Using Pinterest for Ecommerce: 16 Ways to Generate More Sales in 2022

Using Pinterest for eCommerce is something that many businesses don’t take full advantage of, but it can generate awesome results if you know the right strategies.

This social media network offers amazing opportunities to boost your marketing strategy, drive more brand awareness, and target a bigger audience.

Pinterest is a unique social media platform because it actually functions more like a search engine. Unlike other social media platforms, this means you can use Pinterest to attract a lot more long-term traffic.

And as an eCommerce business, there are many unique advantages of using Pinterest.

The good news is that Pinterest marketing is actually a whole lot easier than you may think.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your online store and increase sales. These are all strategies that you can use in 2022 to grow your online store.

Why Use Pinterest for Ecommerce?

Here’s an interesting statistic for you – 89% of Pinterest users are on Pinterest looking for purchase inspiration.

This means the vast majority of people on Pinterest have a strong buying intent. So if they find and like your Pinterest Pins, there’s an excellent chance that you can convert them into customers.

Of all the social media platforms, Pinterest is one of the most effective for eCommerce marketing.

Ecommerce businesses can use product pins to gain lots of free traffic, run powerful ads that reach your exact target audience, and significantly boost sales.

Pinterest also partnered with Shopify to let online stores create buyable pins. This allows your store to sell products directly on the platform in your posts. This means users can discover your products on Pinterest, click on them, and get taken straight to a checkout page.

This form of social commerce refines the buying journey and makes it easier for you to turn traffic into customers.

So Pinterest improves your brand’s visibility to a large number of interested customers. When you post and display products, you can create links between the product page, social platform, and your website.

Using Pinterest for eCommerce can help your brand reach a larger audience, improve your visibility in search results, and make more sales.

If you haven’t started using Pinterest marketing for your eCommerce business, then it’s definitely time to start.

How to Get Started With Pinterest for Ecommerce

Before we get started with our tips on how to use Pinterest for eCommerce, you will need to set your account up in a way that gives you maximum opportunities to promote your online business.

Let’s cover the basics quickly.

Start by creating a business account. A business account offers in-depth Pinterest analytics for your business. This is essential for monitoring your social media strategy and results.

Make sure that your Pinterest business account is properly branded, and clearly fits in with your broader social media identity. Users should be able to easily associate your Pinterest page with your Instagram account, and the rest of your brand as a whole.

Pin often and pin consistently. When you pin, only use high-quality images that work with your brand. Maintain a clear level of consistency in your pins.

Each pin should be eye-catching and inspiring for Pinterest members to explore further. Make sure that each image stands out. Using text overlays on your image is a good strategy to make descriptions easier.

When you pin, never forget about SEO. SEO is incredibly important on Pinterest, as you want your post to be first on your user’s feed when searching for a specific query.

Remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine. The upside of this is that when you get a pin ranking well for a search query, it could stay there for years. Compare this to the lifespan of your TikTok videos, and you’ll realize just how much traffic you can drive to your store from Pinterest,

Just like you do with your blog, target specific keywords in your pins. Use these keywords in the description of each pin. Another good strategy is to use hashtags with your relevant keywords. If you can rank well for the right keywords when users search for them, you will see a clear rise in traffic and sales.

And don’t forget about a good call-to-action button! After all, you want your pins to result in traffic and a sale, so they should make the user take an action to do this.

Entice Pinterest users to click o your pins to learn more. Without this, you won’t end up gaining traffic or sales.

Image: Pinterest

Claim Your Website

When you use Pinterest for eCommerce, you will need to claim your website. There are a couple of advantages to doing this.

First, you get great Pinterest for business analytics data relating to your website. You can see exactly how each pin from your online store is performing. This lets you easily track your pin data and measure your success.

You can easily add your brand’s logo to each pin with a claimed website. This makes it easy to keep your brand consistent on your Pinterest account.

Pinterest users that claim their website also get priority access to the social platform’s new features. Another major advantage of claiming your website is that it can make a significant difference to your SEO tactics on Pinterest.

Shopify users can easily use the platform to claim their website on Pinterest. As these platforms are integrated, Shopify marketing with Pinterest is simple.

How to Use Pinterest for eCommerce – 16 Tactics to Boost Your Sales

Now that you’ve got Pinterest set up for your business, it’s time to start using all that this platform offers to generate more traffic and sell more products.

Follow these essential tips to make the most out of your Pinterest marketing strategy. Reach more users, optimize your Pinterest business account, and increase your sales.

