If you have only ever done organic marketing on Pinterest, you may wonder if those efforts can be used to create an effective Pinterest ad strategy.
The answer is yes.
And in today’s episode, we are going to dive into how you can capitalize on your organic marketing strategy to produce effective ads on Pinterest. When Kate sat down to plan out the 2024 Simple Pin marketing plan, she looked at the tools we were using to market the business. From there, she created three categories, “this is working”, “this is kind of working”, and “we aren’t using this tool”. Ads fell into that last category. Kate admits the fear of advertising had gotten the best of her. She knows that Pinterest ads have not gotten the attention, direction, and vision that it deserves.
So the question is: how can we give our Pinterest ad strategy the direction and vision it warrants? Let’s find out…
Tools to Help you get started with ads on Pinterest
To find the answer to the question above, Kate is outlining several places to look and tools to use on the organic side of Pinterest. You should not pull a Pinterest ad strategy out of thin air. There are several tools at your disposal, and those tools can help guide your efforts in advertising on Pinterest. For Simple Pin, we have 10 years of data on our Pinterest account to tell us what to market and who the right audience is. So why wouldn’t we start there?
Reminder: Organic marketing is like free ad testing
Based on your organic strategy, you already know what works and what doesn’t work. You’ve been pinning for a while, testing images, and keywords. There are several tools you can use to brainstorm and get ideas for ad campaign creation. These tools will help bring direction and vision to your ad strategy.
Pinterest analytics – Pay attention to your organic Pinterest analytics. Take note of what pins are getting the most engagements, clicks, close-ups, etc.. Pay attention to your top boards and top pins as well. Take stock of what your evergreen pins are; the pins that are always doing well. What pins have you seen in your analytics for years? Those could be great pins to try an ad campaign on.
Trends Tool – Now that you have all that information under your belt, head over to the trends tool. Look at what is trending and when. This helps to know when your audience is interested in specific topics throughout the year. This is key to knowing the right time to launch a campaign.
Audience insights – This tool shows you information in comparison to the average user based on what your audience looks like. For example, a large percentage of your audience is looking at XYZ. You can fine-tune your interests related to your product, and discover what would resonate with them. One of the most important things when considering ads on Pinterest is making sure you have the right size audience. Kate suggests a 500K prospecting and retargeting audience size.
Search Bar – The search bar is your best friend on Pinterest. It is going to help you see what is out there and what is top-ranking. You look at the keywords. You look at the images. You look at what stands out to you. And you can get an idea of what pins are grabbing pinners’ attention. From there, you can draft up ideas for how to market your product.
Related: How To Create Content From Pinterest Trends Tool
Pinterest Ads Don’t have to be scary
Sometimes you just need to start. Ads can be scary, but they don’t have to be. You’ll never know if you don’t try. The hardest part is starting. The easiest and best place to jump into the world of ads is if you see a specific organic pin of yours doing well. Kate recommends starting there with a Pinterest ad. Change up the graphics to capture the right audience, make sure you are using the best keywords, determine when the topic is trending, and launch the campaign.
If you are still trying to decide if you should try Pinterest ads, there are a couple of questions you should ask yourself. One, how much do you know about Pinterest ads? Secondly, do you have an understanding of how they work? And lastly, how much money can you set aside to invest in them?
We’ve created this video to help you determine if you are ready to take on Pinterest ads in 2024. If you sign up today, you’ll get sent a link to the video, and you’ll be invited to a special live Q&A with Kate, and our Ads Director, Erin on Friday, January 26th.
