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Pinterest, PPC, Reporting

Pinterest Ads KPIs and Metrics to Optimize Your Campaigns

By Team Swydo
28 February 2024

Pinterest is a popular online platform where people find and share pictures, videos, and ideas. On Pinterest, you can create digital pinboards to organize whatever interests you. For example, you may have boards for recipes, home decor ideas, fashion outfits, and more. 

Over 465 million people use Pinterest monthly to browse these pinboards and get inspiration. Businesses can reach this vast audience via Pinterest Advertising campaigns to promote products and services. 80% of weekly visitors have discovered a new product or brand on Pinterest.

When starting a client’s Pinterest Ad campaign, you need to consider their goals and ensure you can track progress toward those goals. Analyzing key performance indicators is crucial to optimizing campaigns and measuring marketing efforts. Let’s take a closer look at Pinterest Ads, the essential Pinterest KPIs you should be monitoring, and reporting best practices.

What Are Pinterest Ads?

Pinterest is a social media platform known for its image-centric and visual discovery format. The platform provides the opportunity for strong user engagement in lifestyle, home decor, fashion and DIY projects.

Pinterest Ads allow businesses and brands to target and promote products or services on the Pinterest platform. Advertisers can create various ads, including promoted pins, video ads, and carousel ads. These creatives can appear in users’ Pinterest feeds, search results, or other places within the platform. Marketers typically use Pinterest Ads to boost brand awareness, drive website traffic and increase conversions.

Benefits of Tracking Pinterest Ads Campaign Performance

Tracking the performance of Pinterest Ad campaigns provides valuable insights and benefits for businesses. Here are some compelling reasons why tracking Pinterest Ads performance is essential:

Increase Return on Investment (ROI): Monitoring ROI enables effective budget allocation. By tracking campaign performance, you can identify which ads deliver the best engagement and conversions. Based upon this data, you’ll know where to invest your resources, ultimately improving your bottom line.

Enhance Targeting and Personalization: Regular tracking lets you understand your audience better. Start by identifying which demographics are more responsive, and tailor your ads to better resonate with your target audience. Following these steps will increasing the relevance and effectiveness of your campaigns.

Improve Data-Driven Decision-Making: Accurate tracking enables data-driven decisions, avoiding guesswork. You can analyze trends, understand what works, and make informed decisions about ad content, targeting, and budget allocation.

Optimize Ad Content and Creatives: Determine which types of images, copy, and calls-to-action perform best. Optimized ads lead to higher engagement rates and better overall campaign performance.

Enhanced Reporting to Stakeholders: Accurate and detailed tracking provides valuable data you can present to clients and stakeholders. This transparency builds confidence in your marketing strategies and helps justify ad spend.

Tracking your Pinterest Ads performance is necessary for optimizing your advertising efforts, ensuring efficient spending, and driving better results. 

How to Measure and Track Your Pinterest Ads Campaign Results

Measuring and tracking your Pinterest Ads campaign results is crucial to understanding the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. Continuous monitoring allows you to optimize and improve your advertising strategies on Pinterest for better results.

To track your Pinterest Ads campaign results effectively, you’ll want to implement a few fundamental analytical tools:

Set Clear Objectives: Define specific goals aligning with your overall marketing strategy. Whether it’s lead generation, driving website clicks, increasing online purchases, or boosting brand awareness. To be successful, you need to align your campaign with concrete goals, and focus on tracking the most relevant metrics.

Select Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):  You need to measure progress toward the goals you’ve established for a campaign. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measurements or data points that gauge performance against your campaign goal or objective.

Pinterest Analytics: Built into the platform, Pinterest analytics provides ad performance data on impressions, engagements, clicks and more. 

Google Analytics 4: Integrate Google Analytics 4 with your website to track the traffic from Pinterest. You’ll better understand user behavior on your site after they click on your ads.

Pinterest Tag: Implement the Pinterest Tag code on your website to track conversions from your Pinterest Ads. You’ll see how many sales, signups, or other actions are happening because of your ads.

UTM Parameters: Use UTM parameters on your ad URLs. You’ll get insights on which specific ads or campaigns drive traffic to your site via Google Analytics .