1. Create Rich Pins

Rich pins let you add more information to your post. For example, you can add prices and your store’s information to your images.

Pinterest offers four different types of rich pins:

Product
Recipe
Article
App

When using Pinterest for eCommerce, you will likely only be interested in the product or article options. Article pins can be a great way to get more traffic to your online store blog posts by repurposing and sharing blog content on Pinterest.

If you are a Shopify user, then you can automatically set up rich pins. If not, make sure that you enable rich pins on your Pinterest account so that you pin with greater results.

2. Create Shoppable Pins

We mentioned this earlier, and it’s a must for any eCommerce store that wants to sell directly to Pinterest users.

Shoppable pins let you sell products without your target audience having to leave Pinterest to get to your site. This cuts out an entire step in the customer journey and results in far easier (and increased) sales.

Sounds easy? It is. However, there are a few tactics you should use on Pinterest to make sure your pin gets more traffic and results in more customers.

Try these things when you create shoppable pins:

Test your pins on secret Pinterest boards: Before you publish your pins, test them out first on a secret board. Doing this lets you know that your boards look perfect before you go live. Secret board testing avoids non-optimized visuals being published, or pins without proper descriptions. When you go live, you will know that your feed is perfect.
Create more than one pin: Each product you promote on Pinterest can have multiple pins. Each of your pins should vary slightly – maybe with different angled images or different keywords in the description. Being able to use multiple pins allows you to test out which ones work, and to have a wider selection of product pins to offer users.
Copy top-selling products: Take a look at some of the top-selling product pins in your category. Maybe you can find a way to emulate their images or replicate some of their ideas and design elements. Don’t steal another brand’s idea completely, but stay alert to trends and get inspired by successful pins that could improve your own feed.

3. Create Try-On Product Pins

Try on product pins are a really cool new feature from Pinterest.

These pins use augmented reality to let people virtually try on products they find on the Pinterest app. This feature is enabled on some product pins and it’s a fun way to persuade Pinterest users to become customers.

If you sell makeup or clothing, then definitely see if you can use try-on product pins. They will make a big difference to the customer experience.

To create these pins, you will need a Pinterest business account and a product catalog uploaded to Pinterest.

Image

4. Use Shop the Look Pins

A shop the look pin will take your buyable pin a step further. Here, you can include multiple products in a single pin.

The product will have a small white dot over the image which will lead to a selection of products that you can link to.

Of course, a shop the look pin is ideal for fashion businesses. However, it can also be used creatively for various other niches – such as home decor, DIY projects, and recipes. Once your product is loaded, you can easily set up your shop the look pin.

You can also promote related products with a “shop similar” button. Adding this button to your search results will help advertise even more products and open up the potential for more sales.

5. Create Promoted Pins

As long as your Pinterest account is all set up as a business, you can run Pinterest ads, or promoted pins.

A promoted pin is a way of advertising your product on Pinterest to a wider target audience. Promoted pins, or Pinterest ads, work just like Facebook ads.

We recommend running promoted pins on your best-selling products to increase your sales even more. When making promoted pins, you will need to pay attention to promoting the ads to the right audience.

If done correctly, promoted pins can offer a huge boost to your eCommerce sales, especially if the promoted pins are shippable.

6. Optimize Your Images

All of your images need to work well together. Their size and ratio should be optimized for more effective Pinterest boards.

Vertical pins stand out more and are generally the best choice.

According to Pinterest’s specifications and sizing guide, the best aspect ratio is 2:3 for vertical images. If your pin is longer than 1260px it will get cut off. If your pin is created in line with Pinterest’s preferred aspect ratios, the platform will optimize these pins.

Above: Notice how the larger, longer images stand out more.

7. Run a Pinterest Contest

Social media contests are always a good marketing tactic if they are done correctly. Running a Pinterest contest can help get your product seen by a bigger group of people, resulting in more traffic to your store.

Running an effective Pinterest contest is pretty simple with the right tools, and it can make a major impact on your sales.

When you run this contest, get entrants to provide you with their details when they enter. Once the contest is finished, you can reach out to everyone who entered with a discount code or special offer.

They’ve already shown an interest in your brand and products, so a discount could be just what they need to become a customer.

8. Use Pinterest Boards for Different Product Categories

One of the most effective ways to present your products to users on Pinterest is to separate your products into dedicated boards.

We see some of the most successful brands on Pinterest using boards to segment their group of products – a strategy that can have various advantages.

