Last year, Pinterest finally took the plunge and started selling advertising space. Named “Promoted Pins”, these native ads blend into the platform seamlessly and have shown great success in their early stages. Due to their unassuming nature, Pinterest boasts that these ads have engagement rates far higher than the industry average.
The downside for us here Down Under is that this advertising option is only available to Pinterest users with an American business account. For now… The rumor mill is working overtime with whispers that Promoted Pins will soon become available to international users. When it does, we will be ready…
Why Promoted Pins?
Pinterest is the platform where users come to find inspiration and make choices for future purchases. Promoted Pins are a way to reach more Pinterest users and engage with more potential clients than organic pins. You’re effectively paying for a pin to be shown to more users.
Because users can re-pin or save your promoted pin, the effect of your campaign can last far longer than the campaign itself. Your pin will stay on the boards and in the minds of your potential client long after you’ve been paying to run the ad.
Like many social media platforms’ advertising options, you can tailor your preferences for who your pin is shown to. You’re targeting your audience and making sure that the ad is being displayed in prime position to the people who will be most interested.
You have control over how you pay for your ads, how much you pay per engagement or click, how long your campaign runs for, and you can set a maximum daily budget so you’re always in control of how much you’re spending. And you can manage the whole thing simply from your campaign account.
How to Use Promoted Pins
Promoted pins must be converted from your existing account, so you need to make sure that you’ve got snazzy pins available for you to use as your advertising. You also need to make sure that you have a business account. If you haven’t got your Pinterest account set up as a business one, you can easily convert it.
You can choose whether you want to run a traffic campaign or an engagement campaign. They are fairly self-
explanatory – choose traffic when you primarily want to generate more business on your website, and engagement for when you’re looking to grow a greater Pinterest audience. The main difference is in how you pay for your advertising – you’re paying per click to your website for a traffic campaign and you’re paying per engagement with the pin for an engagement campaign.
Once you’ve set up your campaign (including your daily budget and campaign dates) you can choose which of your existing pins you want to use as promoted pins.
How to Choose Which Pins You Promote
This is the tricky part of using promoted pins. Pinterest has strict guidelines you have to follow, and it makes sense. They want to keep the site “beautiful, actionable, and interesting” so that it remains the visually appealing and inspiring place that it is. They encourage business pinners to keep their pins authentic and honest.
Social media isn’t the place for glaring and pushy advertising anyway – it just serves to annoy potential customers and turn them off your brand.
Here’s what Pinterest’s advertising standards don’t allow:
- Images with promotions and prices
- Images with a false sense of urgency
- Images with confusing design elements (images must be right-way-up and not include “click here” or “download” or fake clickable elements)
- Images with testimonials and ratings
- Images or descriptions with shocking content or profanity
- Images or descriptions with more than one hashtag
- Images or descriptions with improper grammar or lots of capitalization and symbols
Really it just means: be real, keep your pins visually appealing, and don’t have writing all over that screams “AD! THIS IS AN AD!” Choose to promote pins which you’re proud of, which really show off what your business can provide, and stay classy.
We don’t know when Promoted Pins will arrive in Australia, but with their tearaway success in America we can be sure it’s not far away. And when it arrives, we will be ready and raring with beautiful pins ready to promote!
