Your Pinterest Marketing Strategy Guide for 2026

If you’re looking to drive sales for your business, Pinterest marketing can be an important tool to explore. More and more, Pinterest is a place where people go when they’re ready to buy something, even if they haven’t decided what that is yet. 

Danish jewellery brand Pilgrim proved exactly that: Using Pinterest’s Shopify integration over the Black Friday and Christmas period, it achieved its highest-ever online sales revenue. On top of that, it saw a four-times higher return on ad spend than other social media platforms, and an 80% lower cost per acquisition. 

According to Business of Fashion, in Q3 2022 Pinterest’s revenue was evenly split across awareness, consideration, and conversion—but by Q3 2025, two-thirds of its revenue came from driving sales.

In this starter guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of using Pinterest for marketing, including how to set up your profile, optimize your pins, advertise on the platform, and, last but not least, measure your results.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social media site that lets users (“pinners”) save pins that contain links, descriptions, and images onto different boards for later use. The platform functions as a visual search engine where people can find ideas for recipes and style inspiration, and shop the brands they like directly from pins.

You can create Pinterest pins by uploading images and links manually, re-share pins you want to see in your feed, or find pins you’re looking for via search. The latter two are great opportunities to market to future customers.

Pinterest is designed to store ideas and inspiration in a way that other social media sites aren’t. Users are encouraged to organize what they find into different “boards” for easy navigation, and most pinners are primarily on Pinterest seeking and saving what they want to see. Users generally aren’t focused on other people seeing what they’ve tagged or archived, because the platform’s more about personal curation than it is about generating discussion or exchanging information.

Think, internal versus external motivation—it’s why Pinterest has the option to create “secret” boards, which are private and can only be viewed by specific individuals who are given access.

How effective is Pinterest for marketing?

If you’re wondering why creating a Pinterest marketing strategy is worth the effort for your online store, check out the following reasons:

It has a growing international user base

As of Q2 2025, Pinterest reported 600 million monthly active users worldwide, up roughly 11% year-over-year and marking its largest audience on record.

Pinterest’s CEO Bill Ready described the platform in its Q3 2025 earnings release as “an AI-powered shopping assistant for 600 million consumers.” This signal of where the platform is investing and what kind of audience it’s building.

Pinterest can be a marketing powerhouse for an online store. Users buy products they discover on Pinterest organically at a much higher rate than the average social platform. That’s partially because Pinterest users often are proactively searching for things, rather than just reactively scrolling through a feed.

There’s a place for every brand

Some 96% of top searches on Pinterest are unbranded, meaning people arrive open to discovery, not already committed to a competitor. They’re looking for ideas rather than specific brands—that’s your window to get in front of them before they’ve made a decision.

Brands can target buyers who are in the early stages of the purchase process, getting their product on a customer’s radar at the right time. You don’t need to hard sell on Pinterest.

It’s ideal for product discovery

People increasingly treat Pinterest like a search engine for products. According to Adobe, 39% of consumers use Pinterest as a search engine. The same report shows that for Gen Z shoppers Pinterest is even more central—39% saying they start product searches there instead of on Google. 

“Architects, designers, internal procurement people for Google, or someone decorating their house in the Hamptons are all generally going through the same buying process: they’re all on Instagram or Pinterest,” says Ian Leslie, CMO of furniture brand Industry West.

People use Pinterest to plan for the future. With a solid Pinterest marketing strategy, you can find and reach your audience on the platform. 

It’s become a place to shop

Research commissioned by Pinterest in partnership with LiveRamp found, on average, that Pinterest users spend 26% more annually than non-users. They also visit stores 25% more frequently, and leave with baskets that are 6% larger.

Product pins can connect to your Shopify product catalog. Once you upload a product pin, you get a Shop tab on your profile and people can find your products more easily. Users can also browse shoppable pins in the Shop tab of their search screen.

Pinterest is a feel-good platform

Pinterest ranks as the No. 1 social platform for instilling feelings of self-worth and purpose, based on a global well-being metric that measures user sentiment.

