Pinterest Ads

A visual discovery platform where users arrive with intent to plan, buy, or make something, which makes it closer to search than to social in behavior. Strongest in home, food, fashion, beauty, weddings, and travel, and skewed female and toward higher household income.

Where ads run

• Home feed
• Search results
• Related Pins
• Shopping surfaces (product Pins from catalog)
• Idea and collage formats

Campaign types

• Awareness
• Consideration (clicks)
• Conversions
• Catalog sales
• Video views
• App installs
• Performance+ (automated)

Targeting

• Interests (Pinterest taxonomy)
• Keywords (search intent)
• Customer lists, website (Pinterest tag), engagement, and actalike audiences
• Demographics, location, device, language
• Performance+ automated targeting and expansion

Buying

Auction-based, billed by impression, click, or view; automated bidding by default with target and max options. Performance+ campaigns automate targeting, bidding, creative, and budget across objectives. Minimum daily budget is $1. CPMs are among the lowest of the major platforms.

Measurement

Pinterest tag and Conversions API; attribution windows up to 30-day click, 30-day engagement, 1-day view; conversion lift and brand lift studies; clean-room and third-party measurement integrations; catalog-driven product reporting.

Watch

Pinterest content has a long shelf life and organic and paid pins reinforce each other, so campaigns are often planned seasonally well ahead of the moment (holiday planning starts in late summer). Shoppable formats and the catalog integration are where the platform has invested most. Users are planning, so creative that shows the finished result outperforms creative that sells.

Documentation

https://help.pinterest.com/en/business

See also: benchmarks for typical costs, and the glossary for any term used above.