Is Pinterest worth adding to your e-commerce brand’s social media marketing efforts?
It turns out this often-overlooked social media platform has more than 431 million monthly users.
In this post, we’ll cover:
In a world where new social platforms are constantly popping up and gaining traction with younger audiences, you may wonder if a social platform that’s been around since 2010 still has relevance in social marketing. The good news is that it does, and it’s stronger than ever.
The intent of active users on the platform is different from any other social network. Most users on Pinterest use it as a search engine to discover new things. Users flock to Pinterest for ideas, projects, and shopping inspiration. They want to discover new brands and products. So, relevant ads are often welcomed by Pinterest’s audience because of the nature of the platform.
So, it’s less about connecting with others and more a social discovery platform. Pinners are ready to shop, and advertisers can take advantage of this to expand their organic reach and lower the CPC of their campaigns. In fact, it has 2.3x more efficient cost per conversion than ads on other social media platforms.
There are seven different ad types. Here’s a brief description of each type of ad available to businesses on the platform:
Standard ads consist of simple vertical or square image pins. Standard ads are the most commonly used ads on the platform. The nice part about standard ads is that the “Promoted by” label is no longer visible on the pin once it’s saved to someone’s board. This makes it feel more organic than other Pinterest ad types and encourages others to save the pin. The more the ad is pinned, the more exposure your brand gains at no additional cost.
This type of ad is the ideal fit for those with lower budgets, anyone new to the platform, and for general brand awareness. With the versatile nature of standard ads, you can successfully leverage them for most types of products and campaign objectives.
Video pins work just like standard ads and are an excellent way to tell the story of your product or brand. They’re great for capturing your audience’s attention and can be viewed on both desktop or mobile.
When creating your video ad, keep in mind that many users prefer to watch videos without sound. You’ll need to optimize your video for silent viewing as well as full volume. If something is being said in your video that enhances the story or adds context, consider adding a text overlay so it will still make sense without the sound.
Video ads are a great fit for any brand looking to showcase its product or story in a visually-compelling way. This is great for products that benefit from a demonstration as well, but demos could be better for idea pins. We’ll share more on that later in this post.
Shopping ads are exactly what they sound like. They’re designed for users to shop the pins that interest them. This type of ad not only works well for marketers, but is a natural fit for the platform because so many people use pins for shopping inspiration.
This ad works by uploading products from your catalog. The products are converted to pins that show up in the user’s feed like a standard ad. You can include product details in the pin and tag dots in the image to link directly to your website.
This type of ad is a perfect fit for ecommerce brands in any industry. It can be particularly useful for brands with seasonal offerings or product launches as it can be an excellent way to showcase new, relevant collections.
Carousel ads are another type of ad that works like a standard pin. However, instead of a static image, the user can swipe through multiple images or videos contained in a carousel pin. The multiple assets are known as cards. For each ad, Pinterest allows you to include between 2 to 5 cards. With the ability to add a unique title, description, and link to each card, you can essentially include up to 5 links in your single pin.
This type of ad is great for brands that want to share multiple products in a collection. However, it can also work well for a single product showcase. With multiple cards, you can show different features, angles, or uses of your hero product.
Collection ads are not to be confused with carousel ads. With carousel ads, you can show a collection of different products, but with collection ads, you display your collection of curated products in a specific format. There’s a large, hero asset that’s followed by 3 to 24 secondary assets that appear smaller than the hero asset.
The interactive nature of the ad is that once a user taps on a collections ad, they’re directed to a fullscreen page where they can view the hero product and the additional secondary products.
Collection ads are excellent for companies that want to showcase large collections of products or create a sort of mood board with their offerings. This type of ad allows users to explore multiple products simultaneously. This can lead to increased conversions and exposure to a broader product range.
Idea pins, also known as story pins, are newer to the platform. These ads consist of a series with up to 20 graphics or a short video snippet. Idea pin ads are highly customizable and come with a variety of features not included with standard video or graphic pins. These features include text and graphic overlays, voiceovers, interactive stickers, tagging, topic hashtags, detail pages, and the ability to create the pin from your mobile device.
Because of their similarity to Instagram stories, brands that have demonstrated success with Instagram may find these ads familiar and a natural fit for their creative. Idea pins are also a good fit for brands looking to share how-to videos or demonstrations of their products. The immersive, informative content helps customers experience the product and better understand how it could work for them.
Another new type of ad to the platform is called try on pin ads. They offer a unique, augmented reality experience. It’s a creative way to bring a virtual “dressing room” to your audience. By using their phone’s camera, pinners can virtually test your offerings and experience the product without physically having it in their hands.
This new style of Pinterest ad is proving itself to be successful with beauty and accessories brands. For instance, users can compare how different shades of lipstick will look with their skin tone before making a purchase. While this feature lends well to beauty and accessory categories, don’t feel limited by this. Different industries can leverage this ad format to create a unique experience for their audience. You just have to get creative.
However, you’ll need to check the availability of this ad type for your account. As a new type of ad, this format isn’t available in all countries yet.
Step 1: Create a new ad account
If this is your first time creating a Pinterest ad, you’ll need to set up your ad account. See the screenshot below for a quick walk-through.
