Pinterest Advertising for Small Businesses

Pinterest began in 2010 as a social network for sharing ideas and inspiration on various topics and interests. This social network now has more than 640 million monthly active users. Unlike other social networks that are content-based, Pinterest focuses on pictures.

Most users who visit Pinterest don’t just go there to learn new and creative ways of doing things. Some are there to admire the beautiful, high-quality photos that come with a brief description. A quick glance at Pinterest, and all you’ll see are images. Pinterest’s focus on visual content is probably what makes it stand out from other social networks.

Advertising on Pinterest: A Practical Guide for Small Businesses

Pinterest isn’t just a valuable social network for content creators and users. Businesses and marketers can also use this social network to promote their brands, products, and services. This blog post will highlight all you need to know about advertising on Pinterest.

We will describe how Pinterest ads work and offer a few reasons you may consider this advertising option. You will also learn the costs associated with advertising on Pinterest and the ad formats available. Finally, we will take you through the steps to create and run a Pinterest ad campaign.

Key Points and Facts About Advertising on Pinterest

Pinterest has more than 640 million monthly active users as of Q2 2026, and that number keeps growing.
Average cost per click for Pinterest ads runs roughly $0.50–$1.50, typically lower than Meta and X.
Pinterest ads come in six main formats, including Standard Pins, Video Pins, Carousel Ads, and Shopping Ads.
You need a Pinterest Business account and a public board with saved Pins before you can advertise.
Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest-growing audience segment, now making up about 42% of monthly active users.

What Are Pinterest Ads and How Do They Work?

Pinterest ads are regular pins that an advertiser pays to get placed on a user’s Pinterest account. These ads get displayed to users based on their past activities, interests, and behaviors. Depending on your preferred placement sections, Pinterest can show them in a category feed, home feed, or relevant search results.

To create Pinterest ads, you need to meet various requirements:

You must have a Pinterest business account.
You need to reside in a country where Pinterest ads are available.
Your pins should be saved on a public board and be on your business profile.
Your pins should not be third-party.
Your pins must meet Pinterest’s ad standards.
Your pins need a destination URL

Why Advertise on Pinterest?

Let’s now discuss why you should consider adding Pinterest to your marketing strategy.

Multiple Targeting Options

Pinterest offers many targeting options that you can take advantage of to reach your target clientele. What’s even better is you can use them singularly or combine them to advertise to specific people. With Pinterest, you can make your target audience as broad or as niche as you want.

Here are the targeting options available with Pinterest:

Audience — Build an audience from your customer list or people who’ve interacted with your content or visited your website before.
Act-Alike Audience — Target users with interests and behaviors similar to your existing audience.
Interests — Target users based on topics you believe interest them.
Demographics — Filter based on age, gender, zip code, device, or language.
Keywords — Target users based on the keywords they use on Pinterest.
Expanded Targeting — Broaden your reach to users who use keywords or have interests similar to your selected criteria.

A Younger, More Diverse Audience

Pinterest’s audience is shifting. Gen Z now makes up about 42% of the platform’s monthly active users and is its fastest-growing segment, and male usage keeps climbing too. If you assumed Pinterest skewed older or exclusively female, it’s worth a second look before ruling it out.

Increased Brand Awareness

Pinterest ads are great for increasing brand awareness. They make your business, products, and services highly visible to users. Once a customer clicks on your promoted pin, Pinterest leads them directly to your website, depending on your chosen link.

Cost-Effective

Pinterest ads tend to cost less than YouTube, LinkedIn, and X. Compared with Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest’s average cost per click is typically similar or lower, based on 2026 industry benchmarks.

High Conversions

Pinterest ads are effective at driving leads and purchases. Multiple 2026 industry surveys found that roughly 80–85% of weekly users have bought a product after discovering it on the platform. Conversion rates also tend to run higher than on other social networks, likely because the path from discovery to purchase is shorter.

