Leveraging Pinterest Ads to Grow Your Visibility

Published on 20.06.2026 by Chizoba T

When businesses are looking for advertising avenues, they often forget and overlook Pinterest. Instead, they focus on other channels such as Google Ads, TikTok Shop, or Facebook Marketplace. This is despite Pinterest being a great tool for brand awareness and conversion.

The fact that many brands ignore Pinterest creates a great opportunity to reach your target audience at a lower cost. Pinterest users are also looking for inspiration for their projects, which means it is a high-intent audience. To increase your visibility on Pinterest, consider using ads. In this article, we take you through the steps of using Pinterest ads to grow the visibility of your brand.

Why Consider Using Pinterest Ads?

There are several reasons to consider Pinterest advertising:

Higher User Interest

Pinterest isn't your traditional social media platform, but a visual search engine where users go to find solutions and ideas. That also means that when Pinterest audiences get on the platform, they already have an idea of what they want to achieve. They are searching for a product, solution, or inspiration for their next project.

Whether it's their wedding plans, event planning, or home renovation, there is a solution they are looking for. This level of internet access means Pinterest users are closer to making a purchase than other social media users.

Ability to Search for Visuals

In traditional search engines and social media algorithms, keywords are used in the search feature. But on Pinterest, you can use images to search instead of keywords. That means that when you come across a product you like, you can photograph it, search for it, and Pinterest will show you other similar (and probably better) items. If you are a brand selling visual products or services, this feature can prove very helpful.

Higher Content Lifespan

Compared to other social media platforms, Pinterest content tends to last longer, making it one of the best platforms for social media outreach strategies that bring results. For instance, when you search for “patio makeover ideas,” you will come across pins that were created months or even years ago. The fact that the content lasts for years means your ads can continue working for you even after your campaign ends.

Choosing the Right Pinterest Offer

For your Pinterest ads to work better, you need to begin with the right offer that matches users on the platform and their behaviors. Remember that some products won't perform as well as others on the platform, so invest time in designing an offer that works well. You want to find an already-converting offer rather than testing a brand-new one. A good idea would be to first test using the organic content of whichever platform you may be missing.

For your Pinterest offer to succeed, you need three components. These are:

  • Already proven concepts. If you are going to use Pinterest to test your offer, you are likely to fail. A good idea would be to test an offer that you know your target audience already connects with. 
  • A clear purchase path. You want to provide users with offers that let them move smoothly from the moment they see your pin to the point of purchase, without barriers or confusing steps. 
  • Appealing offer. Finally, you need an offer that appeals to Pinterest users' interests.

From these elements, you will discover one thing: some categories are likely to perform better than others. Some categories suitable for running Pinterest ads include fashion, beauty, events, weddings, educational content, and DIY projects. However, no matter the industry you are in, make sure you match the offer to the thoughts of Pinterest users.

Pinterest users tend to plan and dream when thinking about ways to improve their homes, lives, and experiences. Instead of just browsing, they pick ideas and make decisions regarding their future purchases. You need to ensure your offer aligns with the planning mindset and offers clear value that helps pinners achieve their goals.

Remember that consumer products or services tend to perform better than B2B offerings. While this rule isn't cast on stones, pinners are often searching for solutions to their personal projects rather than outright business solutions. If you are a B2B looking for success on Pinterest, you need to consider how your product is likely to appeal to individuals for personal use.

How to Create Converting Pinterest Ads

Some types of visual content are better suited to capturing the audience's attention and achieving the desired results. When creating a Pinterest ad, ensure it offers value while maintaining the authentic style expected by Pinterest users. 

Here are a number of factors to consider:

Ad Type

You can choose from different Pinterest ad formats.

  • Image ads. These are still the most popular options for Pinterest advertising.
  • Carousel ads. You can use carousel ads to display different products or tell a story using several images. 
  • Video ads. You can use video pins, particularly consisting of short videos. These are a great option considering the rising popularity of video ads. A good rule of thumb is to keep the videos vertical and 9 to 15 seconds long. You can repurpose your short video content.
  • Collection ads. This consists of a main video or image, accompanied by a smaller image below it.
  • Shopping ads. These can be connected directly to the product catalogue to ensure a seamless buying experience.

Size and Format

You need to consider the size and format of the Pinterest creative assets. A good format to consider is the static image, with an aspect ratio of 2:3, translating to 1000 pixels to 1500 pixels. This offers an advantage because it is in a vertical format that fills the whole mobile screen, a format on which the majority of Pinterest users view videos. You should maintain the same aspect ratios for video content. 

Consider Visual Elements

Certain visual elements perform better on Pinterest. A good idea would be to use bright, high-quality images that stand out in your feeds. Include text overlays that are big enough to be read on mobile. You can illustrate the product's transformation or end results. Add a step-by-step video or image to illustrate the process. You can add a before-and-after look that clearly illustrates the value.

Leverage Stop Motion

If you are at home, in the garden, or working on a DIY project, such as a recipe or food, consider using stop motion. This involves pointing the camera in a bird’s-eye view when creating something. This is a preferred motion on Pinterest and will work for your ad too.

How to Set Up Interest Ads

To make your Pinterest ad campaign effective, you need proper structure and planning. The performance and conversion rate of your campaign will be affected by the way you organize it. 

Here are ways of setting up Pinterest ads:

Install Pinterest Tag

Just as you set up the Facebook pixel on your website to track activity, you also need to add and activate the Pinterest tag. This will inform you of the traffic it's sending to your site and when people are buying or adding to their cart. This is also a great tool for tracking conversions, building retargeting audiences, and enabling Pinterest to help find users similar to yours. It will help you gather that data to improve your campaign in the future.

Set up Campaign Type

There are three campaigns you can set up to guide users:

  • Traffic or engagement campaigns. These are suitable for introducing people to your brand and driving the initial interest. The goal of these campaigns is usually to get people to click through the website and interact with the content. Here you can optimize for clicks, pin clicks, or saves. 
  • Conversion campaigns. These are created for a specific action, such as an email subscription, a newsletter, or a purchase.
  • Retargeting campaigns. A good choice for reconnecting users who visited the site but didn't take the desired action.

Choose a Targeting Option

You can choose from two targeting options:

Pinterest Performance Plus

With Pinterest Performance Plus, you can automatically target in the same way Meta Advantage+ does. In this case, you trust the platform to help you get users looking for products in your niche.  Then, the platform shows the ad to the audience it thinks is a good match for your brand. 

However, it is still important to provide the platform with initial direction on your ideal customer. You can do that by combining Performance Plus with interest targeting so that the system better understands who your ideal customers are. Make sure you add interests that best match your product or services. You can start with a broader interest and narrow it down based on the results. The Pinterest audience insights will provide better insights into the interests that overlap more with your target buyers.

Look-alike Audiences

This is also similar to Facebook's lookalike audiences. However, Pinterest takes it to a whole new level with the engagement act-alikes, where you focus on people who have already engaged with your pins and ask the platform to provide them. It can, therefore, be a good strategy for generating more clicks and driving traffic to your website.

In Conclusion

Pinterest ads offer a unique way of leveraging the user’s search intent with visual discovery, allowing brands to reach an audience of close to 1 billion users with a high purchase intent. Since the pinners are already planning a project and saving pins, you can be assured they will buy in the future. Therefore, use the steps above to reach them through Pinterest ads.