How to Run Ads on Pinterest

Running ads on Pinterest can feel like a game-changer for businesses that get it right. Unlike other platforms driven by momentary trends, Pinterest taps into a user's mindset of planning, discovery, and getting inspired to buy. This detailed guide walks you through every step of creating a successful Pinterest ad campaign, from setting up your account to designing ads that actually convert.

First Things First: Why Pinterest Ads Work

Before spending a dollar, it's good to understand what makes Pinterest different. Users aren’t on Pinterest to mindlessly scroll, they're actively searching for ideas, products, and solutions. They're planning weddings, home renovations, vacation outfits, and weeknight dinners. This “in it for the long haul” mindset means they have a higher purchasing intent than users on many other social platforms.

This creates a unique opportunity. Your ad doesn’t feel like an interruption, it feels like the solution they were already looking for. Pinterest ads reach people when they're open to new brands and ready to make a decision, whether that’s right now or six months from now.

Setting Up for Success: Your Pinterest Business Account

You can't run ads with a personal Pinterest account. You’ll need a free Business account, which unlocks advertising features, analytics, and more. Here's how to get set up.

If you have a personal account:

• Log into your existing personal Pinterest account.
• Click the down-arrow in the top-right corner and select Convert to business.
• Follow the prompts to enter your business name and website, and select your business type. That’s it! Your followers, Pins, and boards will carry over.

If you're starting from scratch:

• Go to the Pinterest sign-up page and choose Create a business account.
• Fill out your email, create a password, enter your age, and follow the on-screen instructions to build your profile.

Claim Your Website

This is a super important step. Claiming your website links your site to your Pinterest profile, which unlocks more detailed analytics, gives your profile a credibility boost with a "claimed" checkmark, and is required for tracking conversions from your ads. Go to your settings, select Claimed accounts, and follow the instructions to add a meta tag, upload an HTML file, or add a TXT record to your site's DNS.

Understand the Building Blocks: Pinterest Ad Formats

Pinterest offers several ad formats, each suited for different goals. Getting familiar with them will help you choose the right creative for your campaign.

• Static Pin Ads: These are the standard, single-image Pins you see everywhere. They are simple, direct, and effective for showcasing products or strong visual branding.
• Video Pin Ads: Video catches the eye and tells a stronger story. Standard-width videos are the same size as a regular Pin, while max-width videos expand to cover the entire mobile feed. They're great for tutorials, product demos, or brand storytelling.
• Carousel Ads: These ads let users swipe through multiple images in a single Pin. Carousels are perfect for highlighting different features of a single product, showcasing multiple products in a lifestyle context, or walking through a step-by-step process.
• Shopping Ads: These pull directly from your product catalog, turning your products into shoppable Pins. When a user clicks, they're taken directly to the product page on your site. This is a must-use format for e-commerce brands.
• Idea Ads: Formerly known as Story Pins, Idea Ads are multi-page video or image sequences designed for immersive storytelling. They’re excellent for tutorials, recipes, or collection highlights that keep users engaged on the platform.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a Pinterest Ad Campaign

Ready to go? From the Pinterest Ads Manager dashboard, click Create campaign. You’ll be guided through a simple workflow to get your ads live.

Step 1: Choose Your Campaign Objective

Your objective tells Pinterest what you want to achieve. Pinterest will then optimize your campaign to get you the most of that desired outcome. The options are divided into three main categories:

• Brand Awareness: Your goal is to get your brand or products in front of as many new people as possible. You pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM). Best for brand launches or reaching a broad audience.
• Consideration: Here, you want to drive traffic and engagement. Your ads will be shown to people more likely to click through to your website or engage with your Pin (saving or close-up views). You typically pay per click (CPC) or per engagement.
• Conversions: This is for driving specific actions on your website, like sales, sign-ups, or adding items to a cart. You'll need the Pinterest Tag (their version of an advertising pixel) installed on your website to track these actions. You pay when a specific conversion happens (CPA) or based on clicks. For most businesses, this is the end goal.

Step 2: Set Your Campaign Budget and Schedule

Next, you’ll name your campaign and set its spending limits. Don't worry, you can always change the name later.

Budget

You have two main options:

• Daily Budget: The average amount you want to spend each day. This is flexible and great for ongoing campaigns.
• Lifetime Budget: The total amount you want to spend over the entire duration of the campaign. This is better for campaigns with a fixed end date, like a holiday sale.

Schedule

Here you decide if you want the campaign to run continuously (starting immediately) or if you want to set specific start and end dates.

Pinterest also has an optional campaign pacing feature. Standard pacing spends your budget evenly over the campaign's scheduled dates, while accelerated pacing spends it as quickly as possible to get results faster, which can be useful for short-term promotions.

