PPC Spotlight: Advertising Through Pinterest with PPC

In recent years, Pinterest has climbed its way up the social media ladder and is now considered a big player in attracting potential buyers.

What was once mainly a place for moms to digital scrapbook recipes, DIY projects, or hairstyles, Pinterest is now a valuable place to market your content, grow your traffic, and sell your products.

Pinterest first introduced advertising in May 2014. Large corporations such as Kraft and Expedia were among the first to use it. At first, with $1 million as the minimum bid for campaigns, they only opened their ad doors to large corporations. Since January 2016, the platform has introduced affordable options for small to medium-sized businesses, and many of them are profiting.

From big brands to the solopreneur, using Pinterest as a PPC strategy is advantageous all around – the platform has approximately 20 million active users a month and 5 million article pins a day.

Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board where users can “pin” images, articles, videos ,and links. Once you have pinned your items, you can categorize them into themes by putting them on different boards. Other users can follow these boards and comment. Individual pins can also be repinned by users – the Pinterest equivalent of a Facebook share or Twitter retweet.

Below is an example of a typical board. This one in particular is a board by Pagewiz of articles about landing pages:

There are a number of rules and etiquette you must follow when using Pinterest:

• Always give credit – Sharing content is the driving force behind Pinterest. It is frowned upon if you don’t properly reference your source, even if it takes some work to find it. ArtProMotivate recommends that you “always pin from the original source” of the image.
• Change the title wording of your pin – Pinterest is all about showing your personality so make sure you add your own touch when pinning.
• Drip feed – Don’t post all of your photos on a group board at one time. Group boards have multiple pinners and sharing all of your pins in a row is considered rude and spammy.
• Stick to your categories – Make sure everything you post to each board is relevant to that board. For example, if you have a board about cooking, don’t post advice about fixing your car.
• Be Respectful – Always remember that there is a person sitting behind a laptop at the other end when you post comments.
• Report offensive or inappropriate pins – It’s easy to do and is encouraged to keep Pinterest a friendly and inclusive environment.

[tweetthis]From big brands to the solopreneur, using Pinterest as a PPC strategy is advantageous all around[/tweetthis]

Who’s Using It?

Pinterest’s following is growing rapidly. Currently, approximately 31% of adults online use Pinterest.

Women are by far the biggest users of the site, and they are 3 times as likely as men to pin. Under-50 is the most popular age bracket and in a study conducted by BabyCentre, 61% of the Pinterest users analyzed were mothers – the majority with higher-level education.

One of the most important points for businesses looking to advertise is that the majority of users have a higher than average income. This means more disposable income to spend on products.

Why Pinterest Makes Sense as a Marketing Channel

Pinterest is a goldmine for businesses. The platform generates more referral traffic than Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit combined and users coming from Pinterest spend approximately twice as much, as compared to other sites.

Pinterest makes sense because many users are already in buy mode when they visit.

Ezra Firestone of Smart Marketer hits the nail on the head. “The whole point of Pinterest is for users to search and make lists (boards) of the things they want.” What more could an online business want?

The effect is twofold: users find things they would like to buy themselves while on the site, and they also advertise your products to their friends when they share.

Another reason Pinterest is so effective is that the majority of pins are images. People love images and they love to share them.

Jason Lieu, Marketing Manager of Citrus Lane puts it best, “Why explain something in a thousand words when you can just show them?” Images are popular with shoppers. A large amount of research has found that consumers prefer clear, detailed images instead of text-based product information online.

A case study of beauty company Sephora found that their Pinterest customers spend approximately 15 times more money than the average Facebook follower.

The company has 140,000 followers and over 2,500 pins on the platform. They started investing heavily in the site in 2012 when they realized how many people were pinning images of their favorite products.

CMO Julie Bornstein describes Pinterest as “the perfect venue to visually share shoppable new products, how-tos and cool images. It’s a place to get inspired by beauty.”

Below is a snapshot of the kind of boards Sephora creates as part of their campaign:

Pinterest is great for businesses in the fashion and cosmetic industry because a large number of its users are in the 25-34 female demographic, a notoriously hard to reach group.

How to Advertise on Pinterest

There is currently one type of PPC advertising available to small and medium-sized businesses on Pinterest: the promoted pin.

A promoted pin is just like a normal pin except you pay to give it more visibility on the platform. The more you pay, the more people see it.

Promoted Pins look exactly the same as normal pins but with a note at the bottom saying “promoted by: Company Name.” Check out the example below for MVMT watches:

Here are some tips for using promoted pins successfully:

• Regenerate, don’t create – You aren’t allowed to create a new pin purely for the purpose of advertising, you must choose an existing pin, so make sure you choose one that is performing well or you think has the potential to do so. It’s also important to make sure that the pin is originally yours, and isn’t from a group board.
• CTA optimization – You are allowed to use call to actions in your pin description but you must be careful with the wording you use. Language that tries too much to sell is unlikely to do well.
• Be creative – Pinterest is a platform people go to for inspiration, so Social Media Examiner recommends keeping on top of current trends and adjusting your marketing strategy with the times. Try new things that will get people talking.
• Test – As with any marketing strategy it is important to A/B test your pins to see what is working and what isn’t
• Don’t use landscape images – Images in this format will not be seen properly due to the vertical layout of the site.
• Keywords are key – It is important to spend time researching the keyword you use in your pins’ description. Ryan Pitylak recommends using “specific, broad and general terms.”
• Have a strategy – Normal marketing rules apply here. Plan out where you expect to go with your campaign and be prepared to adjust it as often as you need to.

