Digital marketing requires organizations to have many different strategies for everything from marketing automation to email marketing. Another area that businesses need to plan for is paid social media advertising. Social media is where consumers spend a large majority of their time. That means that businesses who want to meet customers where they are need to invest in paid social strategies that work.
One social media platform that often gets overlooked is Pinterest. Pinterest ads are often disregarded by businesses in favor of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram platforms. However, Pinterest sees 478 million active users each month, meaning there is plenty of opportunity for organizations to reach target audiences.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social media platform that focuses on image sharing in the form of “pins”, which users can view, share, save, and organize into different pinboards on their accounts. Most pins are visual images, videos, or GIFs which link to pieces of content. For example, you might come across a pin depicting an image of a decorated cake. Clicking the pin will take you to a blog article about cake decorating tips for beginners.
Pinterest is very unique from other social media platforms. It works like a virtual bulletin or pinboard rather than a scrolling feed. People browse by interest and follow accounts that have similar interests to them. The social aspect comes through the sharing, commenting, and liking of pins.
Why Sell on Pinterest?
Pinterest provides a unique advertising platform for organizations looking to sell. While Pinterest can help B2B companies advertise to target audiences, it works best for B2C organizations. Users use Pinterest as inspiration for holiday shopping, gift giving, DIY projects, and much more. That means that businesses can get in front of audiences actively looking for information related to their offerings.
Another reason that advertisers like Pinterest is the image-focused atmosphere. While other social media platforms can become heavily political or user opinion focused, Pinterest tends to avoid those conversations. Without any area for text posts or the traditional feed, Pinterest tends to be more fun and brand safe for businesses.
4 Pinterest Advertising Strategies
Now that you understand why Pinterest provides a great social media advertising platform for brands, let’s look at some Pinterest advertising strategies. These will help you understand the advertising process on Pinterest and give you ideas on how to proceed. They will also help your brand see the value in investing in Pinterest social media advertising.
1. Use Pinterest Ads Manager
Many brands are unfamiliar with how to advertise on Pinterest. Many companies focus their social media advertising on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. That means that Pinterest is unfamiliar territory to most companies. And without the traditional scrolling feed, many brands are unsure of how their ads will look or appear to viewers.
Thankfully, Pinterest has a tool called the Pinterest Ads Manager. Like ad manager tools on other social media platforms, this helps you set up and run ad campaigns. The tool is user-friendly and easy to get started with. After creating your account, you can navigate to the ads portal and begin there.
The first step of using the Pinterest Ads Manager is to start a new advertising campaign. Then you set the goal and add in the details of your campaign for tracking and metrics. After getting the foundation of the campaign set up, you can select your targeting information. This will help you get your ads in front of the right audiences. Finally, you set your budget and posting schedule and pick a pin to promote.
2. Use All Pin Types
The final step of using your Pinterest Ads Manager is picking a pin to promote. But what does that mean? There are a few different specialty types of pins that you should be aware of as you’re setting up your campaign.
- Promoted Pins: Promoted pins send your advertisements directly to audiences. These pins appear more often in user feeds and by a wider range of users than organic pins. Your promoted pins can raise brand awareness, tie into specific campaigns, and drive traffic.
- Rich Pins: Rich pins use metadata to directly display information from your website on the pin. There are a few specific categories of rich pins, including product pins, article pins, and recipe pins. These pins automatically update when you change the source information, making them more useful than descriptive text.
- Shoppable Pins: Pinterest also has e-commerce capabilities with their shoppable product pins. This helps users find products that are in stock and can be purchased immediately.
3. Fine-Tune Your Targeting & Retargeting
Like all PPC ads and social media ads, you have the ability to fine-tune the targeting of your campaign. However, rather than using demographic information, Pinterest has two categories of targeting: keywords and interests.
Keywords are specific phrases that users might be searching for while they browse Pinterest. Keywords might include things related to your products, industry, or even your brand. Interest targeting uses a similar methodology as keywords, but it is broader. For example, an interest category might be “DIY furniture” and a keyword might be “non-toxic paint for cribs”.
4. Try Different Content Types
It’s highly recommended that you use different content types in your Pinterest campaigns. While you can’t use text posts to change things up, there are other alternatives. Rather than static images, you can use GIFs or even short videos as your pin image. That allows you to add more interest and draw the eye of your audiences.
Jump Start Your Pinterest Advertising Today
Advertising on Pinterest has many benefits for organizations. It allows brands to get in front of consumers while they’re in an inspirational mindset. That helps brands sell to people who are ready to buy. It also allows brands to have fun with their advertisements and focus on visuals. And, with nearly 500 million active monthly users, there’s a wide audience for your ads.
If you want to get started with a Pinterest advertising strategy today, L7 Advertising is here to help. We’re experts in social media advertising, including Pinterest advertising strategies. We know how to bring you the maximum ROI for your advertising efforts and support your brand’s goals. Contact us to get started on a powerful advertising strategy today.