Pinterest Ads vs. Organic Growth with Idea Pins / Which Is a Better Investment?  

If your business has been leveraging idea pins on Pinterest to get more traffic and sales you may have noticed how they are becoming more social. In fact, in September 2020 Pinterest launched Story Pins in beta to test this new feature with a small group of creators. Does the lingo sound familiar? If you’re on Instagram you’ll notice they have the same feature, they refer to as Stories.

Photo credit: Pinterest

 

Is Pinterest Becoming More Social?

In May 2021 Pinterest decided to change the name Story Pins to Idea Pins. Pinterest wants creators and businesses to create Idea Pins to be more engaging and actionable. You’ll be able to see how your Idea Pins are performing with metrics like saves, comments and reactions, all of which affect the creators’ content distribution. 

On Pinterest conversations doesn’t really exist. Sure, you can comment but that’s not the natural behavior for most Pinterest users. Today, Pinterest encourages conversation. When your Idea Pins receives plenty of engagement by the way of saves and comments Pinterest will reward you by pushing your content on top of the home feed. That means more eyeballs on your content. 

Photo credit: Pinterest

FAQ on Idea Pins

1. What countries are Idea Pins available? 

US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

2. What are some of the features available when creating Idea Pins?

• Video recording and editing for up to 20 pages of content.
• Voice over recording so creators can add their own personal voice.
• Music tracks with editing tools. You can add 1 song continuously across every page or select different songs for each page (available on iOS).
• Ghost mode transition tools (perfect for those before-and-afters!).
• Detail pages for instructions or ingredients.
• Interactive elements like people tagging.
• Seasonal and interactive stickers.
• Multi-draft save so Creators can publish more ideas.
• Export options to share content beyond Pinterest.
• Split long videos into multiple pages >60s (available on iOS)
• Reply on a comment on an Idea Pin with an Idea Pin.
• Topic tagging, a publishing feature that helps connect content to relevant interests.
• Preview Mode: do a quick quality check before publishing (iOS, Android).
• “Takes” which lets creators communicate with users in a more engaging manner. Pinners’ responses will link back to the creators’ original Idea Pins, and creators can also highlight top takes from Pinners.
• Product tagging tool to include the Amazon Associates Program.
• AR Try on, its augmented reality beauty try on. This new capability allows creators to tag their Idea Pins with a new Try on sticker to add lip products, empowering Pinners to try on and shop right from the Idea Pin.
• Paid partnership tags: Creators can tag a brand or company they have a partnership with.
• You can choose to automatically enable shopping recommendations on your content to identify visually similar products (US only).
• Creator hub on your profile: you can see different ways to monetize, learn about new product updates, see insights on your Idea Pins, and more creative features.

3. Where do Idea Pins live on Pinterest?

You will find them in search, the Today Tab on desktop, the Watch Tab, Browse Tab, and the top of creator profiles. Idea Pins will be displayed in this special full-screen stream view, designed to engage and inspire Pinners.

4. How long do Idea Pins last?

They don’t expire after 24 hours like they do on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, they live forever just like all your other pins. 

5. Why should businesses invest in creating Idea Pins?

At the 2nd Pinterest Creators Festival Pinterest announced they were going to invest $20M into the Creators Hub and Idea Pins called “Creators Rewards,” its the first-ever in-product monetization program for creators. This program will pay creators for sharing their passions and inspiring meaningful engagement through their content. They are going heavy in this direction, so you’d better get on the band wagon. 

Pinterest will provide micro-grants for projects that creators are passionate about or want to bring to life. Some examples would be to start a community garden, create a wellness program or fund a new beauty look. In addition, Pinterest will issue a series of engagement-based goals inspired by trending topics or new Idea Pin features, and creators will have the opportunity to get paid for meeting the goal requirements. 

6. Are Idea Pins shoppable?

People come to Pinterest with a buying mindset. According to Pinterest they found Pinners are 89% more likely to exhibit shopping intent on products tagged in Idea Pins than on standalone Product Pins. Creators can tap into that catalog and harness that shopping intent by tagging specific products in their own Idea Pins. 

