What Pinterest offers advertisers

At a time when social media is an inseparable part of millions of people's everyday lives, these platforms are an important marketing channel for many companies. Among these platforms is Pinterest, a social network focused on visual content. People come here to discover, share or deliberately search for images and videos. Brands with visually attractive products can make the most of this. In this article we will look at some of the most important features and tools Pinterest offers advertisers.

Why is it worth advertising on Pinterest?

The first important fact worth mentioning is that Pinterest has more than 880,000 active users in Slovakia and more than 1,700,000 in the Czech Republic. That means Pinterest is ideal for brands trying to build awareness and win prospective customers. As many as 55% of people come to Pinterest with the intention of buying, which is more than on Facebook or Instagram.

The second important fact is that less well-known brands have a chance on Pinterest too. According to data from 2017, as many as 97% of Pinterest users do not search for particular brands but only for a product category — women's shoes, for instance.

Products for women have a great advantage on Pinterest, since the female audience is considerably better represented in Slovakia and the Czech Republic alike. In numbers that is specifically 713,000 women in Slovakia and 1,350,000 in the Czech Republic. There are 170,000 male users in Slovakia and 280,000 in the Czech Republic. That certainly does not mean it is not worth targeting products meant primarily for men on Pinterest, though.

In the third quarter of 2022 these TOP 5 categories were the most searched for on Pinterest in the Czech Republic and Slovakia:

1. Art
2. Home decor
3. Entertainment
4. Beauty
5. Women's fashion

Among the searches, though, we also find food and drink and education in the leading places.

Pinterest uses so-called "pins", which serve as bookmarks. With them images and videos are saved or shared on your own board or someone else's. For advertisers, pins are in fact the individual ads. Every ad, whether a video, a carousel or a classic static image, is a pin.

Basic settings and campaign types

Let us look at the basic settings, targeting and formats you need to know about when creating ads.

Which goals can we set when creating campaigns?

On Pinterest you can focus your ads on several goals at once: Building awareness, Driving consideration, Getting conversions.

With Building Awareness you can choose two goals. Either Brand Awareness, where the aim is for people to learn about your products and services, or Video views.

The next goal, Driving consideration, means more people will click your ad.

With the last goal, Getting conversions, you can choose either that you want people to convert on your website, or directly from the catalogue in your shopping ad.

What can campaigns be targeted by?

You can target by keywords. You can target anything from a product category — shoes, for instance — to a particular brand.

You can also reach people with your ads on the basis of interests. Besides interests you can choose life stages or hobbies. Interests are divided into general categories which then branch into more detail. Among interests we find, for instance, animals, architecture and parenting. You can choose something specific within a given category, or the whole category — the parenting mentioned, for instance.

You can target people, and also exclude them, by Customer list. It works much as on other platforms — you upload emails or mobile IDs.

You can also target engagement remarketing audiences. That means reconnecting with people who interacted with your content on Pinterest.

Remarketing to site visitors is possible too. You reach people who expressed an interest in your site.

Lookalike audiences — people similar to your existing customers — are not missing from Pinterest either. Here, though, you will find them under the name Actalike.

The last kind of targeting is targeting by demographics. Gender, age, language, location (within Slovakia you can target particular regions too), device and similar targeting options are not missing from Pinterest either.

Placement options and ad formats

Pinterest does not offer as many placement options as Facebook, for instance, but you can place your ads either in the home feed or in search.

As for ad formats on Pinterest, there are several to choose from. You can create an ordinary static ad with a single image (Static) or a standard video (Standard Video). There is also Max width Video, which is bigger and wider than a standard video. You can also create a carousel, which is essentially an image carousel where you can click through several images. A carousel allows up to five images. Finally, among the formats we also find Collection, which shows products in action using a hybrid format. A collection works on the principle of one large image and three or more smaller ones. You can create a collection either manually or use a catalogue when creating it.

Something interesting to finish - Pinterest Predicts

Pinterest Predicts is used to find out what will be trending in the coming year. Over the past 3 years as many as 80% of the predictions came true. These trends can concern fashion and styling, but also lifestyle, food or travel. They come out of months of data, analysis and evaluation.

With this information about what Pinterest offers you can launch your Pinterest campaigns and use various ad formats in them. If anything is still unclear even after reading this article, do not hesitate to get in touch.