Set up audience targeting

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Audience targeting helps you reach a specific group of people by combining information about your customers with information about how people use Pinterest. You can target a group of people based on site visitors, an uploaded customer list of emails or mobile ad IDs (Android ad IDs), an engagement audience that interacted with Pins from your confirmed domain or an actalike audience that behaves similarly to one you already have.

Available audiences on Pinterest

Learn more about the different types of audiences on Pinterest, necessary requirements and how to set them up.

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 cart but did not check out. For pages, you might retarget visitors who have landed on specific URLs, like your checkout or confirmation pages.

Create a new site visitor audience

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

Click Create audience

Select Site visitors

Enter an Audience name and optional Audience description

Select your conversion source

Enter the past number of days you want to track visitors from and select to Include past traffic (optional)

If you want to add a filter to your audience, click Optional filters

Click Create

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

Target an existing site visitor audience

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign

Click Manual Campaign, then Get Started

At the left-side navigation, click New ad group

At the left-side navigation, click Targeting

Below Targeting strategy, select Reconnect with users

Next to Site visitors, click Use existing list

Click Select to the right of the list you want to target, then click Add selected lists

Once complete, select your Budget and Schedule, Optimization and delivery and Ads

Review your information

Click Publish

You can upload existing customers' emails or mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) through a single-column CSV file. Leave out any additional information you have, like 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 targeted advertising.

Keep in mind that your final audience list will likely be smaller than the total number of emails or mobile ad IDs (Android ad IDs) you originally uploaded as 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.

In connection with Apple's App Tracking Transparency Framework, please note the following requirements for sharing customer lists:

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

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

Click Create audience

Select Customer list

Enter an Audience name and optional Audience description

Click Choose file to upload your .CSV file

Click Create

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 trashcan icon on the Audiences page.

If your CSV upload fails, it’s likely that one of the above requirements has 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 do not update automatically unless they’re connected to a CRM with our Pinterest API partners. To delete a customer list audience, click the trashcan icon on the Audiences page.

Add or remove people to an existing customer list

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

From the list, find the audience you want to edit, then click Edit at the right side under Actions

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

Click Save

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

Replace an existing customer list

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

From the list, find the audience you want to edit, then click Edit at the right side under Actions

Select Replace audience, then Choose file to upload a new CSV file with new emails or MAIDs (AAIDs) from your computer

Click Save

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

Target an existing customer list audience

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign

Click Manual Campaign, then Get Started

At the left-side navigation, click New ad group

At the left-side navigation, click Targeting

Below Targeting strategy, select Reconnect with users or Choose your own

Reconnect with users: Below Targeting details, click Use existing list next to Customer Lists
Choose your own: Below Targeting details, click Use existing list

Once complete, select your Budget and Schedule, Optimization and delivery and Ads

Review your information

Click Publish

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 — People who have performed:

Any engagement action: create an audience that consists of people who’ve performed any engagement action with your content. Interactions may include Pin clicks, outbound clicks, saves, comments, and video views.

Optimized engagement actions: create an audience that consists of people 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 may 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

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

Click Create audience

Select Engagement

Enter an Audience name and optional Audience description

Choose your Engagement audience type by selecting Any engagement action or Optimized engagement actions

Select your engagement source type:

If you select Pin ID, Ad ID or Campaign ID, then enter your Pin ID, Ad ID, Campaign ID below (for multiple entries, separate each ID with a comma)
If you select Objective, select one from the list provided

Select your claimed domain

Click Create

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

Target an existing engagement audience

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign

Click Manual Campaign, then Get Started

At the left-side navigation, click New ad group

At the left-side navigation, click Targeting

Below Targeting strategy, select Reconnect with users

Next to Engagement, select Use existing list

Click Select to the right of the list you want to target, then click Add selected lists

Once complete, select your Budget and Schedule, Optimization and delivery and Ads

Review your information

Click Publish

When an ID or claimed domain is not selected, your engagement audience will be created from all the people 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

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage business, click Audiences

Click Create audience

Select Actalike customers

Enter an Audience name and optional Audience description

Choose a source audience list from the list below

Below Actalike country, select the country you want to target

Below Actalike range, select the percentage of people you want to target from your existing audience

Click Create

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

Under Log in to your Pinterest business account.

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign

Click Manual Campaign, then Get Started

At the left-side navigation, click New ad group

At the left-side navigation, click Targeting

Below Targeting strategy, select Find new customers

Next to Actalike customers, click Use existing list

Click Select to the right of the list you want to target, then click Add selected lists

Once complete, select your Budget and Schedule, Optimization and delivery and Ads

Review your information

Click Publish

Persona targeting helps you to reach specifically tailored, custom audiences on Pinterest. These audiences are created by the sales team at Pinterest on behalf of advertisers, and made up of lists of people who are not easily targeted by interest targeting and keyword targeting.

Persona targeting takes more signals from people’s behavior on Pinterest than interest targeting does, meaning that we can better group them by the actions they’re taking.

Note: Persona audiences can only be used with brand awareness, video views and consideration objectives.

How persona audiences are created

Persona audiences are created on behalf of advertisers by the sales team at Pinterest. This means that you do not have to create them as you do other audience lists. After a Persona audience has been created, you’ll be able to access them in your Audiences page, or select them for targeting in live campaigns.

If you want to learn more about personas, contact your account manager.

Target an existing persona audience

Click at the top-left of the page

Under Manage campaign, click Create campaign

Click Manual Campaign, then Get Started

At the left-side navigation, click New ad group

At the left-side navigation, click Targeting

Below Targeting strategy, select Choose your own

Below Targeting details, click Use existing list

Make sure that Personas is selected below Add an existing audience list

Click Select to the right of the list you want to target, then click Add selected lists

Once complete, select your Budget and Schedule, Optimization and delivery, and Ads

Review your information

