Find Your Treasure Trove through Promoted Pins. It’s Seriously Pinteresting…

Visual content has grown to become the easiest and most desirable to consume. Just about every dominant social networking platform allows marketers to showcase visual content to some capacity, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they all represent the best medium for visual promotion.

Among the numerous social networks, marketers need to utilise their time by promoting the most appropriate content on the appropriate channels which work for them – which brings our attention to PPC through Pinterest.

PPC and Pinterest: A Match Made in Heaven?

Pinterest has opened up as a crucial marketing opportunity for many big brands, particularly for those in the fashion, cosmetic, home decor and holiday industry. Despite the fact that Pinterest hasn’t been widely discussed as an advertising channel, it has climbed its way up the social ladder (shameless pun) and is now seen as a big player in attracting potential buyers.

In May 2014, Pinterest released its own advertising platform to large corporations and it’s now expanded to help small to medium sized businesses with its affordable options. With its active users of at least 20 million per month and 5 million pins a day, it’s easy to see why using Pinterest as a PPC strategy can prove to be advantageous to many businesses.

How Does It Work?

In a nutshell, Pinterest serves as a virtual scrapbook/bulletin board where users can ‘pin’ images, articles, videos and links. These ‘pins’ can be categorised in different customised theme boards. In the likeness of Facebook sharing and Twitter’s retweet function, individual pins can be repined by users and boards can be followed. Below is one of my board examples – one about my fashion wish list:

Looking broadly at demographics, women are by far the biggest users on this platform and the majority of these users have a higher than average income – see where I’m getting the headline for this blog?

Pinterest makes sense as a marketing channel with its users spending approximately twice as much as those on Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit combined. And to put it simply, Pinterest users are already in the buying mode when they visit.

The whole point of using Pinterest myself is that I can search and make lists of what I want – clothes, gift ideas for Christmas, jewellery and some home décor ideas for that first home – things which I will be looking to pick, click and buy soon!

What more could an online business want? Also, it doesn’t stop here – these images are also being advertised to followers/friends – much more effective than explaining something in 1000 words!

So, to Find That Treasure Trove…

First of all, there is currently one paid advertising tool available to medium/small businesses on Pinterest – the promoted pin. This is similar to a normal pin, except you pay to give it more visibility on the platform. The more you pay for it, the more people will see it and help users to either click through to your site or to re-pin for future site visit/purchase.

Liking this so far? Check out an example below from Levi’s retargeting tactic (based on my recent visit to their site).

How Can You Get Started?

For starters, open a Pinterest business account; pick your best pin; decide who sees it; pay for the results and track what’s working via Pinterest analytics. Aside from location, gender, language and device, you can target your pins by interests, keywords and audiences or a mix of the three.

Our best practice tips to follow, when starting out on paid ads through Pinterest would be:

1. Think back to basics: where do you plan to go with your campaign? Be prepared to adjust accordingly

2. Like Google AdWords, invest good time in researching the keywords you use in your pins’ description – keep it to a combination of specific and broad

3. As with any marketing tactics, don’t ever rule out A/B testing on your pins to see what’s effective and what isn’t

4. Rule number 1 – we go to Pinterest for inspiration, so ensure that you keep on top of current trends and adapt your marketing strategy with the times – be creative and get more people repining/sharing because you have new and hot content to showcase

5. Don’t hard sell because it’s a turn off for us ‘pinners’. On Pinterest, you’re allowed to use calls to action in your pin description, but just be careful with the wording that you use.

You’re unlikely to do well, if you speak ‘sell’ – just let us enjoy looking at your images, really want what you’re showing and pin/buy it! Checkout how our social media marketing agency can help you pop across all digital platforms.