Pinterest ads

Pinterest ads are paid Pins that appear in the home feed, in search results and beside related ideas while people plan a purchase: a new living room, a wedding, a fall wardrobe, a holiday menu or a bathroom renovation. They suit marketing managers and ecommerce owners whose buyers collect ideas visually before they spend, such as furniture and decor retailers, renovation firms, fashion and jewellery shops, beauty brands, food companies and wedding businesses. Canada Create is a Toronto agency that sets up and manages Pinterest advertising for brands across Canada, with the business account, the Pinterest tag and your product catalogue kept in your company’s name.

Contents

• How people use Pinterest before they buy
• The business account, Ads Manager and the Pinterest tag
• Standard Pins, video Pins, carousels and catalogue ads
• Keywords, interests and your own audiences
• Vertical creative made to be saved
• Planning seasons earlier than anywhere else
• Landing pages that match the Pin
• Reading saves, outbound clicks and sales
• Where Pinterest sits in your social plan
• Ad policies, disclosure and privacy
• How we run a Pinterest campaign
• What it costs
• Choosing someone to manage your Pinterest ads
• Your next step

How people use Pinterest before they buy

Pinterest behaves more like a visual search engine and a scrapbook than a social network. People type what they are working toward, such as “small entryway storage ideas”, “sage green kitchen cabinets”, “fall wedding centrepieces” or “capsule wardrobe for work”, then save the images they like to boards named after their project. Very little of it is about following friends. That planning habit is what makes advertising there different from the feeds where people watch what is new.

A buyer who has not decided yet

A person browsing “Scandinavian bedroom ideas” usually has not picked a bed frame, a paint colour or a store. They are open to suggestions. A promoted Pin that shows a well styled room with your bedding or your lamp in it can become one of the ideas they keep. That is a different moment from a search for a product name, where the decision is nearly made and the shopper wants a price.

Ideas that last

Saved Pins stay on a board, and people return to their boards when the project moves forward. A bride may save a bouquet image in January and contact florists in April. A homeowner may save cabinet hardware months before the contractor arrives. Your ad can keep working through the saves it earned after the campaign has spent its budget, which is why we look beyond the click.

Words people use while planning

Planning searches are descriptive and visual: colours, styles, rooms, occasions, materials and sizes. “Boho nursery”, “modern farmhouse dining table”, “gold hoop earrings stack”, “gluten free birthday cake”. The words you advertise on should be the words your customers use about their project, not the internal names of your product lines.

The business account, Ads Manager and the Pinterest tag

Everything starts with a Pinterest business account owned by your company. It gives you Ads Manager, analytics, the option to claim your website and the ability to connect a product catalogue. If someone created an account years ago under a personal email, we help you bring it under the business so nobody loses access when staff change.

Claiming your website

Claiming your domain links your website to your business profile. Pins saved from your site then carry your name, and you can see which of your pages people pin most. That alone often reveals which products already look like ideas to your audience.

The Pinterest tag and server events

The Pinterest tag is a piece of code on your website that reports visits, add to cart actions, sign ups and checkouts back to Ads Manager. Pinterest also offers a way to send the same events from your server, which can fill gaps when browsers block scripts. In plain terms, these connections let campaigns learn who buys and let you see what your spend produced. They collect personal information, so they go in only with a privacy policy and a consent banner that work.

Billing in your name

Your ad spend is billed by Pinterest to your own payment method. We manage the account with access you grant, and you can see every campaign, every Pin and every dollar of spend at any time.

Choosing a campaign objective

Ads Manager asks what each campaign is for, and the answer changes who sees the ads and how they are billed. Choosing the wrong objective is one of the most common reasons a Pinterest test disappoints.

Awareness. Awareness campaigns aim to show your Pins to as many relevant people as possible. They suit a new collection, a brand entering a new province or the start of a planning season, when the goal is to become one of the ideas people save.

Consideration. Consideration campaigns look for people likely to click through to your website. They suit a renovation firm that wants visits to a project gallery or a recipe brand that wants readers on its recipe pages.

Conversions and catalogue sales. Conversion campaigns look for people likely to take an action you track with the Pinterest tag, such as a purchase, a quote request or a sample order. Catalogue sales campaigns do the same for products drawn from your feed. Both depend on a tag that reports accurately, so they come after the setup work, not before.

Standard Pins, video Pins, carousels and catalogue ads

Pinterest offers several ad formats, and the right mix depends on what you sell and what creative you already have.

Standard image Pins

A single vertical image with a title, a description and a link. It is the workhorse format: a styled room, a plated dish, a finished craft project or a jewellery flat lay. The image does almost all of the work, so it needs to look like something a person would save to a board.

Video Pins

Short vertical video shows a process or a transformation: a dresser being painted, a cake being decorated, a closet before and after an organizer goes in. Many people watch without sound, so the story has to be clear from the pictures and short text on screen.

Carousels

A carousel holds several images in one Pin that people swipe through. It suits a lookbook, a set of colour options, the steps of a recipe or the rooms of one renovation project.

