Pinterest isn’t always the first social media platform that comes to mind for advertising, but it’s a worthy addition to your social media marketing strategy.
Using every social media platform and trying to excel at all of them isn’t the best digital marketing strategy. How do you know if Pinterest should be part of yours? The industries that succeed the most on Pinterest include
On other social networks, brands are seen as interrupting the experience. On Pinterest, people use it to discover new products, making it the most natural fit for brands. Keep in mind that the majority of Pinterest’s 444 million monthly active users are women ages 25-44. If that’s your target audience, advertising on Pinterest is a no-brainer.
Advertising on Pinterest also gets you more value for your ad spend than other social networks.
Pinterest users are looking to shop anyway and the ads aren’t complicated. That means your ad spend works harder with them.
Like other social media platforms, Pinterest ads come in many formats for different purposes, placements, and visuals.
This is the simplest Pinterest ad format: a single image that leads to a link. Here are a few tips to make a good one:
Video ads stop scrolling pinners and get them to look at your ad a little longer. This is how to make the most of them:
Shopping ads use the same format as standard ads, but the difference is that they lead directly to a link to purchase the product.
Carousel pins include multiple images. Users can swipe through them to see them all.
Collection pins have one main image and three smaller images.
Idea pins are multi-page pins that are similar in format to stories on other social media platforms. However, the difference is they don’t go away.
Here’s the step by step guide to creating a pinterest ad campaign:
The first step is to create a campaign from Pinterest Ads Manager.
Pinterest’s Ads Manager has five campaign objective options:
This is the first step of the conversion funnel: get your name out there and build awareness of your products.
Recommended ad types: standard ads, shopping ads
The only goal for video view campaigns is to get as many eyes on a video as possible. These could be product promotions or general videos about your brand story.
Recommended ad type: video pins
Consideration campaigns are all about earning those sweet clicks. To do that, the idea is to encourage people who are already aware of your brand to take a closer look.
Recommended ad types: collection ads, carousel ads
Conversions campaigns are all about taking that final action. This could be a purchase, a subscription, an appointment, or whatever makes someone become a customer of your business.
Recommended ad types: shopping ads, collection ads, idea pins
Catalog sales campaigns are a subset of conversion campaigns specific to ecommerce businesses. The goal is product sales.
Recommended ad types: shopping ads, collection ads
Once you’ve selected your campaign type, it’s time to create your ad groups. Ad groups allow you to run different ad types related to the same goal side by side.
Like most other social media advertising, Pinterest lets you target ads to your audience based on the following characteristics.
Pinterest ad spending is on a bid system. You’ll notice that they cost less money than other social media ads.
Select a Pin to promote
This is when you create your ads including the image, destination link, caption, and more!
Here are a few miscellaneous tips to make your Pinterest ads the best they can be.
The product or service that you’re promoting should be the focal point of each pin.
Tasteful placement of your logo is essential for brand awareness. Place it so it’s there and noticeable, but doesn’t hit viewers over the head.
A text overlay helps your pin stand out on users’ home feeds.
Use the recommended aspect ratios so images show up right in the feed. Compress images so they load quickly, even on mobile devices.
Your caption should add context to the image. Using relevant search terms and hashtags in the caption will give your promoted pins an SEO boost.
An important part of any social media strategy is paying attention to trends in your niche and piggybacking on them to get more eyes on your content.
At the beginning of your Pinterest advertising endeavor, try different ad types and targeting tactics. Then, track the Pinterest Analytics and metrics on the Ads Manager and continue using the ad types that work best for you.
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