Changes to Pinterest Promoted Pins

What is a Pinterest Promoted Pin?

A promoted pin is a paid ad on Pinterest. You can target:

Keywords
Locations
Demographics (e.g. gender, language)
Devices

The goal of a promoted pin is to reach potential customers who are searching for, or have shown an interest in the product or service you’re offering.

Pinterest Promoted Pins: Guiding Principles

If you stick to these advertising principles from Pinterest, you won’t have to worry about Pinterest’s fine print:

Be authentic.
Promote Pins that express who you really are and what you actually offer.
Don’t promote spam.
Obey applicable laws and regulations.

Here’s a link to Pinterest’s fine print about Promoted Pins – just in case!

Pinterest Promoted Pin Options

Previously on Pinterest you could only run campaigns that were charged based on the click-through activity. But last month Pinterest announced that U.S. based advertisers now have two options:

CPC (Cost Per Click)
CPE (Cost Per Engagement)

1. Cost Per Click (CPC)

If you choose CPC, you would only get charged when somebody clicks on your PROMOTED PIN that links back to your website. Based on this campaign model, close-ups and repins would be free of charge.

2. Cost Per Engagement (CPE)

This Pinterest campaign charges you for every Repin, Close-up and Click-Through that your PROMOTED PIN receives. This means that if a user repins your content and then clicks through the pin to your website, you would be charged for both levels of Engagement.

Based on this comparison, you may think that it’s a no-brainer to choose Cost Per Click, because you only want to pay for clicks that take a potential customer to your website, and not for any repin or close-up activity.

But there’s a downside to opt only for CPC campaigns.

If Pinterest considers that your click-through rate is low and your Pinterest campaign is under-performing, they will stop showing your PROMOTED PIN. Even if potential customers are repinning and doing close-ups of your pins it won’t matter, because in a CPC campaign, Pinterest is only looking at the volume website click-throughs.

Why choose to Promote a Pin on Pinterest?

Pinterest PROMOTED PINS help to draw attention to a specific pin, and are useful when you have something special or unique you want to feature, e.g. an event, a promotion or an important blog article that establishes you as a subject matter expert. So if you have some seasonal content or a time-sensitive activity you want to raise the profile on, a PROMOTED PIN might be a good option.

PROMOTED PINS help to gain you exposure with people who aren’t following your Pinterest profile yet. Based on your business goals and product or service line, you need to determine whether a Cost Per Engagement or Cost Per Click works best for your business.

Are you going for brand awareness, or are you only interested in driving traffic into your sales funnel?

Who is Eligible for Promoted Pins?

At the moment only U.S. based pinners with a U.S. credit card can apply for promoted pins. The rest of the world will have to have some patience! Promoted Pins aren’t available globally yet.

If you’re interested in promoting your pins: Click here to visit the Pinterest Help Page about HOW TO PROMOTE A PIN