Research commissioned by Pinterest from media intelligence firm MAGNA found that ads shown in environments people perceive as positive are up to 94% more impactful in driving purchase intent. 

People also spend 15% more time looking at ads on platforms they view positively, and rate those same ads as twice as trustworthy and interesting as the identical ad shown elsewhere.

And unlike most platforms, Pinterest earns genuinely high user satisfaction scores. Pinterest scored 74 out of 100—above Facebook, X, and Snapchat. 

For brands, where your ad appears shapes how it performs; and on Pinterest, the environment does some of the work for you.

What types of businesses should use Pinterest?

Many businesses have the potential to get meaningful results from Pinterest marketing, especially online stores selling physical goods that can be photographed.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies in general have more success on Pinterest than business-to-business (B2B) companies, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for the latter to get traction on the platform. 

Let’s take a closer look at who typically uses Pinterest today.

Who uses Pinterest?

In the US alone, the platform reaches96.9 million users, making it one of the most concentrated pools of consumer intent in American social media. 

Here’s a closer look at the demographic slices:

• Pinterest reaches 40% of US households earning more than $150,000 annually: a number worth bookmarking if you sell premium products.
• Gen Z is now the platform’s largest and fastest-growing demographic, making up 42% of Pinterest’s global user base, and searching and saving more than any other generation.
• The platform’s overall audience remains 70% women globally, with women aged 18 to 34 making up the largest share.

The US and Canada average revenue per user (ARPU) hit $9.41 in Q4 2025—more than five times the global average of $2.16. This reflects just how much advertisers are willing to pay to reach American Pinterest users.

The household income statistic suggests Pinterest attracts users with a higher disposable income. A third of monthly luxury shoppers on Pinterest have annual incomes exceeding $100,000—and they’re 35% more likely to be six-figure earners than luxury shoppers on other platforms.

Set up your Pinterest profile for business success

The first step to Pinterest marketing is setting up an effective profile. Your profile lays the foundation for the rest of your marketing, and taking the time to set it up right will save you time in the long run.

Make sure you set up a business account for your store instead of a personal one—this will give you access to Pinterest analytics, rich pins, and other advertising and marketing tools. 

There are two ways to create a Pinterest business account:

• Convert a personal account to a business one
• Create a new business account

Convert a personal account to a business one

If you already have a personal profile and have followers and content saved to it, you can convert it to a business profile. You can switch back to a personal account any time. Here are step-by-step instructions for switching to a Pinterest business account.

1. Log into your personal Pinterest account.
2. From the top right of your screen, click the directional chevron down icon, then click Settings.
3. From the left side navigation, click Account settings.
4. Scroll down to Account changes.
5. Under Account changes, find Convert to a business account.
6. Click Convert account.
7. Fill out the fields to Build your profile, then click Next.
8. Fill out the fields to Describe your business, then click Next.
9. Select if you want to run ads, then click Next.
10. Select where you’d like to start, or click the X icon to go to your converted Pinterest business account.

Create a new business account

If you want to create a new business account that’s not connected to a personal one, do the following.

Note that you can only create a new business account from a desktop device.

1. Go to pinterest.com and click Sign up at the top right of your screen. If you have an existing Pinterest account, you’ll need to log out first.
2. Click Create a business account.
3. Enter your email, create a password, and enter your age.
4. Click Create account.
5. Fill out the fields to Build your profile, then click Next.
6. Fill out the fields to Describe your business, then click Next.
7. Select if you want to run ads, then click Next.
8. Select where you’d like to start, or click the X icon to go to your new Pinterest business account.

💡Pro tip: The easiest way to set up your Pinterest business profile as a Shopify merchant is through the Pinterest for Shopify app. Installing it automatically takes care of several things at once: your website gets claimed on Pinterest, and the Pinterest tag and Conversions API get installed. Your Shopify product feed then connects to Pinterest, and product opins are generated from your catalog.

“Setting up a Pinterest shop through Shopify was easy. The benefit for retailers is simple: it pulls your Shopify catalog so you don’t have to add new products manually. We have hundreds of SKUs for our client Asian Beauty Essentials. Every time we update the price or images, it syncs to Pinterest automatically.” —Lauren Petrullo, founder of Mongoose Media.