Catalogue ads

Catalogue ads, sometimes called shopping ads, are built from your product feed. Pinterest reads each item’s title, image, price, link and availability and can show the right products to people browsing related ideas. A home goods store with hundreds of items can advertise its whole range without designing each Pin, provided the feed itself is clean.

Feed quality decides catalogue results

Titles such as “SKU 4471 grey” give Pinterest little to work with. “Linen duvet cover, queen, stone grey” tells it, and the shopper, exactly what the product is. We review titles, images, categories and stock status in your feed before catalogue campaigns go live and flag fixes to whoever manages your store platform.

Keywords, interests and your own audiences

Pinterest gives advertisers several ways to describe who should see a Pin. Most campaigns combine two or three of them.

Keywords

Keyword targeting shows your Pin when people search for planning phrases you choose, such as “small balcony ideas” for an outdoor furniture shop or “bridesmaid dress colours” for a bridal boutique. Keywords follow the language of the project, so a list for a cabinet maker reads very differently from a list for a candle brand.

Interests

Interest targeting reaches people whose activity on the platform shows a taste for broad topics such as home decor, food and drink, beauty or weddings. It is wider than keywords and often suits awareness campaigns at the start of a season.

Site visitors and customer lists

Once the Pinterest tag is working, you can show Pins to people who visited your site, viewed a product or left a cart. You can also upload a customer list, where people gave consent for that use, to reach past buyers or to keep them out of a campaign aimed at new customers. Pinterest can also find people who resemble your existing customers.

Where and in what language

Campaigns can be limited to the provinces or cities you ship to or serve. A Quebec audience usually needs Pins and landing pages written in French, planned as their own ad groups rather than an afterthought.

Vertical creative made to be saved

Pinterest is a vertical, image first platform. Creative cropped from a horizontal banner or a square post often looks small and out of place in the feed. Pins are planned in a tall format from the start.

Ideas first, product inside

The Pins people save are useful or beautiful: a finished room, a recipe, a styling tip, a colour palette. Your product sits more naturally inside that idea rather than alone on a white background. A rug retailer shows the rug in a cozy reading corner; a spice company shows the finished curry with the jar on the counter.

Text overlays that explain

A few words on the image, such as “3 ways to style a narrow hallway” or “Easy weeknight pasta with our pesto”, tell people why to tap or save. They need to be readable on a phone and kept away from the edges where the interface sits.

Fresh variations

The same image shown for months loses its pull. We plan variations of each idea, such as different rooms, angles, colourways and seasons, so the account keeps something new in front of planners. Where you need new images or short video, our product and lifestyle photography and graphic design team can produce Pins built for this format.

Planning seasons earlier than anywhere else

Because people plan ahead on Pinterest, the calendar runs earlier than most advertisers expect. Campaigns that start the week before an occasion often arrive after the ideas were already saved.

The year as Pinterest planners see it

• Winter: wedding planning picks up, spring renovation and garden ideas start to be saved, and Valentine’s Day gifts are browsed.
• Spring: outdoor furniture, patio and garden projects, Mother’s Day gifts, graduation and summer travel.
• Summer: back to school organizing, dorm rooms, fall fashion and early Thanksgiving ideas for Canadian tables in October.
• Fall: Halloween costumes and decor, holiday gift guides, Christmas decorating and holiday baking, often saved well before December.

Awareness early, conversions later

A typical seasonal plan runs awareness or consideration Pins during the planning window, then shifts budget to conversion and catalogue campaigns as the buying date approaches. Visitors from the early phase become the audience for the later one. The dates are set in your written plan so stock, creative and budget are ready in time.

Your own seasons

Some brands have calendars that are not on any holiday list: a bridal shop’s sample sale, a furniture store’s new collection arrival or a meal kit company’s fall menu. Those dates belong in the same calendar.

Landing pages that match the Pin

A Pin promises something specific. When someone taps a Pin of a blue velvet armchair in a sunny corner, they expect to land on that chair, not on a homepage or a general sofa category. Sending people to the exact product or idea they tapped is the simplest improvement most Pinterest advertisers can make.

Phone first

Pinterest is used heavily on phones, so the page has to load fast and show the product, the price and the add to cart button without hunting. Large images, short descriptions and a checkout that works on a small screen matter more than extra sections.

Idea pages for services

A renovation firm or a wedding planner does not sell items in a cart. Their Pins can lead to a project page that shows the finished kitchen or the reception, explains what was involved and offers a clear way to request a consultation. Our website design work in Toronto covers these pages when they need to be built or rebuilt.

Reading saves, outbound clicks and sales

Pinterest reports many numbers. The ones that matter depend on the campaign objective, and mixing them up leads to wrong decisions.

Saves

A save means someone liked an idea enough to keep it on a board. High saves on an awareness Pin show the creative is working, even if clicks are modest, and a saved Pin can lead to a visit long after the campaign ends.

Outbound clicks

Outbound clicks count people who left Pinterest for your website. They are the bridge between interest and a sale, and they show which Pins and which landing pages are pulling their weight.

Orders, leads and revenue

With the Pinterest tag reporting purchases or quote requests, the report shows what campaigns produced in sales or enquiries. Pinterest buyers often take longer to decide, so we compare results over a period that suits your buying cycle rather than judging each week alone.

