Complete Guide to Pinterest Promoted Pins

Are you confused by Promoted Pins? Wondering what type of Promoted Pin campaign you should run? Let me help. Here’s the complete guide to all Promoted Pins and how each one functions.

There are currently three different types of Promoted Pins campaigns that you can choose from (as long as your business is based the US, CA, or the UK and just recently added, Ireland, Austrailia, and New Zealand). When the feature rolled out to businesses, Engagement campaigns and Traffic campaigns were immediately available. Pinterest has since added Awareness campaigns. They also just announced a new development, and are slowly rolling out Search Ads.

Because each type of Promoted Pin prioritizes and optimizes for different results—and charges based on the actions tied to those desired results—the campaign type you choose does matter, and will determine what you’re paying for.

Let’s take a closer look at the types of Promoted Pins campaigns we can choose from.

Engagement Campaigns

Engagement campaigns are designed to help you increase engagement on your pins. This can help you build a larger Pinterest following, get your pin more visibility, and potentially even drive more sales (though the latter is not an immediate focus). Engagement campaigns are designed to help you get more interactions on your pins.

Engagement Promoted Pins will be charged by each action of engagement your ad receives. This includes close-up views, repins, and clicks.

Traffic Campaigns

Traffic campaigns, like our other types of promoted pins, are exactly what their name would suggest; these ads are designed to send traffic to your site. If you want to drive lead generation or sales immediately, this is a good campaign type to choose.

Since many users conduct research on Pinterest before making buying decisions, being able to send interested, ready-to-buy users right to your site is a huge advantage.

Unsurprisingly, you’ll be charged for every click to your website.

Awareness Campaigns

Awareness campaigns, which were released in the middle of last year, enable you to “be seen by people on the most visible parts of Pinterest.” Awareness campaigns focus on reach, showing your ad to as many people as possible, instead of focusing on actions. They’re an incredible tool for brand awareness and recognition purposes, and they really will give you a much larger visibility than other types of Promoted Pins for the same price.

Pinterest’s awareness campaigns can be purchased directly from Pinterest or through the auction, where you bid for placement. You’ll be charged per every 1,000 impressions, which can save you money you’re focusing most heavily on reach instead of clicks.

Search Ads

Pinterest’s Search Ads are the newest and shiniest ad type, and were just announced within the past month. They’re still in testing and only available to partners and big-name brands, but that’s a great sign that they could be on their way to us at some point.

Search Ads will show up as soon as a user types a keyword or phrase into Pinterest’s search engine, instead of being engrained into a feed like other types of Promoted Pins.

Search Ads are currently being charged on a cost per click (CPC) basis, and are being sold directly from Pinterest. Eventually, they may become available through the auction if they’re more widely released.

Pinterest is likely going to be rolling out the feature to more businesses within the next few months. Make sure to keep an eye on the blog for more news on these ads in the coming months!