7 steps to create your Pinterest marketing strategy 

Before we look at the specifics of how to market on Pinterest, it’s important to build a foundation that will make Pinterest work for you and your business. That means creating a Pinterest marketing strategy that outlines your unique goals, opportunities, and target audience, then dialing in your profile and content accordingly.

1. Set goals

What do you want from your Pinterest marketing efforts? Pinterest notes that you can reach people at every stage of the consumer journey, from awareness to consideration to conversion. Do this by using a combination of organic pins, catalog integrations, and ads that tie directly to performance tools.

Setting goals is an impactful part of any marketing strategy because they let you look into your market and evaluate your businesses position. It offers a blueprint to identify strengths, find areas to improve, and track progress.

Realistic goals for Pinterest marketing include:

• Increase brand awareness. Get your name out there by publishing content that builds trust and shows your personality, not just posting promotional messages.
• Generate leads and sales. You can drive traffic to your website, where you can control the experience and collect email sign-ups, or you can sell directly on Pinterest through product pins. Knowing your conversions and URL clicks helps you determine social media return on investment (ROI). 
• Build your audience. This means finding different ways to reach new audiences on Pinterest and introduce them to your brand. It also means having conversations with followers and taking advantage of industry trends. 
• Boost engagement. Experiment with messaging and content on Pinterest to grab the attention of your followers. 

Choose one or two goals above to start. Keeping it simple will help you stay focused in the content you choose to create. Set business goals that are “SMART” (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely). 

Precise goals keep you organized and help you plan better strategies that get results. 

2. Research your target market

Pinterest marketing truly starts with knowing your target audience. Spend time researching the different demographic data and observable patterns to build an image of your ideal Pinterest user. This will help inform your content creation and develop a tone and voice that resonates with them. 

Here’s what we know about Pinterest users: 

• Pinterest users primarily are women, but the men’s side is worth paying attention to. According to Pinterest’s first-ever Men’s Trend Report, male users now represent more than one-third of Pinterest’s global audience, with Gen Z men joining in record numbers.
• Gen Z now makes up more than 50% of Pinterest’s user base and is its fastest-growing demographic. In the US specifically, Pinterest reaches 46% of 18- to 24-year-olds, 40% of 25- to 34-year-olds, and 39% of 35- to 44-year-olds.
• The international Pinterest audience is ever-growing. More than 80% of Pinterest’s 600 million monthly users are located outside the US.

Food and drink and home décor are the most popular categories on Pinterest, with health and fitness, women’s fashion, and health and beauty falling closely behind. Once you have a sense of your target audience, look at what competitors are doing on Pinterest. 

As you begin posting and interacting on the platform, you’ll collect audience data that can be reviewed through Audience Insights via Pinterest Analytics. It’ll give you real-time information on who interacts with your pins so you can better plan future marketing and ad content. 

3. Use Pinterest Trends for content planning

The Pinterest Trends tool is an interactive dashboard where you can filter by region, age, and interest category. 

Here are some tools for looking at that data:

• Region filter. Narrow results to see what’s trending in specific markets, so you’re not building a strategy around searches that aren’t relevant to where your customers are.
• Trends in the spotlight. Browse trending topics filtered by interest category, useful for spotting what’s gaining momentum in your niche right now.
• Shopping trends. See what products and categories people are actively searching with purchase intent. Use this to inform your product photography, pin copy, and seasonal campaigns.
• Search trends. These are broken down into four views:
• Growing trends—topics with rising search momentum
• Seasonal trends—searches that peak at predictable times of year, useful for planning your content calendar
• Top monthly trends—the most searched topics right now
• Top yearly trends—the biggest searches over the past year
• Editor’s picks. Pinterest’s own curated selection of noteworthy trends, worth checking for category-specific inspiration.
• Pinterest Predicts 2026. Pinterest’s annual trend forecast, built from billions of searches across the platform. Browse by category to see which emerging trends are predicted to break through this year.

