Visitor retargeting identifies people who have already visited your site and lets you retarget them on Pinterest.

To create visitor audiences, you need to set up the Pinterest tag. Add the base code across every page on your site and add the event code to pages where you want to track the actions you care about.

You can create a target audience based on one or more specific event tags on your site or based on one or more pages that people have visited on your site. For events, you might retarget visitors who added a specific type of product to their basket but did not check out. For pages, you might retarget visitors who have landed on specific URLs, such as your checkout or confirmation pages.

Create a new site visitor audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. Click Create audience
4. Select Site visitors
5. Enter a Name and Description for your audience
6. Select your conversion source
7. Enter the duration of days you want to track visitors from and optionally select to Include past traffic
8. If you want to add a filter to your audience, click Add a filter
9. Click Create

Note: Once you've created your audience, the audience size will be updated within 24 hours on the Audiences page in Ads Manager. To delete a site visitor audience, click the bin icon on the Audiences page.

Target an existing site visitor audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Create ad
3. Click New ad group from the left-hand side navigation
4. Click Targeting from the left-hand side navigation
5. Below Audience, find and select your audience list 
6. When complete, select your Budget & schedule, Optimisation & delivery and Ads
7. Review your information
8. Click Launch

You can upload existing customer emails or mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) through a single-column CSV file. Leave out any additional information you have, such as names, phone numbers or physical addresses. 

Do not upload customer lists that: 

• Are based on user activity from an app or website on an iOS device. This includes lists that contain IDFA data.
• Include individuals that have exercised an option to opt out of targeted advertising.

Bear in mind that your final audience list will probably be smaller than the total number of emails or mobile ad IDs (Android ad IDs) you originally uploaded, since we match your customer list to people on Pinterest.

Customer list requirements

Before sharing customer lists with us, please review this section as well as our Ad Data Terms and Advertising Guidelines to understand our requirements and restrictions. 

As part of our plans to leverage Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework which we shared in May 2021, please note the following changes to our requirements for using our Customer List product: Do not send Pinterest customer lists that are based on user activity from an app or website on an iOS device. Do not send Pinterest information about any individual who has exercised an option to opt out of having such data used for targeted advertising purposes. 

Format your customer list

You can use several different formats to upload your customer list:

• Email files: Cleartext, SHA256, MD5 hash key. Must include an “@”.
• MAID files: Cleartext, SHA1, SHA256, MD5 hash keys. AAIDs (Android ad IDs) must be lowercase. MAIDs (AAIDs) should follow the format 8-4-4-4-12.

Create a new customer list audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. Click Create audience
4. Select A list of customers that you upload, then click Next
5. Enter a Name and Description for your audience
6. Click Choose file to upload your .CSV file
7. Click Create

Note: Once you’ve created your audience based on your customer list, the audience size will update within 24-48 hours on the Audiences page in Ads Manager. To delete a customer list audience, click the bin icon on the Audiences page.

If your CSV upload fails, it’s likely that one of the above requirements have not been met. Headers, titles and empty rows or tabs that create breaks should not be included.

Once your list has at least 100 matches, the status will turn green on the Audiences page in Ads Manager and you'll be able to use that audience for your ad. If your list has fewer than 100 matches, the status will be red on the Audiences page and you will not be able to use that audience. Try to add more emails or MAIDs (AAIDs) to the existing list to increase the chance of getting additional matches. To do this, follow the edit steps below.

Edit customer lists

When you upload your customer list to Pinterest, it's immediately hashed and can’t be re-downloaded or accessed again. You can choose to add or remove people from an existing customer list or to replace an existing customer list. Customer lists are not updated automatically unless they’re connected to a CRM with our Pinterest API partners. To delete a customer list audience, click on the bin icon on the Audiences page.

Add or remove people to an existing customer list

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. From the list, find the audience you want to edit, then click Edit on the right-hand side under Actions
4. Select Add people or Remove people, then Choose file to upload a new CSV file with the emails or MAIDs (AAIDs) you want to add or remove
5. Click Save

Once your customer list audience has been uploaded successfully, you can target campaigns to people using your list.

