Have you considered adding Pinterest to your marketing concept? Pinterest is a platform that offers you an enormous opportunity to get in front of more people.
Pinterest is growing every year. They’ve added so much to their platform to improve the user experience. Millions of people come to Pinterest with the intent to buy something. Why not showcase your products or services on Pinterest too. Get them in front of the right people using Pinterest organically or using Pinterest ads.
Why Should You Use Pinterest Ads?
Pinterest is more of a search engine than a social media platform. With social media, you connect and engage with other people to build a community and share content.
But Pinterest users are searching for specific content. They create boards and save pins to revisit whenever they want. If they have a specific topic that interests them, they save several pins about that topic and it stays on their board forever.
When you use Pinterest ads they show up in the Pinterest feed as Promoted Pins which are pins sponsored by a certain business or company. It makes it easier for someone to discover and buy products they love with Pinterest ads.
Promoted pins will have the business sponsoring the product on the ad and it will link to a sales page. So a user has the option to either go to the sales page or to buy right then.
How To Create Pinterest Ads And Campaigns
If you’re new to Pinterest you first have to create a business account. Then you need to build your account with boards and pins about your brand.
Once your business account is all set up, you can create ads. Create your campaigns and ad groups. Then set your bid amount and track the results.
Here’s how a campaign is structured.
- Campaign. This is where you set the objective of your campaign.
- Ad group. This is where you decide on your budget, where to display your ads, your target audience, and how long the ads will run.
- Promoted Pins. This is the end result of your campaign and what users see.
What Objectives Do You Choose?
You always want to start out choosing the right objective. Make strategic decisions where you optimize your campaigns for specific actions. This will increase the chance that all the users who see it will take action.
Your objectives will determine how you participate in the auction. It shows you what ad formats are available to you and what specific results you’re paying for.
Here are all of the campaign objectives you can currently choose from.
Brand Awareness
A brand awareness campaign’s goal is to help people discover your business, products and/or services. With this marketing concept, reach is going to be the priority. You pay for every 1,000 impressions of your pin.
Video Views
Now that videos can be added to Pinterest pins, you can also create ads for them. The goal is to get as many high-quality views on your video ad as possible. This boosts the watch times and viewer completion rates.
As a Promoted pin, your video will be shown to people who will most likely watch the video all the way through.
Your bidding will be on the number of people who view your video for 2 seconds or more (CPV).
Traffic
You want to get more traffic to your website. Everyone does!
Using Promoted Pins with the goal to increase traffic to your site, you’ll pay per click, so you can bid on a maximum CPC.
App Installs
Another feature of Pinterest ads is to be able to focus on driving visitors to your app’s download page or you can use ads to drive people to install your mobile ? app.
You’ll pay per impressions (CPM).
Conversions
With this objective, you optimize your ad for specific actions you want to happen on your site. For example checkouts or add to carts that take place.
When people click through your pin and land on your site you pay per action (CPA).
Shopping Catalogs
You use this marketing concept to help people discover your products while they’re searching. You can connect an online product catalogue to Pinterest. Then promote product groups to relevant users.
With the bidding, you can either set a maximum CPC or chose to use the CPM bid structure based on a target CPA.
When You’re Choosing An Objective, It Can Be Useful To Run Split Tests.
If you run ads for traffic to your site or ads for conversions, sometimes you will find that you get similar clicks on each campaign. But maybe you also find that you get lower overall costs on a brand awareness campaign than a traffic campaign. This will vary based on your industry and your audience.
Run split tests to know how each of your campaigns is running and choose which one to use.
Make Sure To Set Your Budget
Depending on your budget you have to set the amount you’re bidding.
In the ‘Ad group budget’ field use the drop-down menu to choose between setting a daily budget or a lifetime budget.
- A daily budget is the max amount you’d like to spend on the ad group.
- The lifetime budget is for the total budget you want to spend for as long as the ad runs.
You can also add a maximum bid. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying for impressions, installs, clicks or actions.
When you add a maximum bid, it tells Pinterest that you’re willing to pay up to that amount. But they won’t charge you the full bid every time. Which is great! It helps you not overspend.
Use High-Quality Images On Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual search tool so you want your pins and images to stand out. If your brand sells products, you’ll want high-quality images. If it’s not high quality it will not get clicked. There are just too many images to choose from on Pinterest for someone to bother to click on a low-quality image.
Use Text Appropriately To Get More Clicks
The text on your Promoted Pins should explain why someone should click on it. You can use text to convince users to take action.
Here’s how to use text to increase clicks and conversions.
Use Text Overlay To Add Context
Even though you want your image or video to stand out, it’s good practice to add some compelling text to your image. It is used to explain exactly what you are offering. The text must be branded and visually appealing too.
Consider Using Text Overlay To Add A CTA Button To The Image
Every pin that is clicked on goes to the business’s desired destination. So having CTA buttons on your pin is a powerful tool. It encourages people to take that action.
Incorporate Keywords Into Your Pin’s Caption
Keywords are the key to getting your pins found on Pinterest. They work great for organic Pinterest marketing and for Promoted Pins too.
There are several places to put your keywords but one important place is the actual pin itself. When someone sees the keyword they typed in on your pin, then they know they’ve found what they’re looking for.
Using keywords helps you stand out and get clicks more quickly.
Buyable Pins
No longer do you have to leave Pinterest in order to buy what you want!
Now you can use Buyable Pins. They let consumers buy directly from a pin without leaving Pinterest. Buyable Pins are simple, fast and secure. They have a blue ‘Buy It’ tag that shows up right next to the red ‘Save’ button on pins. You can see the price and click to buy.
Once their payment information has been entered, they’ll never have to put the info in again, making it super easy for consumers to buy instantly before they change their minds.
Don’t worry! Pinterest Is Keeping Buyers’ Information Secure!
Pinterest’s checkout is secure and easy to use. It’s designed especially for mobile users.
Pinterest doesn’t store the buyer’s financial information. Their secure checkout sends the payment information directly to the vendor.
Placement Options
As a marketer, you know your audience. You know who they are and what they like and where they spend time on Pinterest. You also know how they search on Pinterest.
So that gives you options for choosing a placement that gives you a greater chance of reaching the right people.
Once you know your audience and what they search for, you’ll be able to create targeted marketing campaigns. Now your marketing concept has stepped up a notch because you can use Pinterest Promoted Pins to boost more traffic to your website and your products. If your business uses content, you can create content that your audience wants to know more about. Create targeted campaigns and practice and test different types of ads. Your audience will grow using Pinterest and Pinterest ads.