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Welcome to your complete and easy Pinterest Ads guide. This guide is going to help you turn pins into wins!
Hey there, reader! So if you’re like me, then you’ve come to that point where you are like “I need my pins to be reaching more people so I definitely need to run ads on Pinterest!!!!” and yes, don’t worry, I was once there too and ever since I started running Pinterest ads, I have felt like I have full control over my target audience and I’ve been seeing so much growth in my page overall. The part that really kept me from running ads at the start was not knowing how on earth I was supposed to use the tool. But fret not, I have taken the time to figure it out so that you don’t have to waste all that time. Let me show you how it’s done.
Before we jump into it, here is a short preview of the contents we will be covering in this guide:
- Pinterest Tag
- Creating Your Campaign
- Targeting Your Audience
- Demographics and Tracking
- Bidding
- Bonus Tips
Pinterest Ads begins with tags!
1. Pinterest Tag
First, I have to ensure I have a business account on Pinterest after which I installed Pinterest tag on my website so that I could track page visits, purchases and more.
Next, click on ads and the conversion and then once you’re there, Pinterest will give you a few options in which you can download the Pinterest tag for your own website. Select the one you want. My choice was WordPress because I already had a purchased domain.
2. Creating Your Campaign (the best part of this guide)
Now, we come to the crux of our Pinterest Ads 101 guide. We are going to move into the actual creation of your campaign.
Follow these steps:
- Remove Ad block functions if you have any.
- Click on Pinterest Ads
- Click on create campaign
- On campaign details, it will give you 3 options. ‘Build awareness’, ‘Drive consideration’ and ‘Get conversions’. If you’re looking to drive traffic to your website, ‘Drive consideration’ is definitely the option for you.
- Next, in campaign status, keep your campaign on “Active mode” to get your ads working right away. “Paused” is for ads that you’re trying to promote way in advance .
a. Budgeting
- Next, when choosing a campaign budget, I suggest you select “Daily budget” because it helps you define how much you’re actually spending down to the day. However if you select “Lifetime”, you have rather much lesser control over how much you’re spending on Ads on a daily basis.
- Usually I start with a minimum of about $5 this will set the spending budget which Pinterest does its best to maintain while generating your ads. Sometimes the ads may cost a little bit higher or lower than the budget you have mentioned but overall, Pinterest does its best to stick to the allocated budget.
b. Scheduling
- Next, you can schedule when the Ads should be run. Either continuously or on a specific date. Just like scheduling pins, you can set a specific date and time for which you would like the ad to be run. I usually go with “Run Continuously” because it helps me save so much time.
But how and where to find our target audience? That’s whats next in this Pinterest Ads guide
3. Targeting Your Audience
- Moving on, you’ll have to select Targeting Details for the Ads you’re running. Pinterest will give you 3 separate options.
“Reconnect with Users” which allows you to target an audience which you already have existing on your Pinterest page. If you are a new Pinterest user, I don’t recommend this option.
You’ll see the option “Find new Customers” which allows you to explore new users as your target audience. In my opinion, this is the best option for new Pinterest users.
you have “Choose your own” which is generally for experienced advertisers that want to choose a very specific target base. Also not the most ideal choice for someone starting out on Pinterest fresh. - Next, you will be asked to select some Interest and Keywords and I think it’s great to use select a few. But remember, the more interest and keywords you select, your potential audience actually grows a little smaller so keeping the spectrum a little wider by not selecting too many will definitely help your traffic.
Pinterest actually shows you how large or small your audience is getting as you select or deselect these options at the top right hand corner so this is also a great guide while you’re setting up your targeting.
a. Interests and Keywords Selection
Sometimes, you can even select an audience base that isn’t relevant to your ad just to grow your potential audience size. There are obviously certain interests that have way more popularity compared to others, like home decor or outfit ideas, those can be a good trick to hitting those audiences. But remember, you also don’t want too big of an audience so try to stick between 10 million and 1 million. If it’s smaller than that, your ads won’t really be doing much for you because of the target base being too small. Do the same when selecting keywords. But try not to add both keywords and interests in the same campaign because it can really narrow down your audience a lot.
4. Demographics and Tracking
- In demographics, they will allow you to select a bunch of things like Genders, Ages, Locations, Languages and Devices. By default, it will show you the country that is in your settings and it would have selected all genders, ages, locations, languages and devices but it is possible to customize this by selecting specific groups.
- After this part, Pinterest will ask you to select Placement and Tracking. This is basically about whether you want your ads to show up to people who are just randomly Browsing through Pinterest or to people who specifically Search for pins related to your ad. Again, I recommend that you select All as this won’t narrow down your audience.
…..and finally we are going to talk about the Pinterest Ads costs.
5. Bidding
- The next step is Bidding. Pinterest will ask you to set up bidding based on when people visit your ad. This can either be set as Automatic, which will stick to the initial ($5) that you set in the budgeting stage. Or you can Custom your bid at auction by putting in the amount you’d prefer, the lowest amount Pinterest allows is USD 0.10.
6. The Final Step
- The final step of setting up your campaign is to select the pins you’d like to be run as Ads. At this point you can either select existing pins that you already have on your Pinterest page or you can create a new pin or an idea pin.
The best results that I got were from static image pins, so I suggest selecting pins that you already have that have previously performed well or have gained a large audience. After selecting the pins you want, the links to the pins will be selected automatically if it’s an existing pin that you already selected. If not, you’ll have to add in the link to your product or service manually.
a. Tracking Your Performance
A tiny additional part at the bottom of this will allow you to track performance on either pin clicks or impressions. It is a pretty cool way of seeing your own progress overtime.
b. Hitting Publish!
- Lastly, all you have to do is press publish and your ads are good to go once Pinterest has reviewed your ad. Usually it takes about 1 business day for this.
If you’ve read this far in the Pinterest Ads 101 guide, you’re in for a treat, as we’re going to give away a bonus tip!
Bonus Tips for Seasoned Users
Once your account has spent a good amount of time on Pinterest and is no longer new to the game, I have 1 last suggestion for you. On ads, if you select Audience, it will show you some statistics and history on your account and you can Create Audiences by selecting the given option and it’ll actually give you an entire list of specifics to fill out to reconnect with older users that have engaged with your content or you can also target “Actalike” customers who are actually users that behave similarly to your current audience. It’s super cool how Pinterest can target audiences for us this way.
In ads, if you select Reporting. It is basically an overview of all the statistics that have been accumulated from running Pinterest ads. It is almost like Pinterest analytics and it heavily helps you keep track of how well your Ads are being run all while also keeping track of how much money you are spending on these ads continuously.
And that’s all for this Pinterest Ads guide!
And Voila! there you have it! A perfect Pinterest Ads campaign that will start flowing traffic to your page in no time. Try this out for about a month and definitely see a rise in your analytics numbers. It is amazing how Pinterest provides you with all the tools you need to make your very own successfully advertised business. Make full use of this Pinterest Ads 101 guide today!! Do not miss out on this simple guide!!
I hope you enjoyed this Pinterest ads 101 guide! Don’t forget to check out my other articles that will help you even more to understand how you can beat the Pinterest game!
Related Articles
- Top 6 Reasons Why You Need Pinterest For Businesses
- How to create pins that get clicks and saves on Pinterest
- Why can’t I see my Pinterest analytics anymore?
Hey! I’m the co-founder of Smartiac – a pinterest management agency for the home furnishing industry. If you’re a furniture store owner or marketing manager looking for assistance with pinterest management, definitely get in touch with me!