Pinterest recently released its Pinterest Predicts 2026 report, and over the past six years, 88% of its trend predictions have come true. This is your road map to what your customers will be searching for, clicking on, and buying three months from today.

4. Fill out your Pinterest business profile

If you need to update any information, click on the pencil icon in your Business hub to edit your profile.

When creating your profile, keep your branding consistent with your site and other social media profiles. 

Match your username to your other usernames on sites like Facebook or Instagram, if possible. You should also use the same logo for your profile picture, as it will make your business easy to recognize.

After filling in your information, click Link to Pinterest from the left-side navigation. From here you can claim your website, your Instagram account, and your YouTube channel, and install the Pinterest app on Shopify.

Note: You can claim your website and certain linked accounts such as Etsy, Instagram, and YouTube on Pinterest. However, marketplace storefronts like Amazon or eBay are not supported as claimable assets.

Organizing your Pinterest boards

Board organization is key for successful Pinterest marketing. If you break boards down into niche subsections, you’ll get more followers. Here’s why:

• Optimizing for more keywords that users are searching for makes your content easier to find.
• Niche interests get a lot of attention on Pinterest, so niche boards will be more relevant to members of your target audience.
• Users are quickly able to see what your board is about and if they’re interested.

Use separate Pinterest boards to market different types of products and to different audiences. You can also create sections, which are essentially boards-within-a-board, to make organization easier.

Want to see how this might look in practice? A jeweler could organize their Pinterest into the following boards:

• Birthstone Jewelry, with sections for each month
• The Meaning of Gemstones, which contains blog posts and on-site resources about the symbolic meaning and history of different types of gemstones
• Engagement Rings, with sections sorted by style
• Men’s Watches, with sections for different brand names

5. Invest in Pinterest SEO

Keywords are an essential part of Pinterest marketing—and that’s because of the site’s search feature.

“Pinterest is a unique platform because the SEO and social hybrid are ripe for shopping,” says Lauren Petrullo, founder of marketing agency Mongoose Media.

Pinners commonly use the site to research buying decisions, and even to make direct purchases. You want to make sure your pins are showing up when they’re looking for relevant products. 

Pinterest keyword research methodology

Pinterest’s search bar is your starting point. 

Type a broad term related to your product or niche. Then pay attention to two things: the autocomplete suggestions that drop down as you type, and the guided search bubbles that appear at the top of the results page. 

Both show you exactly how real users are searching, in their own words. Here’s a repeatable process:

• Start broad, then go specific. Type a category term like “home office” and note what Pinterest suggests. Those autocomplete terms like “home office ideas small space,” and “home office setup aesthetic” are high-volume searches you can target directly in your pin titles and descriptions.
• Use the guided search bubbles. After running a search, Pinterest surfaces clickable topic filters at the top of results. These are algorithmically generated from real search behaviour and show you the subcategories and keyword combinations people are searching. 
• Look at top-performing pins. Search your target keyword and study the pins ranking at the top. Note the exact language in their titles and descriptions, since Pinterest’s algorithm shows you which words appear repeatedly in high-ranking pins.
• Build a keyword list by placement. Pinterest lets you use keywords in your pin title, description, board name, board description, and profile bio. Each placement is an opportunity: a keyword that works in a pin title should also be woven naturally into the description and saved to a relevantly named board.

Optimizing pin descriptions for search

Your pin description is one of the primary ways Pinterest’s algorithm understands what your content is about and decides who to show it to.

The e.l.f. Cosmetics pin below is a useful case study. The title, “New Shades of e.l.f. Glow Reviver Melting Lip Balm,” is clear and front-loads the product name. The description opens immediately with benefit copy and covers the key product details.

