Pinterest ads are promoted Pins that appear in users’ home feeds, search results, and related Pin sections, blending in with organic content while reaching a targeted audience. You set up campaigns through Pinterest Ads Manager, where you choose a goal, pick your audience, select an ad format, set a budget, and launch. The platform then places your content in front of people who are browsing, searching, and saving ideas, catching them during the planning and discovery phase that often leads to purchases.
How the Campaign Structure Works
Every Pinterest ad starts with a campaign, which holds one or more ad groups, each containing individual ads. At the campaign level, you choose your marketing objective. At the ad group level, you define your audience, set your bid, pick placements, and assign a budget. Then you attach your creative (the actual Pin) to the ad group. This layered structure lets you test different audiences or formats under one campaign without starting from scratch each time.
Campaign Objectives You Can Choose
When you create a campaign, Pinterest asks what you want to accomplish. Your choice here determines how the platform optimizes delivery and what you pay for.
- Brand awareness puts your Pin in front of as many relevant people as possible. You pay per thousand impressions (CPM), making this the go-to for product launches or getting your name out.
- Video views optimizes for people most likely to watch your video content. Use this when the video itself is the message, like a tutorial or product demo.
- Consideration drives clicks to your website. Pinterest shows your ad to people most likely to tap through, so it works well when you want to move browsers closer to buying.
- Conversions optimizes for specific actions on your site, like sign-ups or purchases. You’ll need the Pinterest tag (a small piece of tracking code) installed on your website so the platform can learn which users convert and find more people like them.
- Catalog sales is built for ecommerce brands that upload a product feed. Pinterest automatically creates shopping Pins from your catalog and serves them to likely buyers.
Ad Formats Available
Pinterest offers several creative formats, and the right one depends on what you’re promoting and how much visual storytelling you need.
Standard ads are the simplest option: a single static image that looks like any other Pin. They work well when you have one strong visual and want to send people directly to your site. Because they blend naturally into the feed, they tend to feel less intrusive than display ads on other platforms.
Video ads come in two sizes. Standard video ads match the dimensions of a regular Pin, while max-width video ads expand across both columns of the feed in the mobile app, making them twice as large. Max-width is ideal for storytelling or brand moments where you want to command attention.
Carousel ads let you include two to five swipeable image cards in a single ad. Users can swipe through the cards, tap to see a close-up, or click through to your site. This format works well for showing multiple product angles, a step-by-step process, or a small collection of related items.
Collection ads start with a large “hero” image or video at the top, with three smaller product images underneath. When someone taps to expand the ad, they can browse up to 24 additional images or products. It’s a strong format for ecommerce brands that want to showcase a product line or themed grouping in one unit.
Shopping ads use a single product image pulled from your catalog feed and display product details like price right on the Pin. They look similar to standard ads but carry that extra shopping context, making them effective for driving direct purchases.
How Targeting Works
Pinterest gives you several ways to define who sees your ads, and you can layer these together within an ad group.
Interest targeting lets you reach people based on the categories they engage with on Pinterest. The platform offers hundreds of predefined interest segments spanning topics like food and drink, home decor, fashion, DIY and crafts, gardening, design, education, and more. Each broad category breaks into granular subcategories. Under “Food & Drink,” for example, you can target people interested in healthy recipes, desserts, BBQ and grilling, or cocktails specifically.
Keyword targeting is where Pinterest stands apart from most social platforms. Because people actively search Pinterest the way they search Google (“small bathroom remodel ideas,” “easy weeknight dinners”), you can target specific search terms. Your ad then shows up alongside organic results for those queries, reaching people with clear intent.
Demographics let you filter by age, gender, location, language, and device. These are useful as refinements on top of interest or keyword targeting rather than standalone strategies.
Customer lists allow you to upload email addresses or other identifiers from your existing customers. Pinterest matches those to user accounts and serves your ads to them, which is helpful for re-engaging past buyers or cross-selling.
Actalike audiences (Pinterest’s version of lookalike audiences) find new users who behave similarly to your existing customers or site visitors. You provide a source audience, and Pinterest expands your reach to people with similar browsing and saving patterns.
Retargeting lets you show ads to people who have already visited your website, engaged with your Pins, or interacted with a specific ad. This keeps your brand visible to people who showed interest but didn’t convert.
What Pinterest Ads Cost
Pinterest uses an auction-based pricing model, so costs fluctuate based on your targeting, competition, ad quality, and objective. That said, typical ranges give you a useful starting point for budgeting.
For campaigns focused on clicks (consideration or traffic goals), expect to pay roughly $0.10 to $1.50 per click. Highly competitive categories like home decor or fashion may push toward the higher end, while niche interests can come in well below a dollar. For brand awareness campaigns, CPM (cost per thousand impressions) generally falls between $2 and $5, which is competitive compared to other visual platforms.
You set either a daily budget or a lifetime budget for each ad group. Pinterest will pace your spending across the day or the campaign duration. There’s no publicly stated minimum, but most advertisers find that starting with at least $10 to $20 per day gives the algorithm enough room to optimize delivery and gather meaningful data.
How the Auction and Delivery System Works
When a user opens Pinterest or runs a search, an auction happens in milliseconds to decide which ads appear. Pinterest weighs three factors: your bid amount, the estimated relevance of your ad to that user, and the quality of your Pin (based on engagement signals like saves, clicks, and close-ups). A highly relevant, well-designed Pin can win placements even with a lower bid, which rewards advertisers who invest in strong creative.
You can choose between automatic bidding, where Pinterest sets bids to get you the most results within your budget, and custom bidding, where you set a maximum cost per click or per thousand impressions. Automatic bidding is a good starting point if you’re new to the platform, since it removes guesswork while you learn what your typical costs look like.
Setting Up Your First Campaign
To run ads, you need a Pinterest business account (free to create) and access to Ads Manager. From there, the setup follows a straightforward sequence.
First, choose your campaign objective. Then create an ad group where you define your target audience using the targeting layers described above. Set your budget and schedule, including start and end dates if the campaign is time-bound. Next, select or upload your creative. Pinterest recommends vertical images with a 2:3 aspect ratio (1000 x 1500 pixels) for standard and shopping ads, since that format takes up more feed space on mobile. Add a destination URL, write your Pin title and description with relevant keywords, and submit for review.
Pinterest typically reviews ads within 24 hours. Once approved, your Pins start appearing in the placements you selected. You can monitor performance in Ads Manager, where you’ll see metrics like impressions, clicks, saves, click-through rate, and cost per result.
Why the Pinterest Audience Is Different
People use Pinterest differently than they use Instagram or Facebook. On Pinterest, users are typically in planning mode: researching purchases, gathering inspiration for projects, or saving ideas for later. That forward-looking mindset means they’re often closer to a buying decision than someone passively scrolling a social feed. Pins also have a much longer shelf life than posts on other platforms. A promoted Pin can continue generating organic engagement (saves, clicks) long after the paid campaign ends, because saved Pins resurface in feeds and search results for months.
This combination of high purchase intent and extended content lifespan makes Pinterest particularly effective for ecommerce, home and lifestyle brands, food and recipe content, and any product that benefits from visual discovery. If your product is something people search for, plan around, or save for later, Pinterest ads put you right in the middle of that decision-making process.