How To Advertise on Pinterest in the UK

by | May 10, 2016 | Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media

Pinterest promoted pins finally arrived in the UK at the end of April. In our latest blog we explore how to use them.

Pinterest promoted pins have been available in the US and Canada for a while now and in April 2016, they hit our shores here in the UK. They are a form of pay per click advertising in a similar mould to promoted posts on Facebook and whilst they are fairly new and competition for UK advertisers is relatively low, they can be a form of advertising that is cost effective and provides a good return on investment.

In this post, we show you how to create and target Pinterest Promoted Pins.

Points To Note

To use Pinterest promoted pins you must have a Pinterest Business Account based in the UK or the USA. You can target pinners in the UK, Canada, and the USA.

Promoted pins are managed at ads.pinterest.com

To create a promoted pin, the pin must already exist on a board in your business profile.

Step 1 – Create Your Ad

Log in to your Pinterest account and visit ads.pinterest.com

Click the + sign in the top right and choose create ad 

This screenshot image shows the options available to you when pinning on Pinterest. Pin from a website, upload from a computer and create ad.

Step 2 – Choose The Goal For Your Campaign

If you choose “Boost Engagement” you will be charged for each engagement with your ad.

If you choose ‘Get traffic to your website’ you will only be charged per click-through to your site.

You don’t need to pick your pin at this stage you can do so later.

In this screenshot image, it shows the 2 goals available to you for your Pinterest advert. Boost engagement with your pins or Get traffic to your website.

Step 3 – Campaign Details

This image shows the options available to you to create your Pinterest campaign. Now name your campaign, set the dates that you want to run the campaign for and set the daily budget for your campaign. The higher the budget, the more your ad will be displayed.

If you have an overall budget in mind, divide this by the number of days you are running the ad for to get your daily budget.

 

When you have completed the above details , click the “pick a pin” button. The 'Pick a Pin' option will appear once you have completed the other steps. This will continue your setup for your Pinterest campaign.

 

Once you click on the pick a pin button you will be taken to your boards. The pin you wish to promote must be on a public board. If your campaign is to drive traffic to your website the pin must link to a website.  Make sure you have a suitable landing page on your website.

You can filter your pins to choose the ones that are already performing the best. These are likely to make the best performing adverts.

The filter allows you to view all your pins, 30-day most clicked and 30-day most repined of your Pinterest campaign.

 

The image shows our Pinterest contest that we launched last week.

Step 4 – Target Your Advertising

Now you have to name your advert so that you can track its performance, enter the URL for the landing page on your website and target your advert based on interests and relevant keywords.

Pinterest make it easy for you to track your adverts performance. The image shows the screen where you target your pin. You can add keywords and interests so that you can target the right audience.

The more precisely you can target your advertising the more successful it will be for achieving your aims. It is just as well, therefore, that as well as targeting by interest and keyword, you can also restrict your advert to certain geographical regions, languages, the device used and gender.

You can restrict your advert to certain geographical locations, language, the device used and gender. This allows you to target your Pinterest campaign at the audience that it is aimed at.

Step 5 – Set Your Budget

This step is closely linked to the targeting of your ad. The more narrowly defined your audience, the less you will have to bid for each click on your advert. You can see this in action by changing the targeting options and you will see the range of bids from competitors (competing for the same audience) vary. You should enter the maximum amount that you are willing to bid for each click.

Setting your budget is the next step. You will find that the more refined your target audience is, the less you will bid for each click of your Pinterest advert.

High overall budget + High CPC Bid = lots of impressions and hopefully lots of clicks

High overall budget + Low CPC Bid = you might be outbid by competitors to get in front of key customers and your competitors’ adverts will be seen more often than yours

Low overall budget + High CPC Bid = low number of impressions and a short running campaign

Low overall budget + Low CPC Bid = your advert is not likely to be seen by many people

Step 6 – Business Details

Confirm your business details and be sure to enter the VAT number if your business is VAT registered.

Your next stage is to add and confirm your business details to set up your Pinterest advert. Remember to add your companies VAT number if your business is VAT registered.

Step 7 – Payment Details

After confirming that you agree to abide by Pinterest’s advertising terms and conditions, you will be prompted to enter your payment details and you will be charged for each click on your advert.

Once you have created your advertising campaign your promoted pin will be submitted for approval by Pinterest and this can take up to 24 Hours.

If you edit the campaign and change the targeting or the promoted pin’s description, your ad will be submitted for review again and this can take a further 24 hours.

Step 8 – Measure Success

As with any advertising, you must measure the success of your promoted pins or you will never know whether it is money well spent. Pinterest provides a range of analytics for your adverts and we will look at these in the next blog post in this series on Pinterest Promoted Pins.

Pinterest Promoted Pin Example

We are running a promoted pin campaign on Pinterest during May to win £200 of vouchers towards E-Learning courses.  You can find out more and enter here.

Have you tried Pinterest advertising yet? Let us know how you get on.

You can see how we got on and what we learned from advertising on Pinterest here.