Here’s how to write descriptions that convert:

• Lead with your most important keyword. Pinterest weighs the first few words of your description heavily, so don’t bury key phrases. Open with how people search, then follow with why they should care.
• Write for the person. Keyword stuffing reads as spam and Pinterest’s algorithm is smart enough to penalize it. Two to five well-placed keywords in a natural, useful description are enough.
• Be specific. “Beautiful lip balm” gets lost, but “sheer glossy lip balm for dry lips” tells the algorithm exactly who to show your pin to.
• Don’t neglect the title field. Treat the pin title like a headline—keyword-rich, specific, and front-loaded. You have 100 characters, but only the first 40 or so show in the feed.
• Add a call to action. Pinterest users are planners and shoppers. A simple “Shop now” or “Get the full guide at [yoursite.com]” gives them a clear next step and improves click-through rates.

“Use relevant keywords in the pin description that align to the page you are linking to. This helps Pinterest serve your content to the most relevant audience on the platform. These keywords should preferably be placed at or near the beginning of the description for maximum impact,” shares Patrick Crane, founder of sewing brand Love Sew.

Strategizing to create your boards 

Pinterest’s algorithm uses board context to understand and categorize every pin saved to it, which means a poorly named or disorganized board actively hurts the discoverability of the pins inside it. This is the case regardless of how well-optimized those pins are individually.

Activewear brand Sweaty Betty’s Pinterest profile is a good example. The board names are activity-based rather than product-based: Run, Gym + Workout, Yoga + Pilates, Ski + Snow, Casual and Everyday:

The key principles worth nothing: 

• Name boards the way your customers search. “Run” and “Yoga + Pilates” work because they’re the words a shopper types, whereas “New Arrivals” and “Products” tell Pinterest’s algorithm nothing.
• Keep boards tightly themed. A board that covers everything is optimized for nothing. Tighter theming means stronger algorithmic signals and more relevant distribution to the right audience.
• Set cover pins manually. Choose your strongest, most representative pin for each board, and keep the visual style consistent across covers. Don’t leave board covers on the Pinterest default, which pulls the most recently saved image. 

Understanding the Pinterest algorithm

Pinterest is a visual search engine influenced by user intent. The algorithm favors high-resolution vertical pins that get people to stop scrolling and tap Save. It also tracks the quality of your domain, which is a fancy way of saying you need to claim your website so Pinterest knows your links are legit. 

To work with the algorithm, use the keywords customers are typing into Pinterest search. Setting up rich pins is another win because it keeps your pricing and stock levels synchronized, which the algorithm can reward with better visibility. 

Overall, if you stay active and pin things people want to look at, Pinterest will help find an audience for your content. 

📚Read more: Pinterest Algorithm: How It Works and Tips for 2026

6. Decide on your content mix

There are various types of content that perform well, so fine-tuning your different formats—and knowing how best to use them—is an important piece of the Pinterest marketing puzzle.

Note that all pins must link to another site and include a visual component, and all links should point to the most relevant page. You typically want to avoid sending people to your catch-all homepage.

Product pins

Product pins contain pictures or videos of specific products, which then take users directly to the site to purchase. These are among the most popular types of pins, and they’ll be what gets you the best return on investment.

These pins are enriched with metadata and formatted to let people on Pinterest know they are shoppable. For example, a pin could say “Bestseller” if it’s a most-purchased item in a Pinterest product category. It could also read “Popular” if it’s the most clicked product on Pinterest. These labels don’t reflect your individual sales activity. 

Blog posts and content

Blog posts have the potential to do very well on Pinterest. You’ll want to keep best practices in mind for your main image, which includes using text on the image itself (tools like Canva can help). Then write a description that explains the article’s appeal to readers.

Infographics

As infographics are inherently visual, they fit right in on Pinterest. Make sure your infographic meets the standards that work best on the platform or it could show up as too small to read.

Videos

Videos are becoming more popular on Pinterest, and you can import videos directly from YouTube if you’ve already built up a channel there. 

Autoplay videos are currently only for promoted pins, but if you’re able to offer value to pinners, you could build a following with video content, like Cozey’s done with 10 million monthly views on Pinterest.

Story pins

Story pins are a newer type of pin that let you tell stories with video, voice-over, images, and text overlay. Think of them like Instagram Stories that last longer. Story pins can be saved to boards for later and are discoverable over time. 

