How to Cancel Pinterest Ads

Thinking about turning off your Pinterest ad campaign? Whether it's hit its goal, isn't performing as expected, or you just need to reallocate your budget, stopping an ad is a straightforward process. This guide provides a complete walkthrough on how to cancel your Pinterest ads, explaining the difference between pausing and archiving, and offering step-by-step instructions for any scenario.

Understanding the Pinterest Ad Structure

Before you hit pause, it's helpful to understand how Pinterest organizes its ad campaigns. Getting a handle on this structure prevents you from accidentally turning off more (or less) than you intend to. It's broken down into three simple levels:

• Campaigns: This is the highest level. It's where you define your primary advertising objective, like building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, or increasing conversions. Every ad you run lives inside a campaign.
• Ad Groups: Nestled inside campaigns are ad groups. Here, you set your targeting details (like demographics and interests), budget, and schedule. You can have multiple ad groups within a single campaign, each targeting a different audience. For example, one campaign for a new furniture line might have an ad group for "minimalist home decor lovers" and another for "first-time homeowners."
• Ads (Promoted Pins): These are the individual Pins - the creative content your audience sees. They live inside your ad groups. You will often run several different ads within one ad group to see which images or videos perform the best.

Why does this matter? Because you can pause activity at any of these three levels. You might want to stop a single, underperforming Pin (Ad) without affecting anything else, or you might pause an entire audience segment (Ad Group) while letting others continue. Understanding this hierarchy gives you precise control over your ad spend.

Pause vs. Archive vs. Delete: Knowing Which Action to Take

When you want to stop an ad, Pinterest gives you a few options. Choosing the right one is simple, but it affects how your data is stored and displayed in your Ads Manager. Let's break down the differences.

Pausing: The Best Everyday Option

Pausing is the most common and recommended way to stop your ads. When you pause a campaign, ad group, or ad, it immediately stops running and spending money. However, all of its performance data - clicks, impressions, conversions - is perfectly preserved and remains visible on your dashboard. This is incredibly valuable because you can analyze what worked and what didn't later on. Pausing is also reversible, you can reactivate a paused ad or campaign at any time with a single click.

Use 'Pause' when: You want to temporarily stop an ad, your campaign has concluded, or something is underperforming. In almost every situation, pausing is the right choice.

Archiving: Cleaning Up Your Dashboard

Archiving is an organizational tool. When you archive a campaign, it also stops running and spending money. The main difference is that it hides the campaign from your default Ads Manager view. This is perfect for decluttering your dashboard after a campaign has been finished for a while. All the data is still saved, you'll just have to adjust your filters to view archived campaigns if you ever want to revisit the results.

Use 'Archive' when: A campaign is long over and you don't need to see it in your active list anymore, but you want to keep its data for historical reporting.

Deleting: Use With Extreme Caution

Deleting is the most permanent action and should rarely, if ever, be used. You can typically only delete at the creative (Ad) level. When you delete an ad, you also delete all of the associated performance data forever. This erases valuable insights you could have used to make your next campaign better. There is almost no strategic advantage to deleting an ad instead of pausing it.

Use 'Delete' when: You are absolutely certain you will never need the performance data for that specific Pin again. Honestly, it's best to just stick with pausing or archiving.

Step-by-Step: How to Turn Off Your Pinterest Ads

Ready to go? The process is very similar whether you're pausing an entire campaign or just one ad. Here's exactly how to do it.

1. Log in to Pinterest Ads Manager: Navigate to ads.pinterest.com.
2. Choose Your View: At the top of the Ads dashboard, you'll see tabs for Campaigns, Ad groups, and Ads. Select the level you want to modify.
3. Find Your Active Item: By default, Ads Manager often shows all your items, including past ones. To make things easier, click the "Filter" button and sort by "Campaign status: Active," "Ad group status: Active," or "Ad status: Active". This will show you only the ads that are currently running and spending money.

Once you've found what you're looking for, follow the steps for your specific goal.

How to Pause an Entire Campaign

Use this when you want to stop all ads associated with a single marketing objective.

