How to Use Promoted Pins – The Basics

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Do you remember the panic of 2019 when Pinterest announced they were ‘going public’ and selling shares in the company?  You could hear people crying over the traffic they instantly thought they were going to lose – Pinterest was going ‘pay to play’ like Facebook!

Fast forward to today and the panic was just that – panic.  Yes, there have been changed but that’s inevitable.  Promoted pins, or Pinterest ads, remain a big part of the platform and the way it makes money.  But there’s no compulsory need to use them.  You can still get great organic traffic from Pinterest for free.

However, what if you want to dabble into Pinterest promoted pins?  What are they exactly, how do promoted pins work and what kind cost could you see?  Let’s take a look at the basics.

What are promoted pins?

Promoted pins are pins that appear in the normal home feed or in a search feed but that have been paid to appear there.  Below is a shot from my home feed showing three of them – one from Pinterest itself, one from DIY store B&Q (I did some shopping there recently) and a third from Squarespace.  They show as ‘promoted by’ so you know these are ads rather than normal pins.

When people panicked about Pinterest going public, their fear was that all pins would become promoted pins.  And while there has been a subtle increase in the number of promoted pins as Pinterest wants to make money for shareholders, it hasn’t been the huge shift that the worst case scenario gang thought it might be.

Why promote a pin?

You definitely don’t need to promote pins to get traffic from Pinterest but there are a number of situations where it is worth considering it. 

Pinterest ads are ideal to push your content in front of a specific audience quicker than you would with organic results.  This can be handy if you have a product launch, running a promotion for a specific time or have seasonal content.  Organic traffic can take time and you may miss the window but promoting pins gives you greater control.

Using Pinterest promoted pins also has the potential to be cost effective.  That’s because people using Pinterest are generally there to make a purchase, although this may be a while later.  Over 50% of users have made a purchase after seeing something on the site and in general, they spend almost a third more than non-pinners.

How do promoted pins work?

Pinterest ad campaigns work on a cost per click or CPC basis.  This means you set a daily budget and a duration for the ad to run.  You only pay money when someone clicks on the promoted pin and you can monitor and adjust the campaign during its duration if you see data that indicates a change is a good idea.

There are a few basic rules that Pinterest have put in place for ads.  They must be accurate and lead to a relevant landing page so if you are promoting a pin for a blog post on Facebook, this is where the pins needs to take people.  Not to a post on how to start a blog on WordPress.

Also, there can’t be promotional information, calls to action, service claims, price listings or deceptive content on the pin image.  In other words, it needs to be an accurate, normal pin that you promote.

How do you promote a pin on Pinterest?

Promoting a pin (the tech side) is pretty simple – everyone with a business account has access to their Ads platform from the drop-down menu in the top left corner.  This allows you to start creating an ad and will also give you more options once you begin.

You can set up billing here which is crucial as you need to have a payment method in place before promoting ads to pay for the cost.  You can also get an overview of your ads, reporting in more detail, conversions, audiences and ad account history on this menu.  All of these will start to have content once you are using the ads platform.

Pinterest Conversion Pixel

Another important part of using a Pinterest ad campaign is to have the Conversion Pixel installed.  This is found in the ads manager and goes onto your website.  It allows you to track your campaign but also to create audiences based on people visiting your website.

Pinterest calls it the Pinterest Tag and you can find instructions on how to install it here, depending on the different types of platform you use.  Once you have done this, you can use this free extension for Google Chrome to check it is installed and functioning properly.  Always do this before you start any ads.

Types of pins you can promote

There are three main formats currently for promoted pins.  All of these can be pins already on the website or new ones that you upload specifically for the ad campaign.

Promoted pins

These are the standard pin images that most of us use for every blog post, opt-in, product or other purpose with a single image in a 2:3 ratio size.  These are the ones in my example above that appear in the Smart Feed as promoted.

Promoted carousels

Carousel pins include 2-5 images in a single pin that you can scroll through with the swipe option or by clicking the dots.  You can promote these with each card (pin) having a different image, title, description and even landing page.  So, if you have five products in a category, you could use one carousel pin to promote them.

Promoted video

Video is still relatively new on Pinterest and not all accounts will have the ability to promote one.  But if you do, the concept is similar to a normal pin.  Videos auto play on viewing without sound so it is important to use pins that don’t rely on audio.  Promoted videos should be either 1:1, 2:3, 9:16 or 16:9 ratio with no more than 2GB file size.

What kind of Pinterest ad campaigns can you run?