The main reason to use boards is to make it easier for your audience to find their search query. You can optimize your boards for the right keywords, which helps with Pinterest SEO.

Well categorized boards are easier to navigate, and they organize your products more efficiently.

9. Add Text to Your Images

Adding text overlays to your visuals is a great way to assist with free marketing on Pinterest.

Text can help to clearly define what your image and product are about. Text is also useful when you need your image to stand out amongst many others.

Incorporate keywords in here when possible too. This might help gain more free traffic by instantly attracting the person who searched for the keywords.

10. Add a Discount Code to Your Pin

Discount codes are always a good tactic in an eCommerce marketing campaign. These codes work well on Pinterest and can help to get the platform’s users interested in taking action and buying your products.

Entice people with discount codes written as overlays on your images or included in the descriptions.

This is an example of a simple marketing tactic to win over more attention on Pinterest. It could help customers to choose your product over all the competition.

11. Share Content From Other Users

Online marketing is all about great content.

Your customers will go on Pinterest to find quality content that they enjoy, so you should make sure to share relevant content that you find. Feel free to find a pin from another brand that resonates with your audience, and share it.

As long as the other brand’s content isn’t a direct product competitor of yours, sharing it can help your brand.

This engages the user more, and it can help to create a group of customers who share the same platform interest. Y

our business needs to think about what your audience wants, and how it can add value to their lives with each pin.

12. Use Your Data

Pinterest offers your business plenty of useful data analytics. This data is there for a reason, and it needs to be utilized by your business if you want to really enhance your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Use Pinterest analytics to get into the habit of checking up the performance of each pin, and understanding how you can optimize your pin. Knowing what works and what doesn’t when you pin is important for better results.

Use this information to make smarter marketing decisions. Test different variations of a pin and see which one performs best. You might want to also increase your ad spend on high-performing pins to boost their success even more.

13. Add a Share Pin to Your Product Page

Often customers won’t find your product through Pinterest. Instead, they will search your site directly for the product.

This offers a good opportunity to get your customers to share your product pin on Pinterest while they are shopping.

Simply add a ‘Share pin’ button to your product pages. While customers are online shopping, they can click the link which takes them to your Pinterest board.

They can then save or share the particular pin. This is a great way to get your pin and product out to a wider audience, enhancing your Pinterest campaign.

14. Post Unique Content

Pinterest is a visual search engine. Search results for a query can involve millions of different images lined up next to each other. This means your pin will need to stand out from the rest if you want to attract more clicks.

Try to make your visual content stand out by approaching your content in a different way.

Unique content will attract more customers and get them moving down your sales funnel faster.

An effective approach to Pinterest is posting a wider range of video and photo content. Beyond just posting products, offer guides and informative content. This could help to add more value to your customer and get them more interested in your brand.

15. Use Pinterest’s Keyword Tool

You’ll need to use keywords to optimize your pins for SEO. Did you know that Pinterest has its own keyword tool?

Here’s how you can access it from your business account:

Go to Ads > Create Ad (don’t worry, we’re not creating an ad and this won’t require any ad budget)
You now need to choose the campaign type. Click on Consideration (formerly traffic)
Scroll down and hit Continue
Select Find New Customers
Click on Interests and Keywords
Click on Add Keywords
Now you can use the search box to look for keywords and discover Pinterest’s recommended keywords with their monthly search volumes

Include these keywords in your pin titles, descriptions, boards, and anywhere else that you can fit them. These keywords are specific to Pinterest, so they might be more useful than the keywords you use on your website.

16. Experiment With Video Pins

You have two options when you create a pin: you can either post an image or a video.

Most pins are still images, so creating a video pin is an excellent way to stand out in the search results.

You don’t need to create or film a full-on video. Simply adding a little animation, like an animated emoji, into your pin will add movement and make your content stand out.

A good strategy is to post a still image pin and a video pin on the same topic. See which one gets more engagement, and use this as a guideline going forward.

Make More Sales With Pinterest for eCommerce

Your online store needs to be implementing Pinterest. It’s one of the most effective social media sites for eCommerce, and the visual search platform offers major opportunities for getting your products to a larger audience of interested buyers.

When done right, Pinterest can help businesses to gain loads of exposure and drive more traffic to their store.

Follow the steps above for a Pinterest campaign that delivers great results. The future of Pinterest for eCommerce is looking bright, so your business should be making the most of this platform if it wants to unlock loads more sales potential.