• In the Campaigns tab, find the active campaign you want to stop.
• On the left side of the campaign name, you'll see a blue toggle under the "Status" column.
• Click the toggle. It will turn gray and the status will change to "Paused."

That's it! All ad groups and ads within that campaign will immediately stop serving.

Pro Tip: You can also pause in bulk. Just click the checkbox next to each campaign you want to stop, then click the "Edit" button that appears above the list and select "Pause".

How to Pause a Specific Ad Group

Use this when you want to stop targeting a specific audience but keep other ad groups in the same campaign running.

• First, click on the name of the campaign that contains the ad group you want to pause.
• Next, select the "Ad groups" tab.
• Find the active ad group in the list and click the blue toggle under the "Status" column to change it to "Paused."

Your other ad groups within that campaign will continue to run as scheduled.

How to Pause an Individual Ad (A Promoted Pin)

Use this when one specific creative isn't performing well, and you want to pull it without affecting other ads in the same ad group.

• Click into the relevant Campaign, then into the relevant Ad Group.
• Select the "Ads" tab.
• Find the individual ad (Pin) you want to stop and click the blue status toggle to set it to "Paused."

This gives you granular control, allowing you to optimize your campaigns by removing the weakest links without disrupting the winners.

What If My Campaign Isn't Showing Up? Dealing with Boosted Pins

Sometimes, advertisers don't build a campaign from scratch in Ads Manager. Instead, they use the simpler "Boost" button on an organic Pin. If this is you, don't worry - you still pause it in the exact same place. When you boost a Pin, Pinterest automatically creates a campaign and ad group for it in Ads Manager. It's often named something generic like "Promoted Pin Campaign for [Your Pin's description]".

To stop it, simply follow the steps above to find the auto-created campaign in your Ads Manager list and toggle it to "Paused." All promoted or boosted pins are managed from the central Ads Manager dashboard.

Troubleshooting Common Questions

Even with simple steps, a few things can cause confusion. Here are answers to the most common issues people face.

"I paused my campaign, but why was I still charged?"

This is the most common question, and it's perfectly normal. Pinterest, like other ad platforms, operates on a delayed billing cycle. When you pause a campaign, you stop accruing new charges instantly. However, you will still be billed for all the clicks, impressions, and engagement that occurred before you hit pause. This final bill might take a few hours or even a day to show up, but rest assured, you aren't being charged for any activity after you paused it.

"Should I just remove my credit card to stop the ads?"

Definitely not. Removing your payment method doesn't pause your campaign. It just prevents Pinterest from being able to bill you for costs you've already incurred. This will lead to billing failures, potential ad account suspension, and unnecessary headaches. Proper protocol is always to pause the campaign in Ads Manager first, let any outstanding charges clear, and then decide what to do with your payment info.

From Paused Ads to a Smarter Organic Strategy

Stopping ads isn't just about cutting costs, it's a chance to refine your social media marketing as a whole. Pausing a campaign is the perfect moment to step back and analyze your results. Look at which Pins got the most clicks, saves, and actions at the best cost. Which targeting options worked best? This data is gold for your next paid campaign.

More importantly, it should inform your organic content strategy. The best Pinterest ads are amplifiers, not creators, of success. They work best when they promote Pins that are already well-designed and genuinely helpful to your audience. A strong foundation of consistent, high-quality organic content gives you a much better launchpad for any future advertising efforts. By focusing on what resonates with your followers organically, you'll be set up to run more efficient and effective ad campaigns when the time is right.

Final Thoughts

Pausing your Pinterest ads is a simple click of a button once you know your way around the Campaign, Ad Group, and Ad hierarchy. Using the toggle in Ads Manager gives you instant control over your spending, and choosing to pause over delete is always the best practice for preserving your hard-won performance data.

Managing dynamic ad campaigns is just one piece of the puzzle, a strong, consistent organic presence is what truly builds an engaged audience over time. We know that planning, scheduling, and analyzing content across multiple social platforms is a huge challenge. That's why we built Postbase. Our goal is to simplify your entire social media workflow with a visual calendar that helps you see your entire strategy at a glance, so you can focus on creating great content instead of fighting with your tools.