This post is based on Rebecca Meeking’s talk titled ‘Top Tips for Promoted Pin Success’ at the Brighton 2019 Paid Social Show.
Why Pinterest?
Rebecca kicked off her talk by highlighting why you should advertise on Pinterest in the first place.
The first of these is brand discovery. People visit Pinterest to be inspired, discover new things and plan for the future. 96% of all Pinterest users use Pinterest as a platform to research a product or service before buying it, often up to 6 months before doing so.
The second reason Rebecca recommended that advertisers should be on Pinterest is the unique user intent on the platform. 55% of users see Pinterest as a place for shopping, compared to only 12% of users viewing Facebook and Instagram as having this purpose. An enormous 90% of users say that Pinterest gives them purchase ideas.
And thirdly, people love Pinterest! It’s a platform filled with inspiration, aesthetically pleasing imagery and almost exclusively positive content. A Pinterest co-founder described it as ‘the last happy place on the internet’.
Some stats…
- 1 in 2 people don’t realise they are seeing an ad on Pinterest – promoted pins blend seamlessly into organic feed content.
- Over the last 2 years, the number of pins has increased by 75%.
- In 2019, total ad revenue from Pinterest is predicted to increase by 40%.
Pinterest strategy
Rebecca’s recommendation for a Pinterest strategy will be familiar to any digital marketer: a full-funnel approach encompassing branding, prospecting and retargeting.
Pinterest themselves provide a handy yearly planner for interest spikes, when search volume goes up. This planner is based around different holidays and seasonal events, such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day or even graduation.
97% of searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which indicates the potential for new brands to inspire and engage with users. Advertisers can start by using keywords to reach their audience; Rebecca recommends using 25 keywords at minimum, opting into both the ‘browse’ and ‘search’ placement options, and highlights that keyword match types function in the same way that they do on search.
For the prospecting stage of your strategy, audience targeting is also available, allowing advertisers to segment by the usual suspects such as interests, age and gender. Rebecca advises targeting an audience size of at least 1 million users for the best chances of success.
‘Actalike’ audiences are the Pinterest equivalent of Facebook’s lookalike audiences (or search’s similar audiences), and can be an additional valuable element of your prospecting strategy. Remarketing-wise, the Pinterest pixel can be used to create stock retargeting audiences such as website visitors, cart abandoners and customer lists.
Again, Rebecca emphasised that it was important not to over-layer these audiences, and to ensure that you are targeting at least 1 million active users.
Creative
Unsurprisingly, Rebecca told us to design creative mobile-first, as the majority of activity takes place there. Creative should additionally display clear branding, and there’s no 20% maximum text ratio rule as there is on Facebook.
Rebecca recommends using the carousel ad format to boost engagement – 5 images are better than 1! – whether you use this to show multiple products, or the same product from different angles. For video content, creative of 6 – 20 seconds long should hit the sweet spot, and you can use max width video content for a fully immersive experience. And as always, your creative should include a clear call to action.
If you want to find out how Impression can supercharge your social strategy, enquire with our PPC team here.
You can see more from Rebecca on her Twitter account here.
