How do you optimize Pinterest ads? I have a lot of comments and emails coming from YouTube on this topic. I got my ads running but now I need to know how to optimize them. I was half tempted to not write this post because this is what people pay me to do for them. I want to share what metrics to track and common pitfalls you can avoid when running your ads.

Are Pinterest ads effective?

Before we dive into how to optimize your Pinterest ads we should talk whether or not they’re effective.

Pinterest ads when you know your audience, know where they are in their customer journey & have a proven offer are very effective.

I have clients who are pulling a 200% return on ad spend because they have their audience and offer hammered down to a science.

If they aren’t effective for you chances are you’ve got messaging or offer issues.

We are going to cover some of that in this post.

How do I optimize Pinterest ads?

Before we talk about how to optimize your Pinterest ads we need to understand what metrics to track. I’m giving you the list of metrics I track and you may need to add or remove some depending on your business goals.

What Pinterest metrics do I track?

• ROAS: return on ad spend
• CTR: click through rate
• CPM: cost per thousand impressions
• Outbound Clicks: clicks to your site
• Frequency: how often your ad is seen
• Pin Clicks: how many people looked closer at your ad
• CPA: cost per acquisition
• Conversions: how many conversions you’ve had
• Total checkout value: total amount of sales
• Total spent: total ad spend

You can head over to the How to Setup Your Pinterest Ads Reporting to Know if Your Ads Are Working (or not) to see how you should set up your reporting table.

Once you have your table setup in your ads manager you will be able to quickly review your ad performance at a glance.

What conversion window should I use?

This is going to be really dependent on your ad spend, how long it takes to convert a customer and how much data you want to give Pinterest to optimize on.

I default to 30/30/30 or 30/30/1 if the client doesn’t have an objection.

Now this is obviously tricky with the latest iPhone 14 update but it hasn’t caused an issue to date.

What is a good CTR for Pinterest ads?

You want your click-through rate to be .55% or higher. Anything lower than that is going to impact the overall health of your campaign.

If after 5-7 business days on a consideration campaign and 10-14 days on a conversion campaign my CTR is lower than that I will remove those ads.

How much should I spend on Pinterest ads?

I know this isn’t about optimization of your ads but when you are optimizing your ads you should aim for about 25% scaling at first. This is only when your ad metrics are working according to your goals.

I don’t like to scale too quickly once I get a campaign converting because it will throw it back into learning mode.

To answer the original question, in my opinion, you should start with $20 per day at the very least.

Do I create new ad groups or optimize existing ones?

This really depends on a lot of factors but at the outset your budget. Do you have the budget to allocate to new ad groups?

If you do you can create the new ad group with your optimizations inside that new group but you need the money to put into it.

I typically optimize existing ad groups to begin with and add additional ad groups later on once we have ROI.

My CTR is low so my ads aren’t spending

Chances are your CTR is low because your ads aren’t delivering to the right audience or your imagery is confusing. It may also be a lower quality image or video.

Make sure your relevancy is in line with your audience. You do this by ensuring your pin titles, text overlays, descriptions, board title & board description are all related.

If you want to learn more about relevancy click to watch this video.

Make sure your pins and the landing page closely match each other and the promise on the pin is delivered on the landing page as well.

It’s not enough to just make a big promise then think they are going to understand that when they land on the page.

All of my metrics look good, but I’m not getting the conversions

If your metrics are great but there aren’t conversions flowing in then you need to reevaluate your landing page and offers. If there is a missing link in your messaging, pricing it off, lacking call to actions, etc you will notice a decrease in conversions.

You can install a tool like Hot Jar to monitor page traffic and see where you can improve your pages.

Your imagery could also be misleading or confusing and doesn’t match your landing page. Make sure this is all inclusive between the ad, audience and page.

What if my keywords aren’t working for my campaign?

If you’re running interests and keywords in the same ad group then you will notice Pinterest will spend less on your keywords and more on interests. If this is the case ensure the keywords are targeted for that offer and audience.

Alternatively, you can also remove them from the ad group and create a new ad group for just the keywords. Same images and targeting except trade interests for keywords.

Remove keywords that aren’t spending or performing and add new keywords in.

I like to target keywords in different ad groups to get more defined in my targeting.

So for example, I’ll have 1 campaign with 5 ad groups all targeting a different set of keywords but using the same imagery.

Optimizing Based on Pinterest Ads Metrics

Start by optimizing your ads and ad groups based on CTR. Then review your cost per click or CPM (for conversion ads) and make sure your audience pricing is healthy. Then take a look at your cost per acquisition and make sure your profit margins are good.

Next, look at your ROAS. Is it lower than 1x? If so you need to make improvements on targeting, CTR, maybe your landing pages, offers, etc.

Is it above 1x? You can start to peel out what’s not working and increase your budgets.

You’re going to look deeper at your interests to see which one is bringing you the metrics and goals you want.

Look at interests over a 14-30 day timeframe for a holistic view.

Then take a look at demographics and devices. Which isn’t serving the best? Remove them.

Lastly, look at keywords. Which keywords can you add as exact and phrase match and which ones can you remove altogether?

There’s a lot more to this so if you’re needing eyeballs on your ads I do ad audits for clients on a consulting basis. Hit my work with me page and book a call. If you can’t get a call soon-ish DM me on Instagram and I’ll get you on the books.

Make sure you watch the video on setting up your reporting tables & let me know what questions you have.

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