Pinterest Ads: Everything You Need To Get Started

Discovery is at the heart of Pinterest. Users go there to find new ideas and inspiration, while they’re using other social media platforms to connect with friends and family.

Pinterest users want to discover new products, brands and projects. And Pinterest ads naturally work into that because they don’t interrupt — rather, they add to the sense of discovery.

Because users are already looking to shop, they’re more likely to appreciate ads than on any other platform.

Take a look at this example search for “living room furniture.” While there are organic pins in the results, we can also see ads from Wallpaper Direct and Wayfair that appear almost as native search results.

Pinterest users are ready to buy as they browse. If someone is searching on the platform for something like “living room furniture,” it’s likely because they’re redecorating their living room and are actively looking for both ideas and products.

Pinterest ads can appear in both the home feed and search results. This means that even if someone is filtering through their home feed without looking for specific inspiration, they can still come across one of your products.

Finally, Pinterest pins (say that five times fast) have a longer lifespan than other types of social media posts and ads. Someone may see one of your ads in their feed or search results and decide to save it to a Pinterest board rather than take action immediately.

This then gives your ad the potential to reach that user’s audience and be seen again by the user in question as they browse back through their boards.

By creating a longer-lasting pin that can reach a wider audience than you’re even paying for, you’re able to get more bang for your ad bucks.

You can choose from several different Pinterest ad types based on how and where you want your ads to appear.

Standards pins are the simplest type of ads to run on Pinterest because you’re essentially “boosting” or promoting an existing Pin.

This type of ad is a single image or video that appears in the home feed. The only thing differentiating standard pins from organic pins is a small “Promoted by” label.

When a user clicks an organic Pin, they see the Pin detail page. With standard pin ads, they’re taken directly to the URL you specify.

Video pin ads are similar to standard pins — but they’re more eye-catching as they use video as the creative asset, drawing people in from the static image pins. They appear as video pins with the same “Promoted by” label as standard pins.

You can use any ad objective to create a video pin — just use video as your creative when building or choosing the pin — or you can choose a “video views” or “video completion” objective.

Carousel ads look exactly like organic pins but contain a group of images users can swipe through on mobile or desktop. You can tell it’s a carousel by the small dots underneath the image.

Importantly, when a user saves it, the entire carousel is saved to their board. You can have 2-5 images per carousel ad.

Shopping ads are pulled directly from your product catalog, meaning you’ll need to have a catalog set up before creating one of these ads. Many platforms, like Shopify, offer a direct connection with Pinterest for this.

To create a shopping pin, select catalog sales as your ad objective before getting started with your ad creative.

One great thing about these ads is how easy they are. Anyone can set them up in minutes. Pinterest uses the data in your product information, as well as your industry, to automatically target Shopping ads to the most interested audience.

You can also set up your own targeting and advanced audience retargeting options, but this is one of the most “set it and forget it”-friendly ad types out there.

Shopping pins can look and act just like standard pins. The difference is how they’re made. With shopping pins, Pinterest can dynamically create ads based on your product groups, rather than you choosing or creating specific pins to promote.

Collections are shopping pins that promote multiple products at once. These are mobile-only ads that allow users to shop amongst multiple products at once.

In the feed, collection ads appear with one large, featured video or image and 3 supporting images. If a user taps your ad, you can then show up to 24 supporting images on the ad detail page.

Quiz pins enable you to share personalized content with users based on how they respond to a quiz. To create these, you’ll create a cover pin that each viewer will see, as well as a results pin for each potential result.

Showcase pins are another mobile-only pin type. They consist of multiple pins within a single ad unit, with each pin able to link to a different page of your website.

Ad sizes vary based on the type of ad you plan to run. It’s important to stick to the right ad specs so that your visuals appear as high-quality and seamless as possible, improving your overall ad quality — and hopefully ad clicks.

The recommended ad sizes for each ad type are as follows:

• Standard pins: 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels. Max size 32MB. PNG or .PEG file type.
• Video pins: 1:1, 2:3, 4:5, or 9:16 aspect ratio. Recommended 6-15 seconds in length, though max length is 15 minutes. Max size 2GB. MP4, MOV or M4V file type.
• Carousel pins: 1:1 or 2:3 aspect ratio. Max size 20 MB per image. 2-5 images per carousel. PNG or JPEG file type.
• Shopping pins: Follow the same specs as standard pins.
• Collections: 1:1 or 2:3 aspect ratio for hero image. 3-24 secondary creatives. Max size 10MB. PNG or JPEG file type.
• Quiz pins: 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels. 3-60 seconds in length if using video. Max size 32MB. BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP, MP4, MOV, or M4V file type.
• Showcase pins: 2:3 aspect ratio for title pin and cards. 1:1 aspect ratio for feature images. 3-60 seconds in length if using video. Max size 32MB. BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP, MP4, MOV, or M4V file type.