Replace an existing customer list

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. From the list, find the audience you want to edit, then click Edit on the right-hand side under Actions
4. Select Replace audience, then Choose file to upload a new CSV file with new emails or MAIDs (AAIDs) from your computer
5. Click Save

Once your customer list audience has been uploaded successfully, you can target campaigns to people using your list.

Target an existing customer list audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Create ad
3. Click New ad group from the left-side navigation
4. Click Targeting from the left-hand side navigation
5. Under Audience, find and select your audience list
6. Select Include or Exclude
   • Select Include to reach the people who are part of your chosen audience
   • Select Exclude to reach people on Pinterest who aren’t a part of the audience you’ve uploaded
7. When complete, select your Budget & schedule, Optimisation & delivery and Ads
8. Review your information
9. Click Launch

Note: As of 2 November 2021, we no longer require advertisers to claim a website before creating an engagement audience. Engagement audiences created before 2 November will be transformed automatically into audiences based on any engagement action.

Engagement targeting allows you to show ads to qualified audiences who’ve previously interacted with your content on Pinterest. 

Engagement audience types

As you create an engagement audience, you can select from two types of engagement audiences — Pinners who have performed:

• Any engagement action: Create an audience that consists of Pinners who’ve performed any engagement action with your content. Interactions can include Pin clicks, outbound clicks, saves, comments and video views.
• Optimised engagement actions: Create an audience that consists of Pinners selected based on high intent actions (such as saves and outbound clicks) to help you get the best results.

Note: Actions used to create engagement audiences are subject to change, as new actions are introduced or existing actions are updated.

Engagement audience sources

After selecting the type of engagement audience, you can create engagement audiences based on interactions with any of your Pins, ads, Campaigns or campaign objectives. 

Only Pins published by your business account or ads/campaigns created by your ad account can be selected. 

If you have claimed your business website, you can also select your claimed domain. Users who’ve engaged with Pins (organic) or ads (paid) from your claimed domains will be included in your engagement audience.

Create a new engagement audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. Click Create audience
4. Select Engagement
5. Enter a Name and Description for your audience
6. Choose your Engagement audience type by selecting Any engagement action or Optimised engagement actions 
7. Select your engagement source type:
   1. Pin ID, Ad ID, Campaign ID (for multiple entries, separate each ID with a comma)
   2. Campaign objective
   3. Claimed domain
8. Click Create

Note: Once you’ve created your audience, the audience size will be updated within 24 hours on the Audiences page in Ads Manager. Once the audience is available, you can use it to target ads or create actalike audiences. To delete an engagement audience, click the bin icon on the Audiences page.

Target an existing engagement audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Create ad
3. Click New ad group from the left-hand side navigation
4. Click Targeting from the left-hand side navigation
5. Select Reconnect with users under Targeting Strategy
6. Select Use existing list beside Engagement audience
7. Select the engagement audience that you wish to include in your campaign
8. Select your Budget & Schedule, Optimisation & delivery and Ads
9. Review your information
10. Click Launch

When an ID or claimed domain is not selected, your engagement audience will be created from all the Pinners that have engaged with any Pins created from your account.
 

Actalike targeting helps you reach people similar to one of your existing audiences. You can use actalike audiences to find new customers, new people who are likely to engage with your Pins, or new people who are likely to visit your website based on your source audience. You can also create a new, more specified audience based on one of your existing audiences. The source audience will not be a part of the new actalike audience.

Create a new actalike audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Audiences
3. Click Create audience
4. Select Actalike customers
5. Enter a Name and Description for your audience
6. Select the country you want to target
7. Select the percentage of people you want to target from your existing audience
8. Click Create

Note: Once you’ve created your audience, the audience size will update within 24 hours on the Audiences page in Ads Manager. If your source audience is also new, the audience size will update within 72 hours. To delete an actalike audience, click the trashcan icon on the Audiences page.

Target an existing actalike audience

1. Log in to your Pinterest business account
2. Click Ads at the top of the screen, then click Create campaign
3. Click New ad group from the left-hand side navigation
4. Choose a targeting strategy
5. Below Targeting details, find and select your audience list
6. Go back to Ads Manager to use the audience you created
7. When complete, select your Budget & schedule, Optimisation & delivery and Ads
8. Review your information
9. Click Publish