Pinterest Ad Formats

Pinterest offers several ad formats that you can choose for your ad campaign. Choose the ones that align with your marketing objective.

Standard and Video Pins — The most basic ad type on Pinterest, shown on a user’s home feed and labeled “Promoted.” Available in image or video format; video versions are called Video Pins.
Idea Ads — Pinterest’s original organic Idea Pin format (full-screen, multi-segment video Pins similar to Stories) was discontinued in 2024 and folded into standard Pins and collages. Idea Ads are the current paid format, used mainly for promoting creator-made content through paid partnerships.
Try-On Product Pins — An augmented-reality format that lets users try on a product virtually using their phone camera. Available only in approved countries, and only by application and approval through a Pinterest account manager.
Carousel Ads — Up to five swipeable images, each with its own title, description, and call to action. Good for showcasing multiple products or telling a brand’s story.
Collections Ads — One large hero image or video plus up to 24 smaller secondary images. Shown to mobile users, though creation happens on desktop.
Shopping Ads — Similar to Collections Ads but with a single image or video, leading customers directly to a product catalog. Built for driving purchases.

How Much Does Pinterest Advertising Cost?

Pinterest ads are priced through an auction, so there’s no fixed rate. Based on 2026 industry benchmarks, most advertisers pay somewhere between $0.50 and $1.50 per click — typically less than Meta (around $1.06–$1.72) and well below X (around $3–$5).

Like other social networks, Pinterest ads utilize two payment models: cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM). In CPC, you pay each time a user clicks your ad campaign, while for CPM, you pay each time your ad gets displayed 1,000 times.

Pinterest also allows you to set a budget for your ad campaign. You can choose one of two bid strategies:

Custom Bidding

For custom bidding, you set your custom maximum budget for each campaign. Pinterest has minimum bids, depending on the ad format and number of bidders. You are, however, in control of your maximum bid.

Automatic Bidding

In this bid strategy, you give Pinterest permission to set your maximum bid. Automatic bidding works best if you don’t know the most suitable bid budget for your campaign. Pinterest will choose the amount and adjust it throughout the day as per your competition.

How to Create a Pinterest Ad Campaign

Ready to advertise your business on Pinterest? Allow us to walk you through the campaign creation process.

1. Open a Pinterest Business account

You can’t advertise on the platform without a Pinterest Business account. Once you set up your account, you’ll gain access to tools for creating, managing, and monitoring ad campaigns.

2. Select your campaign objective

Like most social media platforms, you need to select your campaign objective before creating your ad. Pinterest currently offers five campaign objectives:

Brand Awareness

This goal focuses on increasing product or brand awareness, and bills by cost per thousand impressions (CPM).

Consideration

Choose this objective to increase Pin clicks or outbound clicks to your website, billed by cost per click (CPC).

Video Completion

This objective helps you reach people most likely to watch your video ad all the way through.

Leads

This objective drives actions on your website, such as sign-ups, subscriptions, or form submissions.

Sales

Pick this goal to drive purchases of your product or service.

3. Set your budget and schedule

Your next step will be to set your overall campaign budget and schedule. Begin by choosing the budget type, either daily or lifetime. Next up, enter your daily spend limit, and schedule when to run your campaign. You can either opt to run it continuously or on specific dates.

4. Create ad groups

Proceed to create an ad group for your campaign. Your ad group will consist of campaigns with the same bidding and targeting details. You can create as many ad groups as you want. Having a few ad groups is beneficial if you wish to test one campaign on different audiences.

5. Select your target audience

Your next step will be to choose a target audience for your ad campaign. As mentioned earlier, Pinterest offers multiple targeting options. Select one or combine them to get a narrower target audience.

6. Create and launch your ad

It’s now time to design and launch your campaign. You can use the content you’ve already pinned or start a new campaign from scratch. If you start with a blank slate, you’ll need to fill out your ad details, choose an image or video, and include a destination URL.

