Pinterest Advertising Case Study

First - some quick stats on this campaign before I jump right in (scroll down for the screenshot):

CPM = $1.23

CPA = $11.86

ROAS = 10.0

Impressions = 5.7m

Customer average order value (AOV) = $107.36

 If you’re running an e-commerce business selling to female buyers - you NEED Pinterest in your advertising arsenal.

Why? 

I'm someone who’s spent millions & millions running Facebook, Instagram and Google ads and I dismissed Pinterest as nothing more than a ‘fad’. 

But then I looked into it more closely when I heard that Etsy.com (for the most part) was built off Pinterest traffic.

That's when I was blown away by its potential because...

? Pinterest is now the third biggest social media platform in the US. It recently overtook Snapchat and 71% of the users are women.

? There’s incredibly low CPM on offer: we're running campaigns for $1.98 in the US!

? Facebook missed the boat with Pinterest and they released a similar app called Hobbi to compete for market share. That tells you they’re deadly serious - remember when Facebook bought Instagram to compete with Snapchat?

? Pinterest users are high-income households. This means they have more disposable incomes to spend on your products and services.

You can read more here: https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/

That’s all good but how do you run Pinterest ads? 

Let me show you…

Pinterest ads are very similar to Facebook/Instagram.

You can build custom audiences like all website visitors to run ‘warm’ campaigns and you can upload a buyer’s/subscriber list to run what they call ‘Actalike Audiences’. 

This is exactly the same as Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences (Innovation is dead. Ad platforms just copy each other now).

And, you can target keywords which is similar to Facebook’s interest targeting.

When it comes to keywords - use the Google approach and find ‘buyer intent’ keywords. 

For example, instead of targeting ‘dog beds’, use ‘cheap dog bed ideas’ or ‘dog beds for large dogs’.

We look for keywords that have AT LEAST 250K estimated reach since this is getting the best results for our campaigns.

Pro tip: video creatives convert like 

Unboxing/customer testimonial videos work amazingly well. Keep the video short (about 30 seconds) and straight to the point.

Pinterest is incredible but as with any ads platform - there are some downsides…

What are they?

It doesn’t have nearly as many users as Facebook or Instagram.

It's not even close so you *might* hit a ceiling when it comes to scaling depending on the country you target.

You can see from my screenshot that some campaigns haven’t spent a dime even though the budgets are high.

And, 71% of Pinterest users are women so it might not work effectively for every business (We sell to 35+, married women which is the 'sweet spot').

It's also buggy AF - sometimes I see revenue on 1 day then its gone from reporting the next day. 

Sometimes the tags don't show up properly when using their pixel helper tool which is frustrating too. 

My tip here is to use UTMs with your ads so you can track all your revenue inside Google Analytics as a backup.

But it's totally worth it since Pinterest is just one sales channels and we run Facebook, Instagram, and Google campaigns too. 

Don't rely on it for all revenue as you shouldn’t with any ads platform either. Diversify your traffic when you can.

So, that’s it…

Give Pinterest ads a try because now is the time to do it. There's very little competition.

We’re spending $1 to make $10 in revenue. Do you think I’m going to continue running Pinterest ads?

Better believe it!

Athens Ramseyer

[email protected]

www.sciential.agency