2015 has been a big year for Pinterest. Early on, the platform announced that Promoted Pins would be made available to all US-based advertisers. Six months later, Buyable Pins were made available to selected brands and are still rolling out more widely (there are now more than 60 million Buyable Pins in circulation). Pinterest also highlighted data which underlined the rising position the platform holds as an eCommerce hub - a report from Millward Brown showed that 87% of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest, while 93% of Pinners have used the platform to plan a future purchase. Research from Shopify showed that the average order value from Pinterest referral traffic was $58.95, compared to $55 for Facebook, and the platform also hit 100 million monthly users. While it doesn't generate the amount of attention and coverage that some of the other platforms do, the numbers clearly show that Pinterest is an increasingly important channel for a great many users, and a great opportunity for marketers for a wide range of topics.
But many businesses still don't quite know what to make of it. Unlike some of the other major platforms, the keys to Pinterest success seem more elusive, the elements less clear. While all social platforms are unique, Pinterest may be even moreso, particularly when you factor in the workings of 'Guided Search' for content discovery, which can help expand the life of a pin for months, even years - well beyond the average lifespan of a tweet (18 minutes) or Facebook post (3 hours).
To help with this, and to give brands a better understanding of the requirements and success factors behind Promoted Pins, Pinterest has today released a new guidebook and a set of videos to help brands understand the "ins and outs" of Pinterest ads. The new guide, available for free here, covers all the key elements of Pinterest advertising, including notes on creating and editing pins, tracking conversions and Promoted Pin optimization. It's a great guide, and a must-read for anyone looking to better utilize the platform - here are some of the highlights:
Creation and Targeting
The guide first sets out the key elements required in setting up and establishing your Promoted Pin campaign, including selection of campaign goals, which pin to promote and targeting.
Once you've set up your Promoted Pin and clicked 'Save', your pin will be reviewed by Pinterest to ensure it aligns with Pinterest's ad policies - Pinterest notes that the most common reasons ads are rejected in this process are:
These are important notes, especially because they vary from what some would expect. The note on hashtags is of particular relevance, as many users are unclear on whether hashtags expand reach on Pinterest or not (this may be because the most similar social platform, Instagram, is all about hashtags and hashtag targeting).
The guide also outlines how to edit Promoted Pins and set up your billing process.
Tracking Conversions
There are three activities which can be used to track conversions from Pinterest:
- Clicks - When someone on Pinterest clicks your Pin and goes to your site (leaving Pinterest)
- Repins + close-ups - When someone repins your Pin or clicks to see it close-up (staying on Pinterest)
- Views - When somebody sees your Pin on a Pinterest feed
The new guide demonstrates how businesses can set up the conversion tag, with detail on each element of the process and how you can add the relevant code to your site.
Reporting and Optimization
And the last part of the guide looks at Pinterest's reporting and analytics tools which provide an overview of total engagement and effectiveness of your Promoted Pin campaigns.
It's a comprehensive and engaging guide that will no doubt help brands better understand the how and why of Promoted Pins, and how to use the tools available to improve performance and maximize response.
The new Pinterest 'Guide to Ads Manager' is available here and worth checking out for anyone considering Pinterest ads.
In addition, Pinterest has also released a series of new how-to videos on their YouTube channel with topics like "Reach Pinners planning for their future" and "Optimizing your campaigns".
And if you don't have access to Promoted Pins yet, but want to get them as soon as you can, you can sign up to the waitlist.