Unique Targeting

Pinterest has a number of unique targeting options. You can hone in on the following in your ads:

• Location
• Language of users
• Devices used
• Gender
• Keywords
• Interests

Optimization

In March of this year, Pinterest made its advertising management tools available to small and medium-sized businesses, instead of just large Fortune 500 companies. These tools provide useful optimization options for the smaller advertiser.

One of the most important tools is the Ads Manager. It provides bulk editing options for campaigns, and detailed metrics to allow you to monitor each pin and carefully adjust each advertisement.

The Advantages of Advertising on Pinterest

[tweetthis]Pinterest generates more referral traffic than Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit combined[/tweetthis]

A Buying Environment

The main advantage Pinterest has over other advertising platforms is that the majority of users are already in a buying mode. In contrast to sites such as Facebook or Twitter, the majority of people on Pinterest are actively looking for things they would like to have.

In his book “How to Sell on Etsy with Pinterest,” Charles Huff states the obvious, “Pinterest users are buyers. (They pin stuff they want all day long).”

In addition to being more likely to buy, they are likely to spend much more than other platforms. In a survey by RichRelevance, it was found that Pinterest shoppers spend approximately $140 to $180 per order, while Facebook shoppers spend around $80, and Twitter users, $60.

High Quality

Pinterest’s ads are noninvasive and are almost identical to normal pins. The site prides itself on the quality of its advertisements. When Promoted Pins were first released, Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO, released a blog post promising their advertising to be:

• Tasteful
• Transparent
• Relevant
• Improved based on customer feedback.

Pins Generate their Own Momentum

You can get a lot of free advertising from Pinterest because you don’t have to pay for repins. Popular products can be shown to lots of potential customers before you even have to pay a penny. This is one of the reasons Kraft chose Pinterest advertising – because it lets the user “be the hero.”

Case Study #1: Adore Me

Adore Me is a subscription service for lingerie. After seeing strong organic growth from Pinterest they invested in some Promoted Pins. The service gained a 4000% increase in revenue from Pinterest and many other benefits too.

Gabriela Parada, Adore Me’s social media manager said that “Pinterest is a perfect fit for us given the audience and creativity on the platform,” as the platform’s main demographic is women under 50 and moms who may find it hard to get out shopping for lingerie.

Below is a snapshot of one of their featured boards:

As well as a 4000 % increase in revenue that site has seen:

• A 6000% increase in email signups
• A 2600% increase in traffic coming from Pinterest
• A 50% higher click-to-purchase rate on Promoted Pins compared to other channels, especially on mobile

Adore Me has tested out lots of different pins and variations to get this point. Making the most of the analytics Pinterest now offers.

They will continue to use Pinterest, with Parada saying, “The results from our Promoted Pins have exceeded our expectations and really demonstrate the power of Pinterest as a viable acquisition channel.”

Case Study #2: Dot & Bo

Pinterest has been a great fit for furniture and home décor company Dot & Bo, and they have seen outstanding results with the use of Promoted Pins.

Aside from the obvious visual nature of home décor, the use of Pinterest allows the company to give their own inspiration to customers, repin trends from other tastemakers, and predict trends their business might want to pursue in the future.

Anthony Soohoo, co-founder and CEO says, “Dot & Bo is a guided shopping service with the mission to help consumers discover great styles for their homes, and Pinterest is the most inspirational platform to help us with this goal.”

The screenshot below shows a snapshot of one of their featured boards:

Since using Promoted Pins, Dot & Bo has seen:

• An increase of 18000% in average daily clicks.
• The number of repins from their boards rise by over 6000%.

Soohoo has said that “Promoted Pins are performing on par with our other channels and have become a valuable part of our media mix. Pinterest users are some of our most valuable and engaged customers.”

A Deeper Dive: Pinterest and Pagewiz

Pinterest goes to great lengths to protect the quality of their site, and they are heavily focused on maintaining an excellent user experience. Therefore, if you’re sending Pinterest traffic to a landing page, it must be of the utmost quality.

They state that your “landing pages should build trust in the quality and substance of your ads.” Pagewiz provides beautiful, high-quality landing page templates so you can focus on making your campaign a success.

Furthermore, once your campaign is up and running, you’ll want to feel safe in the knowledge that the customers who do click, end up converting. Pagewiz offers unlimited A/B testing with every template so you can fully optimize your page and work towards continually improving your conversion rate.

Wrapping It Up

Pinterest is an advertising haven for online businesses small and large. They have an audience of millions of loyal users, many of them pinning (often expensive) items that they would love to own some day.

What’s even better? Through the use of Promote Pins, your business can display your products to them in an unobtrusive and tasteful manner – and direct them to well optimized, high-converting Pagewiz landing pages.

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Also published on Medium.