7. Monitor campaign performance

Last but not least, you need to track the performance of your ad. Don’t just create your campaign and leave it at that. Monitor it to assess whether it is giving you the results you desire.

FAQ: Advertising on Pinterest

Here are answers to common questions advertisers ask about Pinterest ads.

1. Do I need a Pinterest Business account to advertise on the platform?

Yes. A Pinterest Business account is part of Pinterest’s terms of service, and it gives you access to analytics and ad management tools.

2. How do I find the best keywords for my business on Pinterest?

Start typing a term relevant to your business into Pinterest’s search bar. The autocomplete suggestions show you popular related searches — use those as a starting point for your keyword list.

3. What is the difference between a pin and a repin on Pinterest?

A pin is a bookmark for content someone finds interesting on Pinterest — search results return these, and users can save or click into them for more detail. A repin happens when someone shares another user’s content to their own board; the original poster gets notified when this happens.

4. What metrics does Pinterest Analytics offer?

Pinterest offers advertisers free tools for measuring campaign success, including:
Impressions (the number of times your ad or pins got displayed)
Video views (the number of users who viewed your ad for at least 2 seconds)
Pin clicks (the number of users who clicked on your ad or pins)
Engagements (the number of ad or pin engagements)
Outbound click (the number of times users performed an action that led them to a destination outside Pinterest)
Outbound click rate (outbound clicks divided by the total number of times your ad got displayed)
Saves (the number of times users saved your ad or pins to their board)
Pin click rate (pins clicked divided by the number of times your ad or pins got displayed)
Save rate (total saves divided by the number of times your ad or pins got displayed)
Total audience (the number of users who saw or engaged with your ad or pins)
Total engaged audience (the number of users who engaged with your ad or pins)
Monthly total audience (users who saw or engaged with your ad or pins in the last 30 days)
Monthly total engaged audience (users who engaged with your ad or pins in the last 30 days)
Monthly views (the number of times your ad was shown on screen in the last 30 days)
Total playtime in minutes (total playtime for your video pins)
Average playtime (the average time a user spent watching your video ad or pins)

5. What is an act-alike audience on Pinterest?

An act-alike audience is people with interests and behaviors similar to your existing targeted users. Pinterest lets you target act-alike audiences to find additional customers outside your current scope.

6. Who are the users of Pinterest?

Pinterest’s user base skews female, at roughly 70% women globally, with the single largest age group being women 25 to 34. That said, the platform is diversifying: Gen Z now makes up about 42% of monthly active users and is its fastest-growing segment, and male usage keeps climbing. Don’t rule out any demographic without checking Pinterest’s targeting data for your niche.

7. How can I optimize my images for ad campaigns?

Pinterest is a visual-based platform, and users expect to see beautiful, high-quality images. A few tips:
Use unique and high-quality images.
Use images that align with your campaign message.
Highlight your brand in the pictures — include your logo or brand colors.
Use the ideal image aspect ratio; Pinterest recommends 2:3.

Checklist for Advertising on Pinterest

Set up your account
- Open a Pinterest Business account.
- Save Pins to a public board on your business profile.
Plan your campaign
- Pick a campaign objective: Brand Awareness, Consideration, Video Completion, Leads, or Sales.
- Set your budget type (daily or lifetime) and schedule.
Build your ad group
- Choose your bidding strategy — Custom or Automatic.
- Select your targeting options (Audience, Interests, Demographics, Keywords, and so on).
Create your ad
- Pick or create a Pin with a destination URL.
- Choose the ad format that fits your goal.
Launch and monitor
- Launch the campaign.
- Track performance in Pinterest Analytics and adjust as needed.

Conclusion

You now know what it takes to create a Pinterest ad. Start by creating a business account and then choose a campaign objective. You’ll also need to set your bid and schedule the time to run your ad campaign. Don’t forget to narrow your audience using the multiple targeting options available. Finally, design your ad and monitor its performance.