Step 3: Define Your Audience Targeting

This is where you tell Pinterest who should see your ads. The more specific you are, the better your results will be. You create your targeting at the ad group level. Think of an ad group as a basket inside your campaign that holds a specific set of targeting rules and a group of ads.

Pinterest offers powerful ways to reach your ideal customer:

• Audience targeting: You can upload your customer lists (e.g., from your email marketing tool), retarget people who have visited your website (if you have the Pinterest Tag installed), or target "Actalikes," which are users who behave similarly to your existing customers or website visitors. Actalikes are an excellent way to find new customers.
• Interest targeting: Target people based on the categories and boards they engage with. Selling workout gear? Target users interested in "fitness," "exercise at home," and "healthy recipes." The options are incredibly granular.
• Keyword targeting: Show your ads to people who are actively searching for specific terms. This is one of the most powerful features of Pinterest Ads. If you sell sustainable home goods, you can bid on keywords like "eco-friendly cleaning," "zero waste kitchen hacks," or "recycled home decor." You can use broad match, phrase match, or exact match keywords.
• Demographics: Refine your audience by gender, age, location (down to the metro area), language, and even device type.

You can layer these targeting methods. For example, you can target women aged 25-45 in California who are interested in 'interior design' AND searching for 'living room furniture'.

Step 4: Select Your Ads (The Pins!)

Finally, you choose the creative. This is what people will actually see in their feeds. You have two options here:

• Choose an existing Pin: Promote one of your high-performing organic Pins. This is a great place to start, as you already know the creative resonates with your audience. Head to your Pinterest Analytics, find your best-performing Pins from the last 30 days, and consider giving them an ad budget to expand their reach.
• Create a new ad: Upload a new image or video specifically for the campaign. This lets you craft creative tailored to your ad objective, such as adding a clear call-to-action overlay.

Once you’ve selected your Pins, you'll give each ad a destination URL - this is where people will go when they click your ad. Then, hit Publish!

Best Practices for Creative That Stands Out

Your targeting can be perfect, but a bad ad won't convert. Here’s how to make your Pinterest ad creative work hard for you:

• Think Vertical: Always use a 2:3 aspect ratio (e.g., 1000 x 1500 pixels). This takes up the most screen real estate on mobile devices and looks native to the platform.
• Use High-Quality Assets: Blurry images and choppy video scream "unprofessional." Your creatives need to be crisp, clear, and visually appealing.
• Make Your Branding Subtle: Add your logo in one of the corners, but don’t let it overwhelm the image. People come to Pinterest for inspiration, not overt advertising.
• Add Text Overlay: Many users scroll with sound off. A clear headline and a short, punchy caption on your image or video helps communicate your message instantly. Make it easy to read on a small screen.
• Write SEO-Friendly Descriptions: Just like organic Pins, your ad descriptions are searchable. Use relevant keywords to help Pinterest understand what your ad is about and show it to the right people.
• Have a Clear Call to Action (CTA): Your ad should tell people what you want them to do. Use phrases like "Shop Now," "Learn More," "Sign Up," or "Get the Ebook." Either add this as a text overlay or focus on it in your Pin description.

Analyze and Optimize Your Campaigns

Launching a campaign is just the beginning. The real progress comes from a continuous cycle of analysis and improvement. In your Pinterest Ads Manager, keep an eye on these key metrics:

• Impressions: The total number of times your ad was seen.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on it. A low CTR might suggest your creative isn’t compelling enough.
• Cost Per Click (CPC): How much you’re paying for each click.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of people who completed your desired action (e.g., made a purchase) after clicking.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): How much it costs you to get one conversion (e.g., one sale). This is one of the most important metrics for ROI-focused campaigns.
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): The total revenue generated for every dollar you spend on ads. A ROAS of 3:1 means you made $3 for every $1 you spent.

Regularly check your dashboard to see what's working. Which ads have the highest CTR? Which audiences are driving the lowest CPA? Double down on what works and pause what doesn’t. Test new creative, new audiences, and new keywords continuously.

Final Thoughts

Pinterest advertising offers a direct line to an audience that is actively seeking solutions and ready to buy. By setting up a business account, understanding the different ad formats, carefully targeting your audience, and creating compelling visuals, you can build campaigns that drive real-world results for your brand.

Of course, successful paid campaigns are almost always built on the foundation of a strong organic strategy. Before we ever recommend spending money on ads, we believe it’s important to have a consistent and engaging organic presence. That's where our tool becomes incredibly helpful. Postbase was built to take the headache out of scheduling organic video and static content for Pinterest and other visual platforms, giving you a beautiful calendar to plan your strategy and simple analytics to find your top-performing Pins - the perfect candidates for your next ad campaign.