Pinterest Analytics: A Simple Guide to Read & Analyze Your Data
If you’re wondering how to grow your Pinterest traffic then it’s time you understand how to use Pinterest analytics.
Pinterest analytics can help you to better understand your audience so you can better serve them content in the long term.
Many people just assume if they’re getting Pinterest traffic then they don’t need to actually look at their analytics. Worse yet some people actually look at their impressions and that is the only thing they base their strategy on.
Let’s make it easier to review those analytics & start using your data to guide business decisions you need to make.
How Do I See My Pinterest Analytics?
My preference for looking at my Pinterest data is inside of Google Analytics. But you will want to familiarize yourself with the Pinterest Analytics dashboard as well.
So head on over to Pinterest and click analytics > overview and you will be greeted with the main Pinterest analytics dashboard.
Inside here you will find a wealth of knowledge related to what is happening with your account on the platform.
Metrics to Track on Pinterest
If you need a pre-designated place to track analytics then our Pinterest System is a great place to start. Inside the system I teach you how to track and analyze your data.
Pinterest Impressions
What is an impression on Pinterest analytics?
A pin impression is a view by someone on the platform. I track pin impressions for clients because it’s a metric they like to see and it allows us to measure effectiveness of our strategy.If we have a lot of impressions but very little clicks we need to adjust our targeting. Pin impressions are tracked for this purpose only. Not to see the overall success of a strategy.
To view impressions you will want to choose your claimed domain so you can see the data from your website.
These pins are viewed in search, related content and in the home feed as well as pins viewed on boards where they are saved.
This data is cumulative but I would suggest viewing pin impressions on a pin by pin basis.
You can add a comparison to measure two metrics against each other. In this case, you can view pin impressions vs link clicks.
I don’t rely on Pinterest to tell me what my clicks are — I prefer Google Analytics for that but this is a good benchmark.
Metric to Track:
- Total pin impressions
- Pin impressions for top 10 Pinterest pins
Total Sessions from Pinterest
This information will be found inside Google Analytics. If you download our free dashboard you will find it easier to gather this data.
Sessions are the cumulative number of page views, ecommerce transactions, events, etc that take place on your website.
We prefer to measure sessions per user as well as pageviews.
If you navigate to Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals and choose Pinterest you will see all of the Pinterest sessions lumped together.
If you’d like to track sessions for all of the networks you can find it in this same report.
Top Pin URLs on Site
I love to see what pins are driving the most traffic on site. This gives us insight into designs that are working, CTAs, keywords, and even content popularity.
If you want to track your top referring pin URLs stay on the same path as above for finding your Pinterest traffic and you’re going to add a secondary dimension.
Make sure you choose Pinterest and have that report opened then click secondary dimension > acquisition > referral path.
Total Sessions on Site
Now you may be wondering why we would track total sessions on site for our Pinterest clients. I do it because our Pinterest traffic is just a fraction of what they normally get.
It’s a nice window into the overall health of a client website and yours.
To find the total sessions on site we use this path:
Audience > Overview > Sessions
Other Metrics You Can Track
There may be other metrics you want to track so I will break those down for you here.
Total Saves
Total saves on Pinterest can tell you if your users have intent around your content. It may be they want to view your content but they aren’t ready for it just yet.
This is especially true for certain industries like food and parenting bloggers. Parents may very well consume your content but want to view it again later. This is a good metric for you to determine if your audience finds your content relevant.
I like to use the report to see how many impressions vs saves we are getting at the top then scroll down to the report with the pins listed and view saves there as well.
Total Closeups
Many people ignore closeups when they are looking at analytics but this can be a metric to show you if your imagery, keywords and CTA are triggering interest.
What we look for when looking at closeups is how often they occur vs how many clicks we get. If a pin has a high closeup rate but a low click rate then we need to work on urgency and call to action.
Top Boards
I like to track top boards to see content popularity and trends. This tells me if the content we are sharing at the time is actually what is popular for clients. This can also guide future content planning.
If we are nurturing the most popular content and boards each month I believe we will see good ROI from our efforts.
You can view your top board by engagement, impression, saves, closeup and link clicks.
As always I prefer to view link clicks but each metric is telling in it’s own way.
Link Click Rate
This isn’t something most people even know exists in Pinterest analytics. There is actually a closeup rate, save rate & link click rate.
Link click rate is going to ebb and flow over time so this isn’t something you should obsess over month to month.
Use the link click rate to tell you if your content needs a little help. If you notice a drop in link click rate start digging into that timeframe.
Did the content you publish during that time go against trends on the platform?
Were your CTAs weak?
Did you just neglect to pin at all?
Did you use new keywords or pin designs?
Try to find a correlation between your content you published during that time and ask yourself what could have changed between then and when your rate was higher.
Audience Insights Demographics & Devices
I like to take a peek at the audience insights to see if my audience demographics and their locations can help to guide content creation.
If I notice a client has an audience in another country and we can use that in our content creation it could lend more traffic from that group.
For example, you’re a food blogger in the U.S. but you have a solid audience in the UK. You could create content around the holidays and trends that people in the UK might find interesting.
This happened with one of my former clients. We noticed she had a large segment of her audience that were interested in Jewish holidays and content. So we created content around that for her and as a result her audience increased.
Lastly, take a look at the device usage from your audience. If like every one of our clients mobile is heavy then ensure you are optimizing your images for mobile.
Pinterest Trends
If you haven’t taken a look at our trends tutorial video yet you may be interested in that.
Pinterest Trends is a great tool to tell you when content is trending and this can help you to plan your content.
Getting ahead of the trends is the best way to ensure your content is seen.
So ensure you are looking at the trends tool and if you’re confused on how to use the trends tool check out our blog post & video on it.
What do I do with this Data?
Great question! You use it to guide your current and future content creation. We are looking at data in advance of the upcoming months so we can plan for trends.
For example, it’s December so we have already planned January and are looking forward to February.
Our clients are planning and creating content at least 30 days in advance of a trend occurring to give it time on the platform to optimize.
So ask yourself a series of questions as it relates to your data. This is not an exhaustive list but it’s a good starting point.
- Are there topics you write about that just don’t get traction?
- What pins keep showing up?
- What Pinterest image style seems to be the most popular?
- What posts and pages are getting the most traffic?
- How can you write more content on this topic and link it to the currently popular content?
- Have you made new pins for the older content that is getting traffic?
- Have you written new descriptions for those pins?
Pin It For Later
Heather went to school for accounting and worked for years in banking and finance. After finding all of that entirely too boring she started her first blog in her basement in August of 2016. She has started 3 blogs in the marketing, motherhood and travel niches and used Pinterest to grow them all. She quickly became the go-to Pinterest strategist in her peer circles and has been implementing strategies, driving traffic and sales through organic and paid tactics for her clients. On this blog and her YouTube channel she educates the public about clear and transparent marketing strategies to help them to grow on Pinterest and in other places online.