Beginner’s Guide To Promoted Pins On Pinterest
Pinterest recently made a game-changer in the online industry as it introduced promoted pins to users with business accounts. This made a big mark for both bloggers and businesses with the opportunity it had created for online promotions.
Why Promoted Pins?
Promoted pins, as what we all know it, is exactly what they sound like:
- These are pins that are promoted on the Pinterest feed based on the user’s preferences or the recently pinned items – or probably what you are searching for.
- Promoted Pins can be vividly distinguished as they will always come up in search with the words “Promoted by” and whoever is promoting it.
- Promoted Pins blend perfectly with regular pins – a practice that isn’t mostly loved by users by both businesses and bloggers appreciate.
There are a few key differences that are distinct with a personal and a business accounts in Pinterest.
With a business account, you have the ability to list your business name with no requirement of entering your first and last name:
- Business accounts have access to Pinterest Analytics which helps you analyze your statistics and improve your traffic.
- Business accounts have the ability to create Rich Pins.
By agreeing to the Business Terms of Service of Pinterest, you enjoy more perks for have a Pinterest for Business Account.
As I have been using Promoted Pins, I have found out that it is unbelievably affordable and extremely effective. Although there might only be a limited number of options for targeting, with the right keyword research combined with images and appropriate descriptions, you will surely find the right audience suitable for your business.
A Bonus feature on Promoted Pins is that you only need to pay for clicks on your original promoted pin. If there are instances where someone repins your promoted pin and another user clicks on the repin, you don’t have to pay for the click.
Amplification in Pinterest is free! The best strategy you can do is to pin something that is really good and gets your dollar a step further.
Promoted Pin, it is something that is Paid on Pinterest. With promoted pins, you can easily target certain demographics, locations, and even devices. You can easily reach potential customers who are searching or have given much interest in whatever products or services you are offering online. Promoted pins are paid on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Each campaign can have a specified daily budget as well as ad duration. You can even monitor and adjust your campaigns even if it is still running.
It is always Pinterest’s advise that you choose authenticity when you do promoted pins. Be selective and intentional when you are promoted pins on Pinterest. Your promoted pins can have promotional information as well as service claims, calls to action, price listing and even deceptive content that are visible in the image post. Your ads must be accurate and will lead to a relevant landing page to minimize bound rate.
How to Utilize Promoted Pins
If you want to draw attention to certain pins, then Pinterest Promoted Pins is the perfect solution for you! With promoted pins, you can promote something unique or special which you want to be featured such as a special article, an event or even a special promotion for your products and services.
Promoted pins are also excellent when it comes to helping your get more online exposure to users who are still not following you and your business. These kinds of pins are excellent for seasonal content, time-sensitive events or anything you need to drive more attention with.
How to Create your Promoted Pins
First thing’s first: you can only promote a pin that’s already been published on Pinterest. You can obviously create an image just for the purpose of promoting and you can start promoting it just as soon as it’s published and started hitting a board. You cannot publish directly through the ad manager.
There are 4 big rules you need to take note when publishing Promoted Pins:
- You are not allowed to promote a pin that goes straight to a landing page requiring the reader to fill out a form or sign up for a newsletter to view the content.
- The promoted pin cannot contain any time-sensitive description including the words “special” or “sale”.
- You can only add one hashtag in the description,
- Videos, pins on secret boards and GIF images cannot be promoted yet.
Before you promote, do Keyword research
To get started in promoting your pins, you should first select one of your recently pinned items. Once you have already decided which pin to promote, you will be taken to another screen where you have to set up your ad. You can begin by entering your selected keywords to facilitate your promoted pin from appearing in Pinterest search results.
It is essential that you do your keyword research before entering it in your promoted pins. Use several tools for keyword research including AdWords Keyword Planner or any other tools that you are comfortable using.
How to promote your pins on Pinterest
Pinterest users use different search terms as compared to when they are using Google and other search engines. It will be helpful to observe how the Pinterest community does their keyword search and you can do this by entering search terms on your own.
After you’ve entered your keywords, you will also be given the option to refine your target audience. You can specify a city or region from the drop-down menu selection. After which, you can select the language, which I will presume to be most likely English.
Once you are done with the refined search modifications, you can proceed to make a decision on the maximum cost-per-click for your promoted pin. Remember that this amount is the amount you are willing to pay per click on your promoted pin, so you never have to worry about paying more than the maximum bid. You will also have the option to keep the original URL destination of your promoted pin or you can change it. After doing all the necessary modifications, you can name your campaign, set a start and end date and finally set the daily budget for your promoted pins. Your promoted pin will then be reviewed for posting. Once it gets approved, you are on your way to increasing your traffic and probably your income stream in the long run. If your ad gets rejected, you can easily edit and resubmit.
Tactics to use for Promoted Pins.
After deciding which pins you want to promote, it is advisable that you look at your Pinterest Analytics and observe which ads had already received traction. If you see a pin which had already received a lot of attention, it is best that you select this pin for your promoted pin campaign. This will help you grow beyond your current followers and might also convert as your customers.