Your monthly report

Each month you receive spend, saves, outbound clicks, orders or enquiries and revenue where tracked, along with which Pins and products led, what we changed and the decisions we suggest for the next month, written so an owner can read it in a few minutes.

Where Pinterest sits in your social plan

Pinterest is one channel in a wider plan. Our social media marketing services in Toronto bring the platforms together under one strategy, while paid social campaigns across platforms cover budget planning when you advertise on several networks at once.

Many brands advertising on Pinterest also run Meta ads for Facebook and Instagram. The audiences overlap but the mindset differs: Instagram is where people see what is new from creators and friends, and Instagram ads built for Reels and Stories lean on personality and trends, while Pinterest catches people planning a project. A younger, phone first audience is covered on our Snapchat ads page, and community discussion on our Reddit ads page.

Fashion retailers can see how Pinterest fits into marketing for fashion brands, and design studios into marketing for interior designers. Online shops whose catalogue needs work first can start with our ecommerce agency services, and quote requests from Pinterest can flow into CS+, our CRM, which we set up and connect through our CRM services.

Ad policies, disclosure and privacy

Pinterest has its own advertising guidelines, and every Pin and landing page is reviewed against them. Some categories are restricted or need extra care, including health, finance, alcohol, cannabis, gambling, housing and employment. Age restricted products must never be aimed at minors. We check what applies to your products before creative is made, so nothing has to be redone after a rejection.

Paid partnerships with creators

If a creator promotes your products on Pinterest in exchange for payment, free product or another benefit, the relationship must be clearly disclosed. Ad Standards guidance and the Competition Act both expect disclosure that a reader can see and understand.

The Pinterest tag and personal information

The tag and server events collect information about visitors, so your website needs a clear privacy policy and a consent banner that works. PIPEDA principles apply in general across Canada, and Quebec’s Law 25 adds its own consent and transparency expectations for Quebec residents. Customer lists should only be uploaded where people agreed to that kind of use. Ad spend is paid to Pinterest, and no one can promise a particular reach or cost per result. This is a marketing observation, not legal advice.

How we run a Pinterest campaign

Canada Create works in plain steps, and each one is in writing before it starts.

A free review

We look at your products or services, your website pages, your product feed if you have one, any existing Pinterest account and the seasons that matter to your sales. We also check which of your pages people already pin.

A written plan and proposal

You receive a plan that names the campaign objectives, the product lines to feature, the targeting in plain words, the Pins and video needed, the seasonal start dates and how results will be reported, with our fees quoted in writing and the suggested ad budget shown separately.

Setup and launch

The business account, website claim, Pinterest tag, catalogue connection and first Pins are set up in your company’s name. You approve the creative and landing pages before anything goes live.

Monthly reporting and refresh

Every month you get the report and a short conversation about what to change: which Pins to refresh, which products to push before the next season and where to move budget.

What it costs

Two kinds of money are involved, and they never mix. What you spend on promoted Pins goes from your card to Pinterest, visible in your own Ads Manager billing. Our work on the account, the catalogue and the Pins is a separate fee, set out in a written quote once the free review shows what your shop or studio needs.

What drives the quote

• How many product lines or service themes need their own campaigns.
• Whether catalogue ads are involved and how much work the product feed needs.
• How much new Pin creative and vertical video is needed each season.
• Whether the Pinterest tag and server events are already in place or need setup.
• Whether campaigns run in English only or in English and French.
• How many seasonal pushes fall in the year and how early each one starts.

A jewellery maker testing one collection for the holidays is a very different quote from a furniture retailer running catalogue ads for its whole range across the country.

Choosing someone to manage your Pinterest ads

Pinterest is easy to switch on and easy to waste money on when it is treated like any other feed.

Questions worth asking

• Who owns the accounts? The answer should be you, for the Pinterest business account, the tag, the catalogue and the creative files.
• Will Pins be designed in a vertical format for Pinterest, or reused from other platforms?
• How early will seasonal campaigns start, and why those dates?
• Will reports show saves, outbound clicks and sales separately?
• Who checks the product feed before catalogue ads launch?
• Will each Pin link to the matching product or idea page?
• Is our ad spend shown separately from your fees?

Warning signs

Be careful with anyone who promises a set number of sales or a fixed cost per click before seeing your products, who judges a planning platform on last week’s clicks alone, or who runs the account under their own login so you cannot see it.

Your next step

A free review of your boards, your pinned pages, your product feed and the season ahead is the place to begin. It helps to bring a few things to the conversation: the collection or project type you would feature first, the occasion your sales depend on and any tall images or short clips you already own. Call our Toronto office on (416) 273-9030 or the 24/7 toll free sales and support line at +1 (800) 808-9235, or tell us about your Pinterest goals. We reply within one business day. Our office is at 126 Willowdale Avenue, Suite 3, Toronto, and you can read about our Toronto agency before we talk.

Pinterest is a trademark of Pinterest, Inc. Our team manages advertising on the platform for clients and has no affiliation with or endorsement from Pinterest, Inc.