How to use Pinterest Ads for PPC

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Pinterest Ads offer a unique platform for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, as they blend the visual discovery aspect of the platform with targeted advertising. Pinterest is a highly visual and intent-driven platform where users actively seek inspiration, ideas, and products, making it an excellent channel for businesses to promote products, services, and content. Here’s a detailed guide on how to use Pinterest Ads for PPC, including everything from account setup to campaign optimization.

1. Set Up a Pinterest Business Account

Before you can run Pinterest Ads, you need to have a Pinterest Business account. If you already have a personal account, you can convert it to a business account or create a new one.

  1. Create or Convert to Business Account: Go to Pinterest for Business and click “Sign up” to create a new business account. Alternatively, convert an existing personal account by going to your account settings and selecting the “Convert to Business” option.
  2. Set Up Billing Information: Once you have a business account, you’ll need to add billing information to run ads. Navigate to the “Ads” tab and click on “Billing” to enter your payment details.

A business account provides access to Pinterest Ads Manager, as well as analytics and additional features designed for brands.

2. Install the Pinterest Tag (Optional but Recommended)

To track conversions and optimize campaigns effectively, it’s recommended to install the Pinterest Tag on your website. The Pinterest Tag is a piece of JavaScript code that allows you to track user actions like purchases, sign-ups, or page views. It’s essential for retargeting, conversion tracking, and optimizing ad performance.

  1. Set Up Pinterest Tag: Go to Pinterest Ads Manager, navigate to “Ads” > “Conversions,” and click “Create Pinterest Tag.” Follow the instructions to install the code on your website.
  2. Track Events: You can track specific events such as add-to-cart, checkout, and lead submissions, which will help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and refine your targeting strategy.

The Pinterest Tag is a critical tool for any PPC campaign, as it enables better optimization of your ad spend and helps create more relevant ads.

3. Create a Pinterest Ads Campaign

After setting up your business account and installing the Pinterest Tag, you’re ready to create your first Pinterest ad campaign.

  1. Navigate to Ads Manager: Log in to your business account, then go to the Ads Manager by clicking on the “Ads” tab at the top of the Pinterest homepage.
  2. Choose a Campaign Objective: Pinterest offers various campaign objectives to help you achieve your PPC goals. These include:
    • Awareness: For driving visibility and increasing the reach of your ads.
    • Consideration: Aimed at driving traffic to your website, app, or a specific piece of content.
    • Conversions: Designed to increase specific actions, like product purchases, newsletter sign-ups, or app installs.

Selecting the right objective is essential, as it influences how Pinterest optimizes your ads and how you will be charged (cost per click, cost per action, etc.).

4. Set Your Campaign Budget

After selecting your campaign objective, you’ll need to set a budget. Pinterest allows you to set a daily or total budget depending on your campaign goals.

  1. Daily Budget: This is the amount you’re willing to spend each day on your campaign. When this limit is reached, Pinterest will stop serving your ads for the day.
  2. Lifetime Budget: This is the total amount you’re willing to spend over the course of the campaign’s entire duration. Pinterest will spread the budget across the campaign period.

Pinterest requires a minimum daily budget of $2.00 for campaigns and ad groups. It’s a good idea to start with a smaller budget and gradually scale up based on performance.

5. Create Ad Groups

Ad groups allow you to define targeting, scheduling, and bidding strategies for different segments of your campaign. You can create multiple ad groups within a campaign to target different audiences or test different bidding strategies.

  1. Define Your Target Audience: Pinterest offers detailed targeting options to ensure your ads are shown to the right people. You can target users based on:
    • Demographics: Age, gender, location, language.
    • Interests: Pinterest allows you to target based on user interests, such as fashion, home decor, beauty, and travel.
    • Keywords: You can target specific search terms users might enter into Pinterest’s search bar. Pinterest Ads Manager will suggest keywords based on your ad content, or you can manually add keywords.
  2. Audience Targeting Options:
    • Custom Audiences: Use your existing customer data to create custom audiences (e.g., uploading an email list).
    • Actalike Audiences: Pinterest’s version of Lookalike Audiences allows you to target users who share characteristics with your custom audiences.
    • Retargeting: Retarget users who have previously interacted with your content or website using data collected from the Pinterest Tag.
  3. Ad Scheduling: Choose the specific days and times you want your ads to run. This is especially useful if you know when your audience is most active on Pinterest.
  4. Bidding Options:
    • Manual Bidding: Set a maximum bid you’re willing to pay per click or per action.
    • Automatic Bidding: Let Pinterest automatically adjust your bids to get the most engagement within your budget.

