Many marketers focus most of their efforts on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. However, there may be untapped potential on Pinterest.
Here’s what marketers need to know about how to utilize this platform effectively and how to start pinning:
What Is Pinterest and Who Uses It?
Pinterest is a social platform that describes itself as a “visual search engine.” The main goal of this application is to help users search for relevant “pins” that they can then use either as inspiration or for actual implementation. Users can pin images and or links to their Pinterest Board (Pinterest page) using the Pinterest browser button at the top of the screen or the pin it button. Both of these are in the form of the Pinterest logo. Pinterest also has a mobile app.
Some of the most popular areas on Pinterest include things like cooking and baking recipe pins, the home decor, and interior design category, clothing and fashion product pins, and crafting and DIY projects. Bloggers also use Pinterest to showcase their latest blog posts and Twitter posts.
When users find a pin or Pinterest profile they like, they can then save it to “boards” that often follow different creative themes for easy access and organization.
Just because Pinterest doesn’t boast billions of users like other social media platforms doesn’t mean that it’s not popular and valuable in its own right. In fact, Pinterest has about 478 million monthly active users, with around 98 million of those within the United States.
Both of these numbers are constantly rising — as the number of international monthly active users jumped a whopping 46% in 2020 compared to the previous year.
But who are all of these users on Pinterest? Generally speaking, the platform is quite popular with women. Specifically, women between the ages of 18 and 49. 71% of Pinterest users are female with the following age breakdown: 34% of users are between the ages of 18 and 29, while 35% of users are between the ages of 35 and 49.
Diving deeper into Pinterest demographics, this platform is a particularly effective way to reach mothers as 80% of American mothers who use the internet also use Pinterest. Furthermore, 70% of Pinterest users have a college degree, and most users earn more than $75,000 a year. Overall, Pinterest is a great way to reach educated female Millennials with higher incomes.
Why Advertise on Pinterest?
When you advertise on Pinterest, you can tailor your campaign to achieve a number of different goals, including brand awareness, engagement, and conversions. Let’s explore each different objective in more detail.
Brand Awareness
Pinterest advertising can be used to build brand awareness. This approach is ideal for brands that are just starting out in general or just beginning to use the Pinterest platform. This is because people aren’t likely to jump to make a purchase from a brand that they don’t know anything about.
Instead, you can use engaging and positive Pinterest content to introduce customers to your brand.
Engagement
Pinterest advertising can be used to boost levels of engagement on and off the platform. For starters, you can encourage people to engage with your content on the Pinterest platform by either sharing or saving your content.
Furthermore, you can boost engagement off the platform by linking to other types of content.
Conversions
Finally, you can use Pinterest advertising to drive conversions. While it may be tempting to jump straight to conversions, it may be a better idea to take a more strategic and calculated approach.
This is because people who aren’t well aware of a brand or don’t engage with it are unlikely to buy without first learning more information. Instead, you need to take a more long-term approach and prime customers with other types of marketing materials before prioritizing conversions.
How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on Pinterest?
With social media marketing costs constantly rising, marketers are increasingly concerned about achieving a favorable return on ad spend. This is hard to do when the cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) are too high.
The good news is that Pinterest is an underutilized marketing platform, so you’re less likely to encounter intense competition for keywords that can drive up bids.
While the exact cost of advertising on Pinterest varies depending on your industry and keywords, here are some general guidelines to give you a better idea of what it costs to advertise on this platform:
- Building brand awareness will cost you anywhere between $2.00 to $5.000 for 1,000 impressions
- Boosting levels of engagement will cost you anywhere between $0.10 and $1.50 per engagement
- Driving web traffic and conversions will cost you anywhere between $0.10 and $1.50 per engagement.
As with other social media platforms, the key to maximizing your advertising spend on Pinterest is to know your keywords and implement a tailored bidding strategy.
How to Advertise on Pinterest?
Advertising on Pinterest is quite easy for marketers once you get the hang of it. However, it can be a little bit confusing at first, so we can help guide you through the process from start to finish.
- The first step to advertising on Pinterest involves creating a Pinterest business account.
- From there, you can access the Pinterest Ads Manager by either clicking on the “Ads” menu or going to ads.pinterest.com.
- You will then be asked to choose a campaign goal from those that we covered earlier: brand awareness, engagement, or conversions.
- After choosing your campaign goal, you will then set up your targeting mechanisms so that your content gets in front of the right people. You can either select your own unique set of targeting specifications, find new audiences or retarget existing customers.
- The next step involves setting your campaign spending limits and campaign schedule. You can choose between a daily budget or a lifetime campaign budget. You can also choose how long the campaign will last and how often your content shows up.
- Before launch, the final step involves uploading your content and selecting any extra optimizations you want to use to improve your campaign.
Pinterest Marketing Best Practices to Follow
Now that you know the basic steps involved in launching a Pinterest marketing campaign, you need to know the best practices that will help you launch a successful Pinterest marketing campaign.
- Make your content aesthetically pleasing. Of course, all of your marketing content should be visually appealing, but this characteristic is especially important on Pinterest. You should focus on using images with high resolutions and adequate lighting.
- Make your content fit the application. Pinterest utilizes vertical advertisements that often need to be formatted in a specific way for the best results. The platform recommends utilizing the rule of thirds for effective and appealing content.
- Use short and sweet copy that will be easily displayed within a vertical advertisement. Your copy should be clear enough to provide viewers with information about your brand or product without taking away from the main attraction — the visuals.
- Use detailed descriptions and incorporate hashtags into your pins so that users can find your content, and it shows up in general keyword searches.
- Plan your content around popular seasons on Pinterest like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, etc.
- Track your campaign performance with Pinterest analytics throughout its lifetime and make sure to address any inefficiencies along the way to maximize your return on investment. Look for article pins, repins, promoted pin performance, popular topics, and how your headlines perform.
Final Thoughts on Pinterest Marketing
Despite all of this information, learning how to master a new social media platform overnight may not be very realistic. In this case, it might make sense for you to consult a Pinterest marketing expert like Greg Gillman, who has proven results of getting his clients exposure on this platform and others.
Sources:
Pinterest: Monthly Active Users Worldwide 2021 | Statista