You can also do a split A/B testing to monitor which campaigns will work fairly well for you. You can do this by creating two (2) separate campaigns and for the same event (different photos and keywords) and run them at the same time. A little testing can give you the right traction in with which campaigns will work out for certain events. If you are unsure which pins will work best for you, it is an excellent idea to use A/B testing to create your own Pinterest Strategy. And that will be most likely affordable too.
There is also this tracking functionality that comes built-in for the promoted pins. With this functionality, you can monitor impressions for each promoted pins you have (how many times the pin was seen by users). You can also see repins (the number of times the pin was pinned to someone else’s board), CTR (click-through rate), clicks and even the total amount you’ve spent for each promoted pin you have running.
Proven 5 Ways to Succeed with Promoted Pins on Pinterest.
There are a handful of ways you can succeed with Pinterest promoted pins.
I am giving you my top 5 tips for that matter.
1. Adjust your promoted pin campaigns in real time.
Creativity plays a vital role when it comes to Pinterest promoted pins. This has a huge role in driving traffic and click-through rate. It is essential that you pay careful attention when it comes to image ratio and composition. High image quality which is vertically oriented works pretty well as these images mostly catch reader’s attention. It is also a great tactic to use color contrasts to get readership. Connect with the readers emotionally so your pins can be repined in no time. Make sure that your keywords are relevantly added to your pins.
Remember not to keep doing the same thing in all of your campaigns. Stir up your creative juices and create exciting campaigns for your target audience. In addition to mixing your creative ideas, remember to include an only soft call to actions (CTAs) to increase user engagement. It is within Pinterest’s regulations that promoted pins should not feature both functional and commercial calls to action. With this in place, you might want to only add soft CTAs within your image overlays as well as additional direct CTA’s that can be found in your image description. Getting creative is the key to developing simple ads that are both effective and can keep your readers engaged.
2. Remember to use the right keywords.
The most important aspect of advertising campaign management in Pinterest is through keyword optimization. As per Pinterest guidelines, you can associate as much as 150 keywords in just one promoted pin. With this said, it is important to develop a keyword strategy that will target comprehensive keywords with the biggest Pinterest audience.
It will be helpful if you can think outside the box and start brainstorming for creative keywords. Remember though not to go all crazy when it comes to your keywords. If your keywords are mostly irrelevant, your ads are most likely to be rejected in the approval process.
3. User Engagement for Targeted Audiences.
As a business, it is important for you to understand your primary and secondary audiences to be successful in your promoted pin campaign. Once you have determined your target audiences, create your campaigns that will match the respective audiences to show exactly what they want to see. Be proactive to engage in the Pinterest audience as they are already inspired and motivated in the first place.
Pinterest targeting gives you the ability to hand pick audiences by location, language, gender and even by the device they are using. It is essential to target your appropriate audience at the right time with relevance to your set keywords.
4. Think for long term campaigns.
Once your campaign is already on Pinterest, it will be there forever like a longest running billboard. When you are considering to put up promoted pins, be sure that your pins can be up for long term movement.
5. Set your bids aggressively.
With the CPC model of Pinterest, you are only required to pay when people are clicking through your website. So never be afraid to set a competitive bid when starting your campaign. Once your promoted pin has gained traction, you can already be sure of higher click-through rates (CTR). Once you are already starting to receive conversions, you can optimize your bids to achieve your ideal CPA. Take advantage of Pinterest’s capability of setting up budgets per device when creating your bid strategy.
Additionally, I’ve created this Infographic for your to PIN and keep as a chit sheet of these important 5 points.
How would you Measure your Promoted pins on Pinterest?
Here are a few more things you need to take note when adding Pinterest to your online marketing strategy:
- Remember to target all users by cross-device tracking for conversions. Make to a point that you target both desktop and mobile users. Take note that most repin occur on mobile devices. Keep track of cross-device movement as this can be the key for you to create an effective Pinterest promoted pin strategy.
- Measure conversions through user engagement. When users click on your promoted pin, the image is then opened. Count the conversions that occur after this type of user engagement, even if that user isn’t able to click the pin directly to your website. This will provide a clear depiction of your customer’s behavior.
Pinterest Promoted Pins is one of the best ways to get online exposure these days for your website and of course, your business. Although this is a new service in the market, the benefits of experimenting and succeeding in a new platform are endless. There’s less competition too when you are using Pinterest promoted pins.
Have Something to add to this list?
Share it in the Comments.
Jennifer Packer Arbon says
Thanks for the article! I am trying to promote a pin, but when I hover over the image, it only allows me to Save it—not Promote it. Ideas?
Anna Zubarev says
Hey Jennifer,
Not sure what you mean by that, but do you have your account set up for Pinterest for business?
And you need to set up your Promoted pins at the “Ads” section of your pinterest account and not just by clicking on the pin.
Hope this makes sense.