5 best practices for Pinterest advertising

by Hillary Read
February 24, 2017

By Elise Wang, Social Account Coordinator

It's a new year with a new budget! If you've just dabbled in Pinterest or haven't yet given it a go, it's time to get in gear. Here are 5 tips for putting the fast-growing platform to work for you.

Tip 1: Try It!

With a whopping 71% of its user base being female, Pinterest is a natural fit for a range of products geared towards girls and women. What if your product is more male or not gender-biased? Don’t write Pinterest off! You can still test Pinterest and find success. (Recently, 3Q has seen success on Pinterest with a financial client.) In an ecosystem filled with eCommerce and female-oriented advertisers, it’s possible that your ads will stand out, so start testing!

With retail season ending and eCommerce advertisers pulling back after Christmas, it’s the perfect time to test the platform at lower cost.

Tip 2: Test Actalike Audiences

Similar to Facebook, Pinterest has its own lookalike targeting ranging from 1% (700K) to 10% (7M)

Based on testing we have done, lookalikes have the highest CTR, though CPCs are cheap because the audience is more defined.

Interest targeting (broadly defined categories based on users’ behavior) had the lowest CPC and the best ROAS, so we recommend giving that a test run.

Tip 3: Mobile vs. Desktop: separate the campaigns

Pinterest also has a strong presence on Mobile; 75% of Pinterest usage happens on Mobile devices. Based on our learnings, Mobile, as expected, has higher CTR and lower CPC. However, for this particular client, we see that desktop has a higher ROAS because its conversion rate is superior.

When we group the devices together, more spend goes to Mobile because of stronger CTR, so I recommend separating Mobile and Desktop campaigns to get more control over spend & ROAS.

Tip 4: Use creative best practices

Pinterest is so visual that it’s crucial to make your creative stand out. Here are a few tips:

    • Use shorter, vertical pins (500 x 1560) that flow with Pinterest user feeds.
    • Include large text overlays in your images, especially if you are running ads on Mobile Devices.
    • If you are running a promotion, include it in your image.

Tip 5: Test and react

  • Use 1 pin per campaign so you can A/B test a creative
  • Once you find the optimal creative, group 2-3 pins in each campaign so Pinterest can optimize around the creatives with the best CTR. If you have insights into downstream metrics, be sure to allocate spend to the top-performing creative, not just the one with the strongest CTR.

Good luck!

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