Idea pins and shopping features

In 2023, Pinterest merged its idea pin format with standard pins. Today, a single pin can combine images, video, or both, with a flexible aspect ratio. The practical upshot is that you no longer have to choose between a format that drives traffic and a format that builds engagement. One pin can do both.

That said, the underlying strategic question hasn’t changed: Are you creating content designed to capture purchase intent, or content designed to build it? 

A clean product image with an optimized title and description and a link back to your product page answers the first question. 

A multi-image or video pin that shows your product in context: a routine, a recipe, a room styled around it, answers the second.

You can also tag products directly within a pin—up to 24 per pin—so shoppers can tap through to pricing and purchase without leaving the platform. An inspiration-first pin can convert just as directly as a product-first one.

Pinterest has also invested heavily in closing the gap between discovery and purchase, and merchants using the Shopify integration have access to the full suite from day one.

• Product pins pull live pricing, availability, and product details directly from your catalog. When something sells out, the pin updates. When you run a promotion, the price reflects it automatically. 
• Pinterest catalogs let you upload your entire product feed at once, automatically generating a Product pin for every listing. For Shopify merchants, the Pinterest app handles this connection and keeps your catalog in sync without manual updates.
• Collections pins bring multiple products together under a single hero image. When a user taps the pin, white dots appear over the image that they can tap to view and shop individual products.

Text on Pinterest: What part does it play?

Pinterest is a visual platform, but text does more work here than most you’d expect. It just works differently depending on where it appears.

• Text overlays on pins. Pinterest’s own creative guidance says that visuals grab attention, text brings clarity. A pin that communicates its value without requiring the user to read a description, click through, or slow down is a pin that performs. 
• Text in video pins. These pins follow the same logic, with one additional consideration: Pinterest recommends designing for sound off—a video that relies on audio to deliver its message will lose a significant portion of viewers.

The most effective text overlays are short, specific, and positioned so they don’t compete with the hero image. Pinterest’s creative best practices recommend stacking key messaging at the top and supporting detail at the bottom, with the product or visual doing the work in the middle.

“Pinterest offers only a few seconds to grab the attention of your prospective customer with one image. For this reason, it is crucial to put intentional thought into how your one image can best lead your customer to your website, and eventually your purchasing page,” explains Boye Fajinmi of the business newsletter TheFutureParty.

7. Choose a publishing schedule

Pinterest’s guidance on posting frequency is deliberately low-pressure: quality and relevance matter more than frequency, and posting on a weekly basis is its stated rule of thumb. You can follow this same guideline for Pinterest marketing.

The platform’s guidelines are equally clear that you shouldn’t anchor to a specific number of pins per week—the focus should be on the content itself, not hitting an arbitrary volume target.

Optimal posting frequency and timing

Sprout Social’s analysis of posting behavior across over a million social profiles lands in the same place: It revised its recommendation from once daily (2022) down to once a week.

For brands with the capacity to do more, Tailwind’s analysis of more than one million pins found that the top 1% of pins drive over 50% of all impressions and clicks. This means that five well-optimized pins will consistently outperform 25 rushed ones. 

The recommendation for established accounts with a proven content strategy is five to10 high-quality fresh pins per week, scaling up during seasonal pushes. 

Sprout Social’s best times data, drawn from 2.7 billion engagements across 463,000 social profiles between May and September 2025, shows that weekday posts outperform those shared on weekends significantly. 

If you’re going to prioritize one window, weekday mornings—particularly Tuesday through Thursday at 10 a.m.—is where the data points.

Content calendar best practices

The 2026 Pinterest marketing moments guide organizes the year around three distinct content opportunities, and it’s a useful framework for structuring your calendar.

• Calendar moments are the predictable fixtures. Pinterest’s own data shows that 41% of users create holiday gift lists as early as October, and Pinterest users are more than twice as likely as non-Pinterest users to invest time preparing for seasonal moments.
• Life moments are less predictable but often higher value. Weddings, home renovations, new babies, first jobs, milestone birthdays. These represent high-intent audiences with higher budgets making serious decisions.
• Evergreen moments offer consistent everyday rituals. These underpin your always-on presence and keep your content working between seasonal peaks. A well-optimized evergreen pin like “home decor ideas” can resurface in search results for years. 