Photo credit: Pinterest

Idea Pins are more shoppable with AR Try on, it’s an augmented reality beauty try on tool. Creators can tag their Idea Pins with a new Try on sticker to add lip products, which makes it easy for Pinners to try on and shop right from the Idea Pin. To access the new feature, creators can select the Try on sticker and search over 10,000 Try on-enabled product links to add to an Idea Pin. 

Additionally, creators now have the option to make their Idea Pins automatically shoppable by enabling shopping recommendations on their Idea Pins. The ‘shop similar’ feature uses Pinterest’s visual search technology to recommend Product Pins that are visually similar to the content within the Pin, giving Pinners the ability to shop what they see. With this new feature, Pinterest is enabling visual search on video content for the first time.

7. How can you make money with Idea Pins?

You can earn commissions through affiliate links tagging and brand sponsorships. 

Pinterest is expanding its product tagging tool to include the Amazon Associates Program so creators in the US can add affiliate links from Amazon and earn commission on qualifying purchases. Research shows shoppers who visit Pinterest weekly outspend non-Pinners by 2x every month and have an 85% larger basket size.

Photo credit: Pinterest

 

Creators with existing brand partnerships who are creating branded content have an easier way to disclose paid relationships with a new tool that will add a “paid partnerships” label to Idea Pins. 

Pinterest has introduced in beta a new paid partnerships tool that allows Creators to disclose their paid partnerships. Creators who make branded content will be able to add the brands directly in their Idea Pins, and once the brand approves the tag — the Idea Pin will include a “paid partnership” label. This tool will make it even easier for Creators to disclose partnerships with brands and use their expertise to connect with Pinners authentically. 

The paid partnerships tool is live for select Creators in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru.

8. How do I access the product tagging feature? 

On iOS, creators can access the product tagging feature through the Stickers module in the Idea Pin create flow. On Android, tap the tag icon above ‘Products’ in the editing tool of Idea Pins. You’ll then have the option to search by the product name or add a product link

At this time, product tagging is only available on mobile and for business accounts in the US and UK regions. 

9. What products am I allowed to tag in my Idea Pin? 

Creators can tag any products that exist on Pinterest or create a new product Pin via URL search. For existing product pins, the searchable content will be limited to the product pins for that locale. 

10. How many tags can I add? 

You can add up to 5 product tags per page (or card), and up to 20 product tags per Idea Pin.

11. Can I use product tagging to drive traffic to another website? 

No. This tagging functionality is meant for shoppable product pins/product pages only. Tags cannot be edited so always double check before you hit publish. 

12. How do merchants and retailers know that their product has been tagged? 

Merchants will receive email notifications letting them know when their products are tagged. If a merchant prefers not to have their product tagged, they have the option to remove the tagged product from the Idea Pin.

13. Can I use an affiliate link to tag a product?

Pinterest supports affiliate links from:

• Amazon Associates
• ShopStyle Collective
• Rakuten Advertising

14. Do I need to disclose if I’m using an affiliate link? 

Within the Product Tagging flow, there’s a toggle you can use to indicate you are tagging sponsored products. Click here to learn more about Paid Partnerships on Pinterest.

15. What rules do I need to follow? 

The Creator Code :content policy designed to keep Pinterest a positive and inspiring place.

Summary

There’s no doubt that Pinterest is making the platform more social, more video centric, and more shoppable than ever before. In fact, Pinterest stock soared 10% on news that it was in discussions to be acquired by PayPal. 

Idea Pins are more time consuming to make than Standard Pins and in addition they are not clickable at this time, meaning you won’t get that outbound click. 

So, the question to you is, are they worth creating for your business?

Are you willing to invest to create this new type of Pin and hope that you’ll get more eyeballs on your Idea Pins through good ole Pinterest SEO? Or would you rather buy ads, so you get in front of the right shoppers immediately, today? 

Which growth strategy will you select: Hope and pray or pay to play? Remember, what you invest in time you pay for in money. Opportunity cost. 

Not sure what your Pinterest strategy should be in 2022? Contact me for an EYE-OPENING free 20-minute discovery call.