Step 2: Select a campaign objective
Similar to creating ads for other social channels, every Pinterest advertising campaign needs to have a campaign goal / objective. In Pinterest’s case, you can select from several. Your objective will determine how you bid in an ad auction (i.e. automatic bidding vs. manual) and what ad formats you can promote.
Consider your business goals when picking from these objectives: brand awareness, video view, consideration, conversions, and catalog sales.
Step 3. Pick a format and review ad specs
You need to comply with ad spec requirements for any format. This article on Pinterest’s help center contains the different ad specs, including file types and max width for various ad formats.
Pro Tip: Use an aspect ratio of 2:3 for assets.
Step 4. Set up bids and targeting
Bids are how you use your budget to place ads on Pinterest. You can make these automatic or customized. You’ll also need to set up targeting at this point. Targeting your audience is highly customizable, and you can set up your ad to target by interest, keyword, device, location, and more.
Here are a handful of examples of effective Pinterest ads:
The Knot, an online wedding planning company, just happens to be an ideal match for this idea-sharing platform. Many people plan their weddings by organizing boards on Pinterest and The Knot is perfect for providing inspiration. They have many successful ads, but we’ll just share one.
Here’s an example of one of their promoted pins with a compelling call to action (CTA). The CTA prompts users to click to take a wedding style quiz. This type of content is particularly valuable for millennial users looking to the platform for wedding inspiration. The quiz offers users curated wedding photos based on their results and vendor recommendations to tie in the brand’s offerings.
Another great reason to use a quiz as your main CTA is that even if the user doesn’t create an account on The Knot, you still have their information from the quiz, so you can continue to communicate with them.
Nike is the perfect example of a brand successfully using Pinterest for conversions through their product catalog. The brand’s home page is set up like a shopping catalog with a clean, minimalist appeal that makes every shoe pop against its white backdrop.
Keeping with the minimalist aesthetic that makes the brand images so striking, Nike’s recently promoted sneaker, the Air Force 1 Pixel, shows only the shoe and logo on the image. The product description copy is concise with a CTA link that directs to the product’s landing page.
Beauty brand Sephora shares a ton of inspiring pins through their account. The content is a mix of brand awareness, conversion, and inspirational content to share ideas with their audience about how to use their products.
This educational, brand awareness ad is an example of a video pin that introduces the audience to one of the founders of a product. It educates them on the product’s benefits in a visually-appealing, engaging way.
JUST Egg sells a plant-based alternative to eggs. Their Pinterest account is packed with recipe ideas with a mix of branded graphics to tie their aesthetic together.
In this promoted ad, the company relies heavily on the headline copy. The visual is colorful, simple, and striking. It looks just like scrambled eggs, and the novelty of the product helps create compelling copy that intrigues the pinner to learn more. The copy claims that the plant-based eggs are so good that you might accidentally stop having cholesterol for breakfast.
Shein, a clothing company popular with female Gen Z consumers, repurposes some of their best TikTok creatives as video pins to promote their newest arrivals.
The video mimics the way a user would scroll through their phone to show the next dress in the collection. The video swiping through the collection on its own is enough to make someone stop and watch. The images are all of the same model in the same setting to create consistency and prevent the audience from thinking it’s a different ad as it rolls through.
Pro Tip: If you are seeing success with your TikTok ads, you may be able to follow Shein’s playbook and reuse the same creative content on Pinterest, too.
Warby Parker sells prescription glasses online. In this promoted shopping pin, they use a single still image to showcase a pair of glasses with a clean graphic. The aesthetic is pleasing and even with soft colors demands your attention, but it’s the copy that stands out here.
The ad is speaking to a pain point that many people on Pinterest could be struggling with. The ad talks about eye strain from looking at a screen. The product is the blue light glasses lineup, aka the solution to the problem. This ad makes great use of the shop by pin we talked about earlier.
This promoted pin by Edgepark Breast Pumps is interesting. The company is targeting mothers that are likely on the platform for parenting tips and inspiration for their kids, but the product they’re promoting likely isn’t one that someone is searching for on Pinterest.
However, the ad stands out. A toddler with spaghetti on their head will certainly grab the attention of a parent browsing Pinterest. The ad speaks to the challenges of motherhood and offers a solution to help the pinner check one thing off of her list as a mom.
Zola, another wedding planning brand, leverages their Pinterest audience similar to The Knot. In this ad, they took a different approach to marketing their services using a promoted pin. This engaging video targets their audience at a specific stage in their wedding planning through their messaging.
From the start, the video has a strong copy hook that can be viewed as a text overlay. The copy is paired with an attention-grabbing visual of a man getting down on one knee and proposing. The copy asks the audience if they’re engaged and wondering what to do next. The video then positions Zola as the simple solution to help the couple get started with a free wedding website and planning assistance. The pin ad visuals are consistent with the landing page for a seamless experience across platforms.
Many ecommerce brands can see great results advertising on Pinterest.
However, if Pinterest is a new channel for your team and you don’t have the time to devote internal resources to learn how to use it, then you may consider working with a social media agency—ideally, one that specializes in working with ecommerce businesses.
That’s where Credo can help. We have dozens of vetted paid social and e-commerce agencies, including the ones below, in our network.
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This page last updated on March 7, 2023 by John Doherty
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