Plan content in quarterly blocks, with seasonal pushes mapped at least 60 to 90 days ahead of the relevant moment. Pinterest Analytics will show you which pins are gaining saves and outbound clicks, and doubling down on those themes mid-quarter is almost always worth the schedule adjustment.

Pinterest business accounts can also schedule pins up to 30 days in advance natively. 

Run Pinterest ads

Promoted pins are essentially Pinterest advertising. They run in an auction style, where advertisers bid to have ads shown to their target audience.

With promoted pins, you can pay to have your pins show up in users’ feeds when they’re browsing or in their Pinterest search results. Promoted pins can include images or videos and look like regular pins with a small “Promoted” tag on the bottom.

With promoted pins, you can optimize for different types of goals, like brand awareness, considerations, conversations, and video completion. 

With the promoted pins system, you can set daily and total budgets. You can choose if your ads will appear in searches, feeds, or both. There’s also the option to schedule start and end dates for each campaign.

“If you wish to spend your campaign funds evenly over a long period of time, choose a lifetime budget. To determine the amount paid each day, create a daily budget. You’ll have to adjust the budgets automatically, depending on how long you want your ad to run,” explains Gerrid Smith, CMO of CBD product brand Joy Organics.

With promoted pins, you have the option to create custom audiences from email lists for retargeting, and you can use demographic and location targeting.

Placing your ad in search results is a valuable opportunity. You’re getting in front of a high-intent audience and users who are actively seeking out information. It’s like Google Ads, but with a frequently purchasing audience and flexible, high-impact visuals.

No other social media marketing activity gives you this kind of advantage. If your audience is on Pinterest, it’s worth testing out promoted pins with some of your ad budget to see if it works for you.

💡Pro tip: Read more about how you can optimize and run ads on Pinterest in our complete walkthrough guide for the Pinterest Ads Manager.

How to market on Pinterest: The essentials you need to succeed

Ready to learn the secrets of Pinterest marketing? Explore the following tips and best practices to grow your presence on Pinterest and drive sales:

Become a verified merchant

The Verified Merchant Program (VMP) helps people on Pinterest discover and buy from vetted brands. 

Verified merchants get a blue checkmark on their profile and pins. They also gain preferential placement within Pinterest’s dedicated shopping surfaces, like related pins, and access to exclusive features, including merchant details.

To become a verified merchant, you’ll need:

• An active catalog
• A functioning tag
• To meet Pinterest’s merchant guidelines

Robert Johnson, founder of Sawinery, a one-stop shop for all things woodworking, wholeheartedly recommends becoming a verified merchant: “Aside from receiving a shiny blue badge that makes your business look credible and legit, you’ll get a Shop tab in your profile to house products.”

Add a follow button to Pinterest on your website

Most brands surface their Pinterest presence with a simple profile link in their site footer, as Alo Yoga does below. Pinterest also offers an embeddable Follow widget for your website that lets visitors follow your account without leaving the page. 

For emails, link to your Pinterest profile using a static icon, because the widget is website-only.

Cross-post videos to Pinterest

Cross-posting refers to taking a piece of content from one platform (like a TikTok video) and sharing it across other social channels (like Pinterest) at once. It saves you time and effort creating content and keeps your account active. 

It’s a popular strategy that Kyle Dulay, co-founder of influencer marketing platform Collabstr, is seeing in social media. “One opportunity that has recently popped up for ecommerce brands is cross-posting short-video content to Pinterest from Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts,” he says. 

“When posting on Pinterest, you can include links to your website for those who want to learn more about the product they are seeing in the video. This is what makes Pinterest an excellent passive acquisition channel for potential customers and website visitors.” 

Here is an example of how a Shopify store called FaceTory is posting a short video on Pinterest and sending that referral traffic to its website.

Avoid shortening website links

It’s common practice to place links to your website or product pages from a pin. A direct link to your store from a pin can increase website traffic and conversions. Double check that your links work, and that they aren’t shortened using a tool like bit.ly.