Implement these tools and gain a better understanding of your Pinterest Ads results. This will also help you determine Pinterest’s impact on your overall marketing goals.

Pinterest Ads KPIs You Should Track

We’e already discussed how important it is to establish clear goals when starting a Pinterest Ads campaign. The next vital step is establish and track certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance against these goals. Here are some Pinterest KPIs that you should consider tracking:

  • Impressions: Tracking impressions – the number of times your ad is displayed – helps you determine campaign reach. Pay close attention to impression trends to identify effective tactics and understand audience behaviors.
  • Outbound Clicks: Clicks indicate the number of times users interacted with your ad by clicking on it. A high click count demonstrates an appealing ad design and message that catches people’s attention. Monitor click-through rate as well to optimize your creative and targeting. Analyze click sources to refine target audiences.
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric reveals how compelling your ad content is at grabbing interest. CTR reflects the ratio of impressions to clicks an ad received. Test different headlines, videos, and images to boost engagement. Pay special attention to low-CTR ads and make improvements based on audience insights.
  • Conversions: Conversions measure valuable outcomes like purchases, signups, or downloads from your ads. Tracking this KPI allows for evaluating return on investment (ROI). Pay attention to high-converting demographics and day or placement patterns to fine-tune campaigns. Adjust bids depending on the conversion rate to elongate impressions for best-performing creative.
  • Cost Per Conversion: This key performance indicator measures the average cost per conversion from Pinterest Ads. To get it, divide the entire spending on ads by the number of people converting. You may learn a lot about the efficacy and ROI of your advertising initiatives by monitoring Cost Per Conversion. 
  • Conversion Rate: This metric reflects the percentage of the visitors who clicked on an ad and then took a desired action. The desired action is the conversion, and could be a purchase, a sign-up or something else. Regularly check conversion rate to see how well your landing page, ad copy, and targeting are performing.
  • Cost per Click (CPC): CPC indicates the average amount paid for each ad click. Monitor this metric closely alongside CTR and control bids to maximize profitable clicks. Take note of patterns in geography, device, or audience affecting CPC to refine bids prudently. Regular benchmarking of CPC is essential to gauge improved efficiency over campaigns.
  • Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): ROAS refers to the total revenue generated from each dollar spent on ads. It is an essential metric to maximize as it indicates campaign profitability. Tracking ROAS helps allocate budgets optimally to maximize returns efficiently. Regularly review ROAS to identify high-performing creatives, audiences, or placements deserving of increased investment.
  • Ad Spend: Refers to the total amount of money allocated and spent on your advertising efforts on Pinterest. Monitoring ad spend ensures you leverage your advertising budget adeptly and stay within your financial limits. Understanding ad spend helps you make decisions about budgeting and optimization of future campaigns.
  • Engagements: The engagement metric tracks how users interact with and use your Pinterest Ads. Among the data included are closeups, likes, comments, and shares. Engagement indicates how well your ad content and creativity are attracting your target audience’s attention and interest. Higher engagement rates reflect user interest, and can drive brand recognition, consideration, and conversions.

An effective Pinterest Ads report should thoughtfully select which metrics provide the most significant insights. Does your reporting capture indicators that reveal how ads drive traffic, leads, and sales? Evaluating the right metrics guides informed decision-making.

Essentials to Include in Your Pinterest Ads KPI Dashboard

To track and monitor your campaign performance effectively, your Pinterest Ads dashboard should include the following elements:

  • Overall Campaign Performance: Tracking overall performance helps evaluate the campaign’s effectiveness at a glance. This includes a high-level overview of Pinterest Ads’ key performance metrics like impressions, clicks, spending, ROI, etc.
  • Performance by Ad Group: Review metrics for different ad sets/groups. Compare the performance of unique audience targeting, creative, and more.
  • Top Performing Pins: Pin-level insights show the most engaging content. Take a deep dive into what drives sharing like images, descriptions, or board placement.
  • Demographic Insights: Age, gender, and location data provide optimization clues to fine-tune targeting for better results.
  • Performance Over Time: Tracking metrics across days or weeks detects seasonal/daily impact for capitalizing on high-performing periods.
  • Cost Analysis: Determine how to spend budget by evaluating advertising costs by placement or device.
  • Goal Tracking: Monitoring progress toward lead/revenue targets for timely campaign adjustments.

    Further reading: What Should Be Included In A KPI Report: 4 Essentials

How to Create a Custom Pinterest Ads Report or Dashboard with Swydo

Creating a custom Pinterest Ads report or dashboard with Swydo is straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

  • Sign in to Swydo: Access your Swydo account and navigate the reporting section.
  • Select Pinterest Ads as a Data Source: Choose Pinterest Ads as the data source for your report or dashboard.
  • Templates: Use Swydo’s Pinterest Ads templates as a starting point for your report or dashboard. These templates provide a foundation to customize to align with your client’s specific requirements and branding.
  • Customize Metrics and KPIs: Select the specific metrics and (KPIs) you want to include in your report. Swydo offers a wide range of pre-built widgets for reporting on Pinterest Ads, such as reach, engagement, conversions, and more. You can also add custom metrics if needed.
  • Goal Tracking: Set up goal tracking to measure the performance of your Pinterest Ads campaigns against predefined objectives. Monitor and showcase progress toward your clients’ or stakeholders’ goals.
  • Design and Branding: Customize the visual appearance of your report or dashboard to match your client’s and agency’s branding. Add logos, color schemes, and other elements to create a professional and cohesive look.
  • Share and Schedule: Share your reports or dashboards with your clients. You can send them via email, generate a shareable link, or even integrate them into a client portal. Additionally, you can schedule automated delivery of reports at regular intervals.

Best Practices for Pinterest Ads Campaign Reporting

Effective Pinterest Ads campaign reporting involves several best practices to accurately assess performance and make informed decisions. Here are some vital best practices to consider:

Define Clear Objectives: Start by determining the objectives of your Pinterest campaign. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving traffic, or boosting sales, your goals will guide what metrics you should focus on in your reports.

Utilize Pinterest Analytics (or GA4): Use Pinterest Analytics for detailed insights into your campaign’s performance. Depending on your campaign goals, focus on metrics like impressions, engagement rate, click-through rate (CTR), and conversions.

Regular and Consistent Reporting: Establish a regular schedule for your reporting. Whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, consistent reporting helps track progress and trends.

Incorporate Visual Elements: Include graphical representations of data such as charts and graphs in your reports. Integrating visual elements into your data makes it more accessible and easier to understand.

Segment Data for Clarity: Break down your data into segments such as different demographics, ad types, or time periods. This segmentation can provide more precise insights the aspects of your campaign which are performing well.

Monitor and Report ROI: Keep a close eye on your return on investment. Compare the revenue or value generated against ad spend to understand the financial effectiveness of your campaigns.

Include Comparative Analysis: Compare campaign performance over time to identify trends, improvements, and areas that need more attention.

Track and Adjust Budget Allocation: Monitor budget across different campaigns or ad groups. Report on the effectiveness of this spending to reach your campaign goals.

Provide Context and Insights: Don’t just present data; offer insights and interpretations. Explain what the metrics mean for the campaign and suggest possible reasons for specific trends or results.

Recommend Actionable Steps: Based on your findings, recommend actionable steps for future campaigns, including adjustments in targeting, budget allocation, or creative strategy.

Leverage Custom Reporting Tools: Get a more holistic view of you digital marketing efforts. Use custom reporting tools to help integrate data from Pinterest Ads with other marketing sources.

These best practices will help you create more effective and insightful reports to guide strategic decisions in your advertising efforts.

Conclusion

Monitoring your Pinterest Ads campaign performance is essential to evaluate effectiveness and track progress towards your clients’ goals. 

Swydo supports the ongoing campaign optimization process through its easy-to-use automated reporting and monitoring platform. Digital marketers in over 80 countries use Swydo to provide actionable insights into campaign performance. See what the platform can do for your organization! Start today by requesting a demo or signing up for a free 14-day trial.