6. Create Pinterest Ads

Pinterest offers several ad formats to choose from, depending on your campaign objective. Each format is visually rich and designed to blend seamlessly with organic content. Here are some of the key ad formats:

  1. Promoted Pins: These are standard Pins that you can promote to appear in users’ home feeds, search results, and related Pin sections. They look like regular Pins but are marked with a “Promoted” label.
  2. Video Pins: Video Pins are visually engaging and can help showcase your products, services, or brand in a more dynamic format. These videos autoplay in users’ feeds, making them hard to miss.
  3. Shopping Ads: Ideal for e-commerce businesses, Shopping Ads allow you to promote specific products by pulling images and details from your product catalog.
  4. Carousel Ads: Carousel Ads consist of multiple images that users can swipe through. Each image can have its own headline, description, and link, making it great for telling a story or showcasing multiple products.
  5. Collections: This format allows you to feature a hero image or video along with a selection of related product images underneath. It’s ideal for e-commerce businesses wanting to showcase multiple products.

7. Crafting Your Ad Creatives

To succeed with Pinterest Ads, your creative needs to be visually appealing and aligned with Pinterest’s user behavior. People come to Pinterest for inspiration, so your ads should provide value, whether it’s ideas, tips, or product inspiration.

  1. Pin Image Specifications:
    • Recommended aspect ratio: 2:3 (1000 x 1500 pixels)
    • Use high-resolution images and avoid too much text on the image.
    • Ensure that your brand’s message is clear and visually aligned with your campaign goals.
  2. Video Ads:
    • Videos should be optimized for mobile viewing, as most Pinterest users browse on their phones.
    • Keep videos between 6 and 15 seconds long for optimal engagement.
    • Include a strong call-to-action (CTA) in the description or within the video.

8. Launch Your Campaign

Once your ad creative and targeting are set, review everything and hit the “Publish” button to launch your campaign. Your ads will go through Pinterest’s review process to ensure they meet the platform’s advertising guidelines. This typically takes 24 hours or less.

9. Monitor and Optimize Your Pinterest PPC Campaign

Once your ads are live, it’s important to monitor their performance regularly. Pinterest Ads Manager provides detailed reporting on key metrics, including:

  1. Impressions: How many people saw your ad.
  2. Clicks: How many people clicked on your ad.
  3. CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of people who clicked your ad after seeing it.
  4. Conversions: Actions taken after clicking your ad, such as purchases, sign-ups, or page visits.
  5. CPC (Cost Per Click): The average amount you paid for each click.

Based on these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your campaign. Here are a few common strategies for optimizing Pinterest Ads:

  1. Refine Your Targeting: If your CTR is low, consider narrowing or adjusting your audience targeting to better match your ideal customers.
  2. A/B Test Your Creative: Run multiple versions of your ad creative (images, videos, headlines, descriptions) to see which versions perform best.
  3. Adjust Bids: If your ads aren’t getting enough impressions, you may need to increase your bids. Alternatively, if you’re getting high impressions but low engagement, try lowering your bids to optimize for more cost-effective clicks.
  4. Optimize for Conversions: If your goal is conversions, use the Pinterest Tag data to adjust your campaign. You might need to tweak landing pages, simplify the checkout process, or provide clearer calls-to-action.

10. Scale Your Pinterest Ads

Once you’ve found winning ad creatives and targeting strategies, you can begin scaling your campaign by increasing your budget, expanding your audience, or creating more ad groups. To scale effectively:

  1. Increase Your Budget Gradually: Scale your daily or lifetime budget in small increments (10-20%) to avoid overspending or causing performance issues.

Expand Audience Targeting: As you scale, consider broadening your audience targeting by experimenting with new demographic segments, interests, or keywords. You can also expand geographically to target users in new regions or countries.

  • Leverage Actalike Audiences: If you’ve had success with a specific audience, create Actalike (similar to Lookalike) Audiences to reach users who share traits and behaviors with your existing high-converting users. This helps you reach a broader audience without sacrificing quality.
  • Add New Creatives: As you scale, it’s crucial to keep your audience engaged by rotating fresh ad creatives. Testing new images, videos, and messaging will keep your ads from becoming stale and prevent ad fatigue. Pinterest recommends introducing new creatives every few weeks, especially for campaigns with a high frequency.

