Over the past few years, I have coached, mentored, consulted, and trained business owners on how to use Pinterest Ad Guidelines to create promoted pins for their business.
Pinterest is one of the most powerful sites to use to drive high-quality traffic to your business and products. And using promoted pins is one strategy that I teach and consult on.
Over the last 2 years, Pinterest has evolved, changed, and even reinvented themselves around their marketing.
For many, it started off as a site that only women used and it was just for recipes, diets, and cloths. While this is still there, there is so much more to Pinterest.
It has now evolved into a visual search engine that inspires people. Pinterest truly is a one of a kind marketing platform with a powerful advertising mission statement.
The Pinterest Ad mission is simple:
“Pinterest helps people discover and do what they love. [Pinterest] believes that promoted content can play a big role in helping people design
their lived, which is why [Pinterest] wants ads to be some of the best stuff you see on Pinterest.”
I can totally get behind that! Would you like to learn more about promoted pins and how to apply Pinterest to your business? Grab my free Pinterest training webinar.
Let’s dive into the Do’s and Don’ts of Pinterest Advertising.
Promoted Pins Should Be Authentic
One of the first things you should do is be honest about your relationship with Pinterest. Stick to Pinterest’s brand guidelines and don’t make claims that you are Pinterest.
That is pretty straight forward.
Stick to one advertiser per account and be clear about your brand and what you are advertising.
Don’t muddle the waters by trying to promote products or services that don’t match your brand. Basically, don’t promote dog collars one day and healthy recipes the next. Ads
Thoughtful Editorial Insight
Your first question may be, “What the heck is an editorial?”
It’s the style of your marketing and advertising. How your brand looks and feels to the customer.
Pinterest does have thier best practice for your creatives, a.k.a Pins, that I do recommend you looking over.
From here let’s talk about Promoted Pins. Below I list out three dos and
- Do: Be Clear and Understandable. Ads should be simple, clean, and easy to understand.
- Don’t Have:
- Fuzzy or grainy images (try at least 600×900 pixels)
- Incorrectly oriented images that are upside down or sideways.
- Overly busy images that are packed with text overlay or have too many font styles and colors (try no more than 4 frames and 2 font styles or colors.
- Improper grammar, incorrect spelling or excessive capitalization and symbols.
Do: BeProfessional & Neatly Edited. Promoted Pins should adhere to the highest level of editorial quality.- Don’t Have:
- Poorly edited images that are distracting or exaggerated.
- Poorly cropped images that feel careless or recycled (create intention and purpose with your promoted pins)
- Amateur or user-generated content likes selfies or screenshots
- Do: Be Authentic & Straightforward. Ads should set the right expectations and shouldn’t pressure people to click them.
- Don’t Have:
- Images with artificial functionality like
play or download buttons, notification icons, search bars, or elements that mimic Pinterest features (like our Save or Buy buttons.) Calls-to-action that resemble buttons are OK if they accurately describe where the Pinner will be taken when clicking through. For example, an image with a “Shop Now” button that leads to a shopping site is OK
It’s important to focus on the customer experience and what they are out to discover on the Pinterest platform. Remember to put yourself in their shoes. What do you want to see on Pinterest and what do you want your experience to be?
Where Are You Taking Me?
Curious… have you ever been on the Pinterest platform, saw a pin, clicked on it thinking you were going to see what was on the pin… only to be sent to a site where that image/product/training didn’t exist!
UGGGGGGHHHH!
Makes me want to pull my hair out. I know I’ve lost hours from my life that I will NEVER get back because I can’t find what I am looking for.
So please, I am begging and pleading with you…
BE CLEAR ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE SENDING THEM!
Be someone that is consistent with the pin to website experience. Pretty please with sugar on top!
If you are requiring your customer to take an action (like signing up) before they can see certain content, your ad should make that clear. Read more about this in my post for How To Get More Leads On Pinterest.
In my next blog
Know anyone that would benefit from my post? Please share and comment below. I love hearing from you!
Yours in Gratitude,
Chef Katrina
