Creator Rewards is dead, but does that make Idea Pins still valuable? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. You will learn how to utilize Idea Pins in your Pinterest marketing this year, even though Pinterest put the kibosh on Creator Rewards. 

If you’re new here, my name’s Heather Farris, and I run a Pinterest marketing agency, a YouTube channel, and a full-paid membership program where we chat all about content strategy and Pinterest.

Today we are diving into how to make Idea Pins still valuable in your Pinterest marketing strategy even though Pinterest killed the Creator Rewards program. 

Don’t Worry About Losing the Creator Rewards

If you are new, you may not even know that Pinterest had a Creator Rewards program. That’s totally fine! You haven’t missed a whole lot. However, I did make thousands of dollars in the Creator Rewards program. It was a lot of work to create those Idea Pins, and sometimes I didn’t make much money. 

We’re setting the Creator Rewards program aside, and we’re still discussing how Idea Pins can be valuable for your marketing strategy this year. So we are reverting to the older ways of Pinterest monetization. When Pinterest prioritized standard pins and outbound clicks, we had far more monetization options available to us than when they introduced Idea Pins and the Creator Rewards program. 

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Pinterest 2.0 Changes

When Pinterest 2.0 came out, they introduced Idea Pins. Eventually, they introduced the Creator Rewards program, and in that same breath, they took away the priority for standard pins to get viewership and outbound clicks. 

We noticed a massive shift in the platform in that time frame where many creators left the platform or just put things on autopilot and stepped away. They started implementing other strategies like email marketing, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Now that Pinterest is prioritizing standard pins again, people are asking, “Are Idea Pins worth it? Should we still be putting time into this creative type if standard pins will be getting more viewership?”

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What to do Now With Pinterest 3.0 

Now in Pinterest 3.0, I can gladly tell you that Idea Pins are still valuable no matter what. There are several reasons why they’re still valuable.

I’m not just doing this to scratch your back, but I am telling you this because I really care about my community and what we are doing on Pinterest. Unlike other Pinterest experts on this platform, I care about you and what you are implementing and ensuring that you are implementing best practices and up-to-date advice. 

Now, if you’re asking yourself, “Heather, you mentioned monetization off Pinterest. What’s that all about?” Well, make sure you head on over and watch this video where I talk about the six different monetization methods. One of those is still with Idea Pins on Pinterest, and that’s through brand partnerships. 

Now, not everyone can utilize brand partnerships. You need to land a brand deal, agree to create the Idea pin on Pinterest for the brand, and then tag the brand using the brand content toggle on the Idea pin settings. To learn more about that, make sure you watch that video. 

Exciting news that makes Idea Pins still valuable

However, most of our monetization platforms are now off-platform, which brings me to some exciting news. Pinterest has decided to release idea pin links to everyone. I hinted at this last summer. In the winter, when they said creator rewards was closing down on December 1, 2022, they also introduced that everyone will get idea pin links in the same breath.

However, these links are a bit buggy. Some of our clients had idea pin links before it was announced that they were going to introduce it for everyone. They gave us scheduling, and then the links got buggy. 

So let’s bring it right on back around. This will open up yet another monetization avenue back to your website. 

Now while Pinterest is prioritizing standard pins again, we are still seeing great results with Idea Pins, which is the whole point of this post. So I encourage you to continue creating Idea Pins for your Pinterest marketing strategy. 

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Create Idea Pins Along Your Buyer Journey

There are many different ways that you can go about doing this, and you can create Idea Pins along your buyer journey. There are the three main ways I encourage you to create Idea Pins, through:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Product Purchase

Let’s say you sell cast iron skillets. You could create an Idea pin for someone in the Awareness phase who wants to learn how to cook and cast iron. You sell cast iron and you teach people how to cook in cast iron. 

The next phase of a buyer’s journey is Consideration. For people considering purchasing cast iron, you could create an Idea pin showcasing the different cast iron options and how to choose the right one for you. 

The third phase of the buyer’s journey is Product Purchase. You can create a whole Idea pin showcasing your product line and why yours is the best. Then you can tell them to go purchase, add it to their cart, go shop now, and things like that. 

You can definitely cover all aspects of a buyer journey with Idea Pins. 

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Five reasons Idea Pins are still valuable

There are five reasons why you should still use Idea Pins in your marketing strategy this year. 

• Attracting a new audience
• Helping you create more in-depth content
• Links directly to your website
• Monetizing directly with product stickers
• Partnering with brands

# 1. They attract a new audience

Whether those audiences are in the awareness, consideration, or purchase phase of the buyer journey, they’re still attracting new audiences to your profile. Eventually, we’ll get outbound clicks on those Idea Pins, which will be fantastic. However, you should still use them for now, and we will worry about the link clicks later. 

# 2. They help you create more in-depth content

The second reason why you will want to use Idea Pins in your strategy this year is that they allow you to go more in-depth in your content on the platform. When you can go more in-depth, give more value and then push people to your website or your shop, the trust that you built is unmatched. 

You need that trust in your customer with your brand for them to hand over their credit card and say: Please send me this $1,000 enameled cast iron pan set. You have to build trust and authority. One way you can do that is by creating in-depth, full-picture content on the platform. 

Later, you can create that content and put outbound clicks on them or outbound links on them and send them to your website. But for now, I still want you to practice creating high-value long-form content. It doesn’t have to be 5 or 10 minutes long; it could be four or five slides that are jpegs or PNG files. You’re not required to do videos, but this allows you a little more flexibility in just doing image-based Idea Pins. 

I still encourage you to use the video because they perform better, but creating that long-form, in-depth content is unmatched.

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# 3. They are getting links to directly click to your site

I’ve already mentioned that Idea Pins are getting links where people will be able to directly click to your site or product.

# 4. They can be directly monetized with product stickers

You can use product stickers directly on Idea Pins on the platform.  This is like the Instagram shop feature where you can tag products in your images or videos. Well, you can do that on Pinterest with product stickers. You can also do that with affiliate links. So, if you are an affiliate marketer or an e-commerce store, you can tag your products in your Idea Pins and still get people to that sale.

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 # 5. You can partner with brands

I’ve already mentioned this, but the ability to create on-platform branded content is a great way to monetize and continue to use Idea Pins on Pinterest. Some people are not ready for this. This is a more advanced monetization strategy. You definitely need an audience of some sort before you start pitching brands. Even a micro audience is better than no audience at all. But this is definitely a way that you can allow the brand opportunity to promote that Idea pin on your behalf.

When you use that branded content tool, it gives the ability in the back end for the brand to promote that content with paid ad dollars that they want. We’re doing this for a client right now with phenomenal results. In fact, the return on ad spend for that client’s influencer pin is greater some weeks than the other ads I’m running on the account, with very little spend every single day. So, that is definitely an option. 

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Final thoughts on what makes Idea Pins still valuable

So now that you know what makes Idea Pins still valuable, you probably will want to learn how to create and outline them. That way, you can get more engagement views and build that audience. 

I would encourage you to head over and watch my video on How to Outline Your Idea Pins For Success. That’s it for this week, I will see you next week. 

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