How Do I Target Audiences On Pinterest? — Part 1

Published in

Inside Revenue

7 min readJul 11, 2018

The Beginner’s Guide

For any brand, big or small, to survive in this competitive market, advertising and promotions are important. Since we belong to the modern age of the internet savvy consumers, social media is a great option for online promotional campaigns. Ad targeting is a crucial move that you should soon make for your brand because it is a good way for you to get your product line noticed by the exact people you are looking to turn into paying customers. Recently, Pinterest launched an interesting set of updates which makes targeting on the platform all the more powerful.

In our article series, “What Can I Do With Pinterest?”, we took you through the various ways in which your brand could leverage the platform to achieve marketing and revenue success. If you missed these articles, you can begin by reading the first guide in the series, “What Can I Do With Pinterest? — Part 1 (The Beginner‘s Guide)”.

“Once sales has worked to identify target accounts, it’s marketing’s job to take that list of accounts and engage with them.” — Craig Rosenberg (Account Based Sales Leader) @funnelholic

In this article series, I will be taking through what targeting your future customers on Pinterest is, why it is important for your brand, and how you can targeting methods on the platform it to increase your chances of hitting your revenue targets.

In this article I will cover:
#1 What Is Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?
#2 Why Should I Care About Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?
#3 How Can Targeting Audiences On Pinterest Help Me Hit My Company’s Revenue Targets?
#4 What Should I Watch Out For When Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?

Let’s dive in…
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#1 What Is Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?

Targeting options create a unique opportunity for your business to reach the millions of people who come to Pinterest every day to find or shop for products and services. By using targeting options you ensure that you are reaching the most valued potential customers, not just the everyday Pinner.

To reach the right people at the right time, use targeting to show your Promoted Pins to relevant Pinners that you predict will have an impact on your brand’s marketing efforts. Aside from location, gender, language and device, you can also target your ads by using interests, keywords or audiences — or any combination of all three.

Interest Targeting
With interest targeting, you can take advantage of Pinterest’s unique understanding of people’s interests, tastes and life stages. Within Browse placements, like the home feed or Related Pins, interest targeting lets you reach Pinners based on other Pins they’ve saved or engaged with. Within the Search placements, like search results & Related Pins, interest targeting lets you reach Pinners when they search for relevant terms.
Keyword Targeting
Within Search placements, keyword targeting lets you reach people as they search for a specific idea on Pinterest. Now, you can use features like match types, negative keywords and search term reports to target and optimize search terms with more precision to hone your targeting skills on the platform.
Audience Targeting
Audience targeting helps you reach a more specific group of people, and combines the information you know about your customers with information Pinterest has on their end about people and the way they use Pinterest. When you use audience targeting, your Promoted Pins will show up in the home feed, as well as the everything and popular feeds. (If you use keyword targeting as well, they’ll show up in search results too.)

Taken from Pinterest For Business’ official YouTube page

#2 Why Should I Care About Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?

In short, if you are using paid advertising methods on Pinterest without targeting your brand’s message to the most relevant people for your business, you could not only be wasting valuable time and resources, but could be missing out on an increased chance for users to convert.

With over 500 million active Pinterest users monthly, you should not be skipping the audience targeting options in your campaign creation setup, as you should already have an Ideal Customer Profile in mind when creating your ads, and should therefore only be serving ads to those customers who matter most to your business. Just as this is best practice for executing effective ad campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, it is best practice on Pinterest also.

Targeted ads lead to an increased chance of success. It is as simple as that.

In 2016 Pinterest Revamped Their Targeting Options To Include The Following

Customer List Targeting: Target existing customers using emails or mobile ad IDs
Visitor Retargeting: Reach people who’ve visited your site
Lookalike Targeting: Reach a larger group of people who look and act similar to your ideal audience

When they did this, Pinterest tested these targeting options thoroughly and the results were incredible. Of the businesses that Pinterest used to test these targeting options, results varied, but some of these results saw that using visitor retargeting increased click-through-rates by 3x. For others, lookalike targeting increased click-through-rates as much as by 63%, and boosted reach up to 30x.

These early successes are a testament to Pinterest as a platform of intent, where people all over the world find ideas for things to buy and do. At the core, there’s a natural alignment between what people use Pinterest for and what marketers want to achieve — and that’s why advertising on Pinterest is so effective.

Want more proof? Mary Meeker’s latest internet trends report notes that 55% of people use Pinterest for shopping, and a new study from Oracle Data Cloud proves Promoted Pins drive in-store sales.

Below Are 3 Reasons Why You Should Use Pinterest Advertising And Targeting

Open-Minded Audiences
People use Pinterest early in their shopping process, when they’re open to new possibilities. Learn More About The Pinterest Audience Here

Meaningful Insights
Learn what your audience cares about, and what they’ll want next. You can learn more about Pinterest Insights here
Strong Results
Find new customers, increase sales and build brand affinity. See Some Of Pinterest Success Stories Here

#3 How Can Targeting Audiences On Pinterest Help Me Hit My Company’s Revenue Targets?

Pinners span across the globe, but they all share an important trait: they’re actively seeking helpful, inspiring ideas. People use Pinterest to plan for what’s important in their lives, whether that’s easy dinner recipes, home renovation tips or the perfect pair of shoes. It is for this reason that it is a great place to target your ads to reach an engaged audience.

In my article, “How Do I Target Audiences On Pinterest? — Part 2 (The intermediate Guide)”, I will take you through the following topics to aid you in your journey of hitting your company’s revenue targets by targeting audiences on Pinterest:

Audience Targeting On Pinterest
Pinterest Audience Statistics

#4 What Should I Watch Out For When Targeting Audiences On Pinterest?

Pinterest gives advertisers a few different ways to target their ideal audience and knowing how to choose the right options and combine targeting tactics will help improve the results of your campaign!

In my article, “How Do I Target Audiences On Pinterest? — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”, I have scoured the web for Pinterest targeting best practices and tips, and have compiled for you in one place for easy reference.

“Determine WHO you want to meet and WHERE is the best place to meet them. Target your network.” — Jennifer Gluckow (Sales Trainer And Speaker) @JENinaNYminute

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In my next article, “How Do I Target Audiences On Pinterest? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”, I will cover how targeting audiences on Pinterest works in more detail to help you hit your company’s revenue targets using this strategy, and execute effective campaigns that drive real results.