Pinterest is a great platform for driving traffic and sales, but it can be hard to figure out what types of ads are best.
You know that you should use Pinterest Ads, but where do you start? What type of ad works best? How much should you spend on each campaign and which audience should you target? Our team asked top Pinterest ads experts these questions.
We collected their responses and put them all in one place so that anyone could benefit from their experience. Here’s our guide to getting started with Pinterest Ads!
Pinterest is a platform that operates totally differently than other social platforms. Therefore, you need to get into a different mindset when creating your Pinterest Marketing Strategy.
I’ve helped hundreds of brands (of all sizes and verticals) use Pinterest to grow their business and increase sales–I believe the key to success on this platform is to think like a Pinner but act like a marketer. This means putting yourself in the shoes of the person on Pinterest you’re trying to attract. How would they be searching on Pinterest (literally what words would they type in the search bar? Try it, see where it leads you!), what images would stop their scroll? What pain points are they trying to solve? What inspiration would they be searching for?
Then . . . execute against that. This means create your Pins so that they will stand out in the feed of this ideal Pinner. Pinterest users have no shortage of beautiful Pins to look at but how will YOURS stand out? IN addition to a compelling image, what text overlay can you include on your Pin that will speak directly to them? Your job is to serve up the content that they are looking for or that will inspire them. So, thoughtfully package up your product images and copy in a way that is unique to your brand and stands out in the feed.
The way to get in front of the right person and get the click is to get into the Pinerest-user mindset from the jump.
If you’re looking to create a successful Pinterest Marketing campaign, the best way to do so is to use the site’s visual features to attract visitors. By having a variety of rich images, store owners can create opportunities for conversation around keywords and relevant topics.
As a content marketing professional, I have found that using enlarged or zoomed images can be powerful tools to elevate the quality of your feed, and increase conversions. When used well, they can lead people to additional content on your webpage. Try to present a zoomed-in version of your key products for better brand recall.
Zoomed images help make stores more visually stimulating- helping you not only attract more customers but also increase engagement in terms of likes and re-pins.
When using zoomed images, you can also include numbers or dates to help visitors sync their experiences with significant events in their lives or with the world at large.
#1 Pinterest Tip: There are so many it’s hard to narrow it to just one. A favorite of mine is to add Happy Descriptive Words to your titles.
For example, if you write a headline for a recipe make sure to include something at the beginning that makes it sound great. Because you aren’t going to post a recipe that is great, right?
You are going to post a cobbler that is Fantastic or Ultimate or Mouth Watering Apple Cobbler. Make me want to open your recipe and make it! Eat it. “Apple Cobbler” on its own is just kinda boring.
I dabbled with Pinterest marketing for years and didn’t see any return until I realized even small budgets on Pinterest advertising goes a LONG way. I initially began putting $50-$100 dollars behind our best organic-performing content and saw traffic to our site and impression quickly grow. Now, it’s not all about “pay to play” but it’s about creating content that resonates with Pinterest users too.
Publishing and putting dollars behind infographics, illustrated graphics, checklists, and content that provides a solve to a Pinterest user’s problem has greatly increased our Pinterest success. Remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine. Give them content that solves their problem upfront. As traffic to our site grew, we increased budgets to allow for more and more traffic and content impressions to increase.
Compared to other social media platforms, I believe your money on Pinterest goes a lot further. Don’t be afraid to test content and boost different pins to see what works for you. But remember, if they’re clicking through from your pin, give them a relevant landing page or link that pin from a blog so they can learn more.
Life is better with automation! Through my many years of publishing content to the web I have found that redundancy is key. Having your post seen on as many platforms as possible, even if it’s the exact same thing, is never a bad thing… in fact, the more eyes, the more platforms, the better. I have been using a a program called Dlvr.it to do just that.
It pulls my main blog post and pushes it to all my other social sites instantaneously – it’s perfect, requires no effort, and you reap the benefits of you post being seen by so many other viewers who would not have had the chance to do so if they were just following my site.
Don’t forget that SEO works for Pinterest, not just Google! Like many online platforms, Pinterest has a search bar, and ranking there will produce lots of high-quality traffic (that is as long as you focus on quality, highly relevant, correct search intent, and middle/bottom of the funnel search phrases/keywords). So choose which ones to optimize for wisely.
Perform proper keyword research using Pinterest’s tool (hidden inside the Pinterest Advertising platform); go to your “Business Hub” and click the “Ads” tab. Then click on “Create Ads”. Select “Traffic” as your campaign type and then click continue to get to the next page. Additionally, check out auto-suggest words in their search bar to uncover a variety of keywords to help you refine and expand things.
Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to target, add them to your business name (if applicable), profile, board titles, board descriptions, pin descriptions (don’t forget #hashtags), image file names, body copy in the post, and pin url of posts/board names. This organizes your pins and content around certain topics and shows Pinterest that your significant concentration in this area is something they should send more users to.
If you’re an e-commerce store owner, Pinterest ads might be the answer to your advertising woes. These tips should help get you started on implementing these best practices for using this new ad format in your Pinterest Marketing strategy.
But don’t forget about other types of media that can also work well with a strong social presence and varied spend; try starting by diversifying where your money is spent online. This will give you more opportunities to find what’s working best without overspending on any one channel or platform – which could ultimately lead to increased sales! Which of these has been most helpful so far?
Yaron Been is an Ecommerce Entrepreneur, host of the EcomXFactor podcast and a Conversion Rate Optimization Expert.
