest Ads:

• Standard
• Video
• Shopping
• Carousel
• Collections

Pinterest also gives you tools within Pinterest.com and even their mobile app. You can turn your organic pins into ads simply by using your phone.

For a more detailed set up, you can log into the Pinterest Ads Manager.

3. Tips and tricks for a successful Pinterest Ads campaign

Let me share a few basic best practices straight from Pinterest.com:

First, you'll need to identify that you have access to Ads Manager.

Which should be fairly straightforward because you can get to it from your Pinterest Business accounts dashboard.

You can click on the "Ads" menu or bookmark ads.pinterest.com.

Then you can choose to create an individual ad or a full campaign.

If you've created a successful campaign once, you can even copy it and use it again or edit a campaign you've already created.

To help keep you straight if you decide to run multiple ads, you can put them into "ad groups."

These are ads for products or services that are related.

What's neat is that you can add multiple ad groups within a campaign so that you manage your goals and budget in once place.

Next you get to choose a goal for your Pinterest ad (aka, promoted pin!)

Pinterest recommends identifying ONE marketing objective.

Ask yourself, what do I want this campaign to accomplish?

The marketing objective will impact targeting capabilities, bidding and whether or not certain ad formats are available.

This is where the three ad objectives come in, which we touched on earlier in the article. They are:

1. Build Awareness - which means helping people discover you. They may or may not be problem-aware. They may or may not be solution aware. But chances are they are unaware that your company provides the solution they need.
2. Consideration - this is a fancy term for driving more traffic to your website. The wonderful thing about this type of advertisement is that you are also capturing first-party data when your pinner clicks through. This is why it is super important to be strategic with your landing page. As much as possible you want to capture the pinner's motivation for coming to your site and if possible, obtain her email address!
3. Conversion - This is another great option for e-commerce sellers, although it can be a more expensive way to utilize Promoted Pins on Pinterest. You can also use shopping ads to highlight specific collections.

 

4. Benefits of using Pinterest ads

Pinterest ads are a great way for brands to extend their marketing reach.

Pinterest in general will help you understand the customer journey of your clients. Each campaign gives you a chance to try new things to reach your dream audience in a new way!

You can use Pinterest targeting settings to make sure that the right buyers at the right time are seeing your ads. That means targeting pinners based on their interest, their demographic, geographic

You can target based on people’s interests, demographics, and keywords they’re searching. You can even create an audience similar to your current audience. You'll need to have the Pinterest Tag installed to maximize your retargeting efforts.

For new advertisers, Pinterest's algorithm will help you with your audience so you can get started fast. With 400 million monthly users, there's a VERY good chance that your dream customers are Pinterest pinners.

5. Drawbacks of Pinterest Ads

Like any advertising, there's no guarantee of ROI for your ad spend.

Often, many consumers will see your ads during a time that they are looking for inspiration. So that doesn't mean an immediate impact on your sales.

Or they may come across your ad as a solution to their problem. However, simply creating an ad doesn't equal guaranteed revenue.

Many factors will impact the success of your Pinterest ad campaign. Pinterest notes factors like your budget, how often your ads shop up and how long people see them.

From a business owner perspective, I don't like how Pinterest refuses to keep a running total of your ad spend. You'll need to stay on top of this and monitor every few days to make sure

1. Your ad is spending and

2. You're not accidentally spending too much.

If you align your ads with the Pinner mindset (which is essentially, a planner mindset), you can adjust your timeline for the most effective time that your potential clients are looking for your solution.

Pinterest also recommends accelerated budget pacing and automatic bidding for best results. New advertisers may be hesitant to give an algorithm so much power over their hard-earned dollars.

In conclusion, if you’re ready to take your social media marketing game to the next level, consider setting up a Pinterest ad campaign.

We know that ads can seem intimidating at first, but don’t worry!

Give us a call today so we can set up an initial consultation appointment where we will discuss which types of campaigns would work best for your company's needs. With our expertise in both digital advertising and design, we guarantee your ads will stand out amongst competing brands on any platform - including Pinterest!

Learn more about getting started with Pinterest by taking my on-demand Pinterest Workshop and learn the Pinterest basics.

 

About the Author:

Crystal Waddell is a Pinterest expert and marketing strategist who helps creative entrepreneurs build profitable businesses. Crystal started her own company in 2013 and went full-time with it in 2021. Her mission is to help other online business owners grow their website traffic and revenue through Pinterest Marketing and strategic SEO. Each month Crystal hosts a hands-on workshop for business owners who want to learn to use Pinterest effectively for their businesses. For more tips on growing your business with Pinterest and SEO, check out www.pinshop.com or follow @pinshopify on instagram!