11. Pinterest Ads Best Practices

To achieve long-term success with Pinterest PPC campaigns, you should follow a set of best practices that align with how users interact with content on the platform:

1. Create Visual, Inspirational Content

Pinterest is a visually-driven platform where users seek ideas and inspiration. Your ads should reflect that by being highly visual, engaging, and inspirational. Avoid overly promotional or sales-heavy messages in your creative.

  1. Use high-quality, vertical images (2:3 aspect ratio) that stand out in user feeds.
  2. Leverage bright colors, eye-catching designs, and minimal text.
  3. Keep your branding subtle but clear to build trust with your audience.

2. Use Keywords and Hashtags Effectively

Incorporate relevant keywords into your Pin titles and descriptions to increase your ads’ visibility in search results. Pinterest users often search for specific products, ideas, and inspiration, so optimizing for keywords ensures your ads are discoverable.

  1. Add 5-10 highly relevant keywords in your ad descriptions.
  2. Use trending or relevant hashtags in your descriptions to increase your reach.

3. Align Ad Content with Seasonal Trends

Pinterest is a platform where users often plan ahead for future events, holidays, and seasons. Aligning your ads with upcoming trends, holidays, or seasonal moments can help your campaign resonate better with Pinterest’s audience.

  1. Use Pinterest’s trends tool to find out what’s trending in your niche.
  2. Create seasonal or event-specific ad campaigns to capitalize on user intent, such as holiday shopping, wedding planning, or home renovation ideas.

4. Include a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)

Always include a clear and direct call-to-action in your ads, guiding users on what they should do next. Whether it’s “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Sign Up,” a strong CTA increases the likelihood of conversions.

  1. Place the CTA within your ad description or directly on the image (but keep text minimal).
  2. Make the CTA relevant to the content of the ad and its landing page to ensure a cohesive user experience.

5. Test and Iterate

Successful Pinterest advertising requires ongoing testing and refinement. Continuously A/B test your ads, including different creatives, ad formats, targeting strategies, and keywords to identify what works best for your audience.

  1. Rotate creative regularly to avoid ad fatigue.
  2. A/B test your bids, audience segments, and creatives to discover winning combinations.
  3. Monitor performance metrics closely, such as click-through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC), and conversion rates, and make adjustments as needed.

12. Measuring Success and Reporting on Pinterest Ads

Once your campaigns are running, it’s essential to measure the success of your Pinterest PPC efforts using Pinterest Ads Manager’s reporting tools. Here are the key metrics to monitor and interpret:

Impression : The total number of times your ad was shown. High impressions indicate that your targeting is broad enough to reach your audience, but if your clicks are low, you may need to refine your creative or targeting.

Clicks and CTR (Click-Through Rate): Clicks show how many people clicked on your ad, and the CTR represents the percentage of people who clicked after seeing the ad. A low CTR could indicate that your creative isn’t resonating with users, while a high CTR means your ad is engaging and relevant.

CPC (Cost Per Click): This is the average amount you’re paying for each click. A low CPC indicates efficient ad spend, but balance it with the quality of traffic.

Conversions: The number of desired actions taken by users after clicking your ad, such as purchases, sign-ups, or app downloads. If your conversions are low, consider optimizing your landing page, or adjusting your targeting and creative.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): This metric measures the revenue generated from your ads relative to the amount spent. For example, a ROAS of 4:1 means you earned $4 for every $1 spent on Pinterest ads. A high ROAS indicates a well-performing campaign.

By regularly reviewing these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to refine your campaigns and ensure you’re getting the most out of your ad spend.

Conclusion

Pinterest Ads present a highly visual and intent-driven platform for brands looking to run PPC campaigns. With users actively searching for inspiration, ideas, and products, the platform provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to promote their offerings and reach an engaged audience.

To get started with Pinterest Ads, create a Pinterest Business account, set up the Pinterest Tag for conversion tracking, and define your campaign objectives and budget. From there, carefully craft your ad groups with precise targeting and engaging, visually rich creative assets that resonate with Pinterest’s audience.

Ongoing optimization is key to long-term success. Regularly monitor performance metrics, test different creatives and targeting strategies, and adjust your bids as needed. By following best practices such as aligning your content with seasonal trends, using keywords and hashtags effectively, and continually testing your ad components, you’ll be well-positioned to drive significant traffic, conversions, and sales through Pinterest PPC campaigns.

With Pinterest Ads, brands have the unique opportunity to reach users in the discovery phase of their purchase journey, positioning their products or services in a way that feels natural and inspiring. By leveraging the platform’s creative ad formats and precise targeting capabilities, you can create campaigns that deliver tangible results and help you grow your brand.

Categories: Digital Marketing