“Avoid shortening the links in your Pinterest descriptions,” says Patrick Crane, founder of Love Sew. “Often, when a Pinterest user clicks on a shortened link, they’ll receive a spam alert. This creates friction for the user, who is less likely to proceed to your site owing to the perceived security risk.” 

Collaborate using group boards

Group boards work like regular boards with one key difference: multiple people can contribute to them. As the board owner, you invite collaborators and set what they can do: add, move, and delete pins; save and comment only; invite others; or allow anyone to request to join via a public Join button. The level of access is yours to control.

To use group boards to your advantage, you can:

• Create a board with other influencers or industry experts. You can host the board on your profile while collaborators share their expertise and high-quality content. This works well with both niche influencers who reach members of your target audience and broad-appeal influencers with large audiences.
• Create a private board with individual customers where you can share ideas. For example, a shop that makes custom designs or does engraving work could share different examples on a private board.
• Ask customers to pin pictures of their experience with your business. You can offer incentives for this, like a Pinterest contest with a potential prize if their post gets the most repins from other users. To get started, you can reach out to customers over email and send them a link to the board.

To invite a collaborator, open the board and click the plus circle icon below the board name. You can search by name, username, or email address, or copy an invite link to send directly. Invited collaborators will receive an email or Pinterest notification.

Pay attention to Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest Analytics gives you an overview of your presence on the site, and how your Pinterest marketing efforts are working. It shows you what paid and organic content resonates with users, helping you decide on future campaigns via data. You can also use the Video report to understand video performance, and Conversion Insights to learn the impact pins have on your business goals. 

You can review your overall performance, top pins and boards, and specific metrics, including:

• Impressions
• Engagements
• Saves
• Pin clicks
• Outbound clicks
• Video views
• Total play time
• Save rate
• Total audience
• Engaged audience

Use these numbers to make data-backed decisions. 

For example, if a pin is generating high impressions but low outbound clicks, test a stronger CTA or a clearer product focus. If the save rate is high, that content is resonating with planners; create more of it and make sure those pins link to pages that convert when those users come back to buy.

Use essential Pinterest marketing tools

Pinterest offers a solid suite of native tools and a growing ecosystem of approved third-party partners to extend what those tools can do. 

Here’s what’s worth knowing about each:

Native Pinterest tools

• Pinterest Analytics is your baseline—you can see impressions, engagements, saves, pin clicks, outbound clicks, video performance, and audience metrics across both organic and paid content. 
• Pinterest Trends shows up to two years of historical search, save, and shopping trend data, filterable by region and audience.
• Pinterest Predicts is Pinterest’s annual trend forecast, published each November, based on real search behavior on the platform.
• Audience Insights reveals what your existing and potential customers are interested in based on their behavior on Pinterest.
• Pinterest Academy is Pinterest’s free learning platform, offering courses, webinars, and certifications covering campaign setup, creative best practices, and optimization. 

Third-party tools

Pinterest maintains a directory of approved Business Partners across scheduling, analytics, creative, shopping, and measurement—all vetted by Pinterest directly. A few to be aware of are:

• Tailwind is the most widely used Pinterest-specific scheduler. Its features include SmartSchedule, which posts at optimal times based on your audience’s activity, bulk pin creation, and board management.
• Hootsuite and Sprout Social both support Pinterest scheduling and analytics alongside other social channels.
• Canva integrates directly with Pinterest and is the most practical tool for creating on-spec pin graphics at scale, with pre-sized templates for Pinterest’s recommended 2:3 aspect ratio.
• For brands running paid campaigns at scale, Pinterest’s approved measurement partners— including Northbeam and Triple Whale for attribution, and partners for marketing mix modeling—provide cross-channel performance visibility.

But Shopify is where most brands reading this guide will start. The Pinterest for Shopify app connects your store to Pinterest in a single setup flow and also gives you access to Pinterest’s full shopping suite, including Collections, hosted checkout, and real-time catalog sync.

If you’re on Shopify, this is the foundation everything else builds on.