Pinterest isn’t just a social network; It’s a visual search engine that provides endless opportunities for businesses to grow. Are you using Pinterest to search for dinner recipes? Or, are you using Pinterest to reach your target audience? If the latter isn’t being done, it’s time you consider advertising on Pinterest! 

Benefits of Using Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is often overlooked by advertisers. However, there are some major benefits to using it – let’s explore some of them.

1. Pinterest Gets You Inbound Links 

Pinterest helps with gaining effective backlinks that improve your site SEO. If a large portion of your followers repeatedly pins your content, this can create backlinks to your website. You can also enhance your backlink strategy by posting various images of your products on Pinterest.

2. Pinterest Is A Great Place for Demand Generation 

Did you know that 97% of search queries on Pinterest don’t target a specific brand? This means that Pinterest users are exploring all options and are not limiting themselves to a particular brand. This gives you a chance to be easily discovered. In fact, Pinterest users are 47% more likely to be exposed to new brands than users on other platforms.

3. Pinterest Ads Drive Large Amounts of Traffic

Pinterest users are 3 times more likely to click through to a brand’s website than users on other social media platforms. In addition to that, over 2 billion searches are done on Pinterest, allowing you to have a large audience reach.

4. Pinterest Users Have High Purchasing Power

Traffic is great and all, but what about conversions? Higher-income means greater chance of users intending to spend money. A Pew research study discovered that the majority of Pinterest users earn over $75,000 annually. Also, 38% of users have a college degree resulting in high-paying jobs.

5. Pinterest Ads Have Evergreen Content 

Evergreen content is reliable and relevant in the long-term with no expiration date. It’s not a part of a trend and will remain fresh and valuable as the years go by. If a promoted pin has received a notable amount of re-pins and continues to have popular search terms, there is no time limit on its effectiveness. 14 million articles are pinned every day on an average of 11 times. 

What type of evergreen content should you create? Use informative content in the form of “How to” posts. For example, how to lose weight, how to manage a mortgage, or how to plan an event are all contents that are still useful and shown to users years later.

How to Optimize Your Pinterest Ads? 

Now that we’ve gone over the benefits of Pinterest ads, let’s see how you can apply them to your strategy!

1. Data-Driven Image Options

Pinterest is a visual search engine. This means images play a huge role in purchasing decisions. To figure out which image to use for your Pinterest ads, look at your organic results. The Pinterest users who engage primarily with your organic pins will resemble your target audience for your ads. See which pins are getting the most likes and engagement, and create similar images. You can analyze this by using Pinterest metrics such as save rates, pin clicks, video views, and engagement rates.

2. Be Clear With Branding

Adding your logo and brand name to your ads is crucial. If you’re using video Pin ads, Pinterest suggests that you introduce your brand within the first few seconds of the video. Keep the logo subtle and refrain from placing it in the lower right corner, as Pinterest’s visual search icon occupies that place. Make sure your product or service is the focal point and avoid abstract or lifestyle images that don’t portray your brand well. Fenty Beauty is a great example of keeping products as the centre of attention and using colours that are consistent with the brand. 

3. Make Use of Video Pins

Videos are widely known for driving more engagement. In fact, video content results in 1200% more shares compared to images. Try using the following to optimize your video pins on Pinterest: 

• Show, don’t speak – Most users prefer to watch videos with the sound off, so make sure you use text overlays to convey your message in a clear manner.
• Perfect length – It’s suggested to make your video pins about 6-15 seconds long. Attention spans are short and people are busy. Grasp their attention while not taking up too much of their time.
• Enticing cover image – Users tend to look at the cover image before choosing to click on a video. Pick a cover image that thoroughly conveys what your video is about within one glance. 

4. Make Use of Pinterest SEO

Remember, Pinterest is a search engine, not just a social media app. Your audience finding your content on this platform depends heavily on the keywords searched on Pinterest’s algorithm. Consider the following places to use keywords:

• Your name – Don’t just include your name. Include what you do. For example, Digital Marketer Sasha includes the keywords: “Online Marketing Strategies”, “Make Money Online” beside her name.

• Profile – Add at least one keyword into your description. These keywords can include what type of content you share on Pinterest such as “email marketing, SEO, PPC tips and branding”. 
• Board – You can do this by including keywords in sentences or listing keywords that are separated by commas. 

5. Use Strong Visuals

You need to have eye-catching graphics to get customers to look at your ads on Pinterest. Infographics are attractive contents that combine both text and images. 65% of users are visual learners, and 90% of information conveyed to the brain is visual. If you want more people to read your content, then use infographics. Research shows that adding infographics increases a willingness to read by 80%.

If you’ve scrolled through Pinterest feeds, you’ll realize that pins are usually in vertical shape in the 2:3 ratio. Although Pinterest allows using square pins, this layout tends to get lost in the millions of vertical format ads. Vertical pins are especially great if you’re trying to use infographics and include a lot of information about your product/service.

Use unique images to stand out. Creating your own images rather than using stock photos can help with this. If that’s not possible, use templates with eye-catching text. Here, we see copywriter Elenny Frometa using templates with consistent fonts and images to ensure that it is cohesive to her brand.

6. Use Rich Pins

Rich pins include additional information that’s seen when the pin is clicked on. This information is known as Metadata, which is pulled from the website that the pin links to. When information is updated on the website, the rich pins automatically update as well. Rich pins can be used for products, apps, articles and recipes. 

This encourages users to buy your product since they can learn more right away. Also, users will be able to see information directly on Pinterest without having to leave the app to see the details. With the information provided to users through rich pins, your brand looks credible and trustworthy. 

7. Use Split-Tests

Split testing aims to find out which version of your ad or web page provides the highest number of conversions, what users engage with the most, and what they enjoy seeing more or less of. Since Pinterest is mainly visual, trying different ad graphics is important. But remember, your graphics should be cohesive to your branding. Keep your images consistent and change things such as copy, CTA and image. Create different ad groups and organize them by interests, keywords, or visuals to see which one performs better. This prevents you from wasting ad budget on Pinterest ads that don’t appeal to your audience. At the end of the day, it’s all about bringing the best leads at the lowest cost-per-click. 

Growvare to the Rescue! 

If you’re not advertising on Pinterest, then you’re missing out! Use these strategies to get started, and see the results for yourself. Need help? No worries, we got you! Growvare uses AI to optimize your ads, and monitor them 24/7. Take advantage of our AI- driven targeting and split-test feature. Book a meeting with us to see DNA in action!