Promoted Pins Case Study
We’re talking all about using Promoted Pins on Pinterest. Last week we looked at how Amy from Mod Podge Rocks used it to boost her Amazon sales. This week we’ve diving into how to use Promoted Pins to boost sales for educational products using a low CPC (cost-per-click).
Quick review – What are promoted pins? Promoted pins are Pinterest’s paid form of advertising. They are my favorite social media advertising tool out there. Learn the basics of Promoted Pins here.
Low Cost-Per-Click
There is a ton of talk around how much you should spend on Promoted Pins. This is referred to as a CPC bid. Since you only pay for clicks to your site this is how much you’ll pay for every click. Some say to go with the suggested cost that Pinterest gives you others say to go as low as possible.
Last week I met Jessica from What I Have Learned at Social Media Marketing World. She shared with me some fantastic results from her Promoted Pin experiments with a VERY low CPC. Her strategy was so fascinating I asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing two examples — both blog posts, one seasonal and another on-going. She happily agreed.
On-Going Blog Post Promoted Pin
From Jessica:
I tend to promote pins for a low cost. I start with a $3 daily limit and 10 cent CPC (cost-per-click). Then increase it from there, never going higher than a 20 cent CPC. If the product is selling well, then I may increase the daily budget. This pin is always hitting the daily limit, I think.
Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/550494754428602553/
Time frame: 3/28/15 – 4/25/16 (it’s ongoing)
Daily Budget: $6
CPC (cost-per-click): $.10
Total Clicks: 4,713
Total Budget: on-going
Starting repin numbers: I don’t know. Again, probably 0.
Ending repin numbers: 4,234
Device: (all)
Goal: Information about how to teach opinion writing that leads to product sales. Traffic = Emails or Sales
Since this is an on-going pin, Jessica follows the sales of the product. As she stated above, if it’s selling well she increases the limit, if not she leaves it as is.
Seasonal Promoted Pin
From Jessica:
The pin that did the best was a St. Patrick’s Day pin. It went to a product on my website. It was actually a campaign that had four different promoted pins, slightly different images.
Time frame: 2/15/16 – 3/17/16 – I ran it in 2015 during the St. Patrick’s Day time frame, turned it off for a year, and turned it back on.
Daily Budget: $ ???? I don’t know
CPC (cost-per-click): $.09 average
Total Clicks: 5.55K
Total Budget: $234.90
Starting repin numbers: 0-1000
Goal: Sale of product
Conversions — Notice the short pin had the highest conversions.
Overall Results
Summary
What I find interesting about these case studies are the low CPC’s. Jessica is still getting great results without putting out a ton of money. And the icing on the cake is that after a pin is promoted it lives forever. Pinterest users will still see the pin, forever! It doesn’t leave the platform or die a quick ‘reach’ death (Facebook!). In fact, Pinterest has said it can still drive up to 20% more traffic after the campaign has ended.
It’s smart that Jessica is choosing to promote with a low CPC for an on-going product. If she had chosen to go with the suggested cost from Pinterest she would’ve blown her advertising budget real fast.
In the St. Patrick’s day case study the shorter pin ended up performing the best. There are several reports of longer pins performing better but in this study the regular sized pin performed better than the longer pins. Something to think about when you’re choosing a pin to promote. Test two different sizes to compare results.
Let’s also take into consideration that the Saint Patrick’s day pin had been pinned the previous year. Knowing that Pinterest tends to favor older content this is a great strategy for boosting existing content. Always be sure to review the post for places to add internal links and new ways to monetize.
The takeaway — when promoting a pin on Pinterest test out different CPC’s and different sized images. Consider an on-going campaign or boosting previously published seasonal content. And ALWAYS choose traffic campaigns (now called Consideration campaigns).
What do you see in this case study that inspires you?
Looking for more tips? Check out our blab about how to run a promoted pin campaign, download our quick tips for testing out Promoted Pins, and take a look at The Complete Guide to Promoted Pins
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