One of the big decisions is about what type of campaign to run because there are a few different options, depending on what you want to achieve with your ad.

Traffic campaigns

Traffic campaigns are where the aim is to get people to your website and can be ideal to drive lead generation, sales or to increase the number of people visiting the site.  With this type of ad, you are charged for every click to the website. 

Conversion campaigns

Conversion campaigns are focused on getting people to the website and completing a specific action.  They are ideal for email sign ups, selling products or other sales targets.  They can cost more per click than other campaigns but also have a higher chance of getting a paid return.

Shopping campaigns

If you have products you can upload to Pinterest via their catalogue feature, then this is the type of campaign you can use to promote those products, rather than focusing on sending people to the website.

Awareness campaigns

These are one of the newer options and help to improve your visibility on Pinterest as opposed to focusing on a particular action.  If you want to build brand awareness and recognition, they will be the right type of ad for your brand. 

You can either purchase them directly through the ad’s platform on Pinterest or through an auction.  You are charged for every 1,000 impressions.

App ads

These are a very specific type of ad that works if you have an app you want to promote on Pinterest. 

Choosing the right campaign

There’s no right or wrong type of campaign to choose, depending on your aims.  However, Monica at Redefining Mom who is one of the top promoted pins experts puts it like this:

Right now, the best type of Pinterest ad is a traffic campaign unless you have access to conversion campaigns, or you are a retailer and can use shopping ads.

Monica Froese

That’s because a traffic campaign is the only one where you are charged for clicks to the website.  Even if you are aiming for brand awareness, clicks will still help with this.  So, it is always a good place to start if you are unsure if one of the other specific types is right for your brand.

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Setting up a promoted pin campaign

Once you have decided on the type of campaign and what images you are promoting, you are ready to head into the ads section.  The drop down menu allows you to go straight into the setting up of a promoted pin.

The first step is campaign objective and here you will choose the type of campaign you want.  You can also name the campaign, add a daily spend and lifetime spend limits and set it to active or paused (in case you don’t want it to start yet).

Next is targeting and this where you select the interests of your audience or create one based on the Pixel you installed.  Interests can be a little general, but you can get an idea of what kind of audience this would create – below is one for ‘gin’ as an example. 

You don’t have to use interests; you can focus solely on keywords.  For ads for this blog, for example, because blogging and marketing is a little vague on Pinterest, that’s definitely what I would do.

Then you need to add keywords.  Ideally you will have 25-50 or more keywords that are relevant to your pin.  You can also format them as:

• broad match
• “phrase match” for an exact match
• “negative phrase match” for a negative exact match

As you add them, Pinterest will suggest more to help you then you can simply click on them to add them to the list.

There’s demographic data you can select as required including gender, ages, locations, languages and devices as well as advanced options such as ad-group tracking URLs.  Again, you don’t have to use all or any of these, depending on your needs and audience.

Budget and schedule is where you set the daily or lifetime budget and the CPC.  Pinterest does offer suggestions on what will be competitive for this but don’t be afraid to go a little lower at first if it seems high – you can always increase later.

Finally, you can find your pin, select by board and add more than one to the campaign for testing.  Then you are ready to launch your ad!

How much does a promoted pin cost?

Generally, Pinterest will recommend a cost per click bid to select at the beginning, but you can go lower than this.  The minimum amounts are:

• Cost per click – $0.10
• Cost per engagement – $0.10
• Cost per thousand impressions – $5.00

You can promote a pin for very little budget, but it is worth considering that it takes at least a week to really start to see results.  So whatever budget you have, you want to have enough for 7-14 days’ worth of promoting as a minimum.

Also consider how much you can spend versus what you will make.  If you are selling a product for $10, would you be happy spending $1 to make that sale?  If so, as your ads start to work, see how many clicks you need to get that sale and work out what ratio of profit you are making.  How much promoted pins cost will vary with every account – and with every campaign aim.

Tracking your ads

You definitely need to track your ads, but it may take a few days before you start to see many results and a week before the ad settles down enough to get good information.

Pinterest includes a range of basic information to help including impressions, repins, clicks, CTR (click through rate), average CPC and total spend.  Obviously, conversions or clicks, depending on your campaign, are the most important as these are what cost you money and make it for you.

Are promoted pins worth it?

Whether promoting a pin is worth it or not is something only you can answer.  It depends on if you have a budget to spend and a clear idea of what you are promoting pins for.  Sales of products, services, email signups and similar clear funnels are a great aim for promoting a pin while simply getting traffic may not be.  However, it is always best to test and see what works!