Your Pinterest ad costs are fully up to you, as you set your own bidding maximums. However, keep in mind that the more you spend, the more potential reach you gain.

When creating a Pinterest ad, you’ll be able to choose between two options: a lifetime budget or a daily budget.

A lifetime budget runs your ad continuously until that budget has been hit, then turns the ad off.

A daily budget runs the ad each day until your daily limit has been reached. This is a continuous ad that runs until you manually turn it off unless you set specific date parameters.

Ready to start running your own ads on Pinterest? We’ll walk you through the eight steps it takes to easily create ads on Pinterest and start increasing reach, traffic, and sales through this platform.

There are two modes for creating your Pinterest ads campaign: automated and manual. The next step is to decide between the two.

With automated campaigns, you can choose from two main objectives: conversion and consideration.

After choosing your objective, it’s time to select or create the pin that you want to feature in your ad.

One nice thing about the automated campaign is that it selects your targeting for you based on who Pinterest thinks will benefit most from your ad.

If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you’ll need to create a manual campaign. But Pinterest also benefits from serving relevant ads to their users, so you can trust their judgment.

Now it’s time to decide how much you want to spend on your ad.

The automated campaign lets you choose from a few options, like $5-10 per day, but you can input your own daily budget if you want to set a different amount.

Finally, it’s time to publish! Review all of the settings you input to make sure they match your desired targeting, budget, duration, ad creative, and anything else you’ve set.

Once you’ve published your campaign, you don’t want to let it sit without monitoring it. Throughout the campaign, you can return to your Ads Manager to monitor its performance and ensure it’s reaching the right audience.

Make any changes you need to make if it’s not performing well. You don’t want to waste money on a useless campaign.

Then of course, at the end, you can measure your campaign performance to your overall goals to see if you were able to hit the audience, the reach, and/or the sales you were looking for.

Want to get the most out of your Pinterest ads? Keep these best practices in mind as you create your ad visuals and build out your campaigns.

Automated campaigns make your life easier. Pinterest even lets you know at the onset that creating an automated campaign can take just 2-3 minutes while manual ads can take up to an hour, depending on how in-depth you want to get.

If you plan on running multiple campaigns, taking advantage of the automated settings can save you a lot of time, though it might not get you the results you want.

This is why testing both options is a good idea. If manual campaigns are generating exponentially more results, then of course it will make sense to dedicate that time to your campaigns.

But if the results are the same, or if automated campaigns are performing better, don’t waste extra time building out a manual campaign. Use the automated features and sit back to watch your results pile in.

Take a look at this search query on Pinterest for “home decor.”

Incorporate your brand fonts and colors into your Pinterest ad graphics. Make sure your ads and your pins on this platform are recognizable and similar to your ads and graphics on other platforms. This can help with brand recognition and strength across the board.

Be strategic about the landing page you pair with your Pinterest ad. You should be sending your ad clickers to the page that continues the journey they started by viewing your ad.

For example, if your ad showcases a specific couch, make sure it leads to that couch’s product page, rather than your website’s home page or a full collection page. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to take action after seeing your ad.

You might start your Pinterest ad journey with a handful of standard ads. They’re simple and effective, so why not?

However, we recommend testing out the various ad types. Try a quiz ad or collection ad to put even more personalized content in front of your audience. See which ad types perform best. Aim to consistently increase your reach and sales.

Tell ad viewers exactly what you want them to do, either in your pin description or on your ad graphic. Calls-to-action like “learn more,” “shop now,” or “take the quiz” can help increase clicks and conversions.

Finally, get creative with your visuals. You don’t have to just have a single product photo as your ad creative. You can create a collage, use a video, or design a graphic that showcases even more to your audience.

More creative ad visuals grab attention better, increasing views, clicks, and conversions.

Get even more inspiration before you launch your first (or next) Pinterest ad. Here are three proven success stories with Pinterest advertising.