Pinterest has become a key source of product discovery for millions of people, with the platform focused on personally relevant product searches and recommendations.
This means there’s an opportunity for brands to use Pinterest to reach a purchase-focused audience during the discovery part of their shopping journey. On that front, Pinterest recently shared best practice tips on how brands can improve their listings and formatting.
First, Pinterest said brands should ensure their catalog feed is maintained by frequently updating relevant features and pricing information.
As per Pinterest: “Your product catalogue (or feed) is how Pinterest understands what you sell. It shapes who you reach, what they see and how often you enter the auction, so missing, vague or wrong fields can hold back even a strong campaign.”
Pinterest said that titles featuring brand keywords have been associated with 28% higher ROAS, and pattern keywords with 22% higher ROAS.
“Better inputs give Pinterest more opportunities to match your products to high-intent searches — and because Pinterest is driven by discovery, a strong feed can help your products show up while people are still exploring options and shaping their shopping lists,” the company said.
To ensure brands are ticking all the right boxes on this front, Pinterest recommended that catalog managers include relevant titles that feature the brand and product type, plus at least one useful detail.
Brand managers can find effective examples of this approach by searching for similar products in the app and looking at the titles of top listed products. Pinterest added that marketers should rewrite weak titles and descriptions to better reflect how people actually search (for example, “summer wedding guest dress” or “back-to-school backpack”).
Brands should also ensure that product info fields are complete, Pinterest said. That includes descriptions, prices, availability and images. Brands should also upload their full catalog, and “not just a small hero set,” Pinterest said.
The company also outlined the importance of data tracking and ensuring that Pinterest’s systems have access to post-click insights. Doing that can improve the accuracy of the app’s recommendations.
“Better signals help Pinterest find people who are likely to buy, not just click, and learn which actions are most likely to turn into checkouts,” Pinterest said. “On average, web advertisers using Conversions API plus the Pinterest Tag saw a 9.0% improvement in average CPA and 23.7% more attributed conversions compared to tag-only setups.”
As such, marketers should check their set-ups to ensure their optimization goals are correct, Pinterest said. In addition, they should use the platform’s Conversions API and Pinterest Tag to provide more signals.
Pinterest added that marketers should keep tabs on their conversion data within Ads Manager to ensure that events are being tagged in the right places.
The company also recommended that marketers avoid segmenting their catalog listings into too many subgroups because that can restrict optimization data.
“Shopping ads work best when each ad group or product group has enough SKUs to spot patterns, and fewer, deeper groups give the system more signals to connect your products with the right shoppers,” Pinterest said.
In other words, segmenting catalog listings too much can limit this element and slow the learning process.
“On Pinterest, we recommend at least 500 SKUs in an ad group as ad groups with fewer than 100 SKUs have been associated with 13.6% lower ROAS,” Pinterest explained.
Pinterest said marketers should look to merge very small product groups that share the same goal, and aim for large, meaningful groupings.
Pinterest also recommended that marketers run campaigns for longer periods to best utilize systematic learning of user response actions, because users often plan for weeks or months before they buy. Meanwhile, marketers should also look to maintain consistency within their product purchase paths to ensure a more trustworthy, efficient shopping process.
On this front, Pinterest said accurate pricing in particular is important. Brands need to ensure that the price listed on Pins is the same as the price in the link, and that additional charges are outlined whenever possible.
These notes could help to refine the Pinterest shopping process, ensuring that the information in Pin listings and products are aligned, accurate and meet user expectations.
