Pinterest ads: a channel worthy of discovery

As for any other social media channel, you can use Pinterest to advertise according to a concrete goal. Pinterest divides its purchasing goals in three phases from the marketing funnel.

• Awareness
  Increase your reach and support the notability of your brand and product. You can also buy video views. Moving images are usually more powerful for people who are discovering a new brand or product.

• Consideration
  This increases the chances of people clicking (or tapping) on your content, leading them to a relevant landing page.

• Conversions
  Push your target audience to take action on your website: a subscription to a newsletter, a guide to become inspired, etc. Perhaps stimulating catalogue sales is the most interesting form of advertising. Pinterest has two advertisement types for this purpose: Shopping Pins and Collection Pins. As soon as you are in the position of an online product catalogue, you can display your products on Pinterest in a way that inspires users and mark them with product tags. By displaying the product in a visual showroom, you immediately lower the threshold for the user to make a purchase.

Standard Pins or single image

Show your products and content in a simple vertical image. You can add text or a link to the website. Don’t forget to focus on the product.

Video Pins

Draw attention to your product or brand with a powerful video. This format is also great as an engager. The ideal Video Pin doesn’t surpass a minute. Be frugal with text, because an image is worth a 1000 words, and choose a strong opening frame that catches the eye of the user immediately.

Shopping Pins

Shopping Pins can be visualised in many different ways. The simple way to use them is to add a single image of the product with a url to the webshop.

You can also use product tags that are linked to your product catalogue. This allows you to show more than one product from your catalogue in one image. Thanks to the tags, you can view each product and the necessary information such as price separately. In addition to that, the user gets to see similar products with each product. Always present the user with a powerful image and a good link to the product catalogue for your Shopping Pins.

Carrousel Pins

You can also present multiple images side by side in order to create a Carrousel Pin. To create the most beautiful effect, it’s important that the lay-outs of your images flow nicely.

Collection Pins

A Collection Pin allows you to use one image or video that features a few products. At the bottom of the advert, Pinterest places a “collection” of all the products shown in the image. This is precisely the strength of this format: your target audience gets to see an individual product in a credible setting in a single glance. Furthermore, you are likely to add a number of complementary products in the same visual, increasing the chances of people purchasing multiple products via your Collection Pin.

Pinterest Business has a great deal of information and insights on the interests of its users. Because of various target audience tools, you can very accurately search for the proper target audience that is important to your brand. Very specific targeting helps even the most niche products successfully reach their target audience.

Many targeting possibilities

Pinterest offers four specific targeting options that are all interesting to reach your goals.

The first one is a standard option: it allows you to target people based on demographics and interests. This option is generally used for campaigns that are aimed towards a broad target audience.

But, you could also target based on keywords. This is a frequently used option within the consideration and conversion phase.

Do you have a client database? Good news: you can upload them to Pinterest. These people already have a connection to your brand and through your client data, you can do some remarketing.

Lastly, you can also use “Actalikes”. These people have similar interests and show similar behaviour to your current target audience. A handy option to broaden your horizons.

Don’t really know what interests your target audience or how to reach them? Not to worry: you can use automatic targeting. That means Pinterest’s smart algorithm will be doing all the work, such as determining your target audience based on the details in your pin.

You can also control where your advert will be appearing, to a certain extent. You can choose between browse ads or search ads. Fortunately, you aren’t required to choose and you can just as easily have both options.

Browse ads are shown to the user on the home feed of your target audience and search ads are visible in the search results of your target user. Both kinds are visible via Pins that are related to the topic. The general recommendation is that you use both options at all times.

Getting started with Pinterest ads is very simple. Always ensure that you mix it up, so your adverts stay relevant and they don’t bore the user. Set up a content plan so you can schedule your pins for a longer period in one go. To simplify the process, Pinterest offers a simple scheduling tool. This helps you save time.

A url to the website is also a must. Adding all of your product information to your advert, is not inspiring in the slightest. The url can guide those who are interested to your website immediately, giving them the opportunity to learn more about your brand and products.

Don’t forget that the essence of Pinterest lies in the use of your own images. As soon as you start using stock images for this platform, you’ll lose all credibility.

Do you feel like Pinterest could add value to your brand? Our social media experts would love to help you determine the correct Pinterest strategy. Feel free to contact us via social@iodigital.com. We’ll analyse your question and we’ll figure out how to elevate your social media channels together.