It has been over a year since Pinterest first opened advertising to a select few, mostly large-scale brands. The original 12 brands were tied to expensive 6-month commitments, spending $150,000 per month during the timeframe. Fast-forward to February 2016, and agencies like Penna Powers now have access to one of the most coveted social audiences online. Using Pinterest’s initial CPM and CPC benchmarks of $30-$40 and $0.50-$1.50, we’ve launched our own campaigns with the results highlighted below. Before diving into the advertising costs, we thought it would be helpful to discuss what exactly makes up Pinterest advertising.
Advertising on Pinterest is simple and straightforward in selecting one of two options, either an engagement campaign or one that drives traffic. After choosing a campaign objective, you are directed to select an existing campaign or prompted to set up a new one, followed by selecting the Pin you would like to use as an ad. A stand-out feature of the ad dashboard is when selecting a Pin for promotion, Pinterest shows you the most clicked and repinned Pins during the last 30 days. Pinterest’s targeting creates a native experience both on the web and in-app by selecting your audiences interests and their location.
Our initial tests for both engagement and website click campaigns were setup for a very popular retail client that was recently granted Pinterest advertising access. Our results are below:
Pinterest Advertising Campaign Performance:
Engagement Campaign:
- CPE: $0.27
- eCPE: $0.26
- CPM: $5.30
- CTR: 1.99%
- eCTR: 2.03%
Website Click Campaign:
- CPC: $1.52
- eCPC: $1.52
- CTR: 0.04%
The success of the campaign and current projections of planned campaigns, we expect to see a large lift in website traffic from our Pinterest ads as more resources are put into the social channel. We are also seeing the audience spend more time on the client’s website and converting on various products, which is in line with the experience of much larger advertisers. Pinterest advertising has a huge upside, especially as it introduces more ad products down the road (including video ads). Data will also continue to trickle down from large advertisers to those of various sizes as Pinterest opens the platform further. In the mean time, if you haven’t already signed up your Pinterest account up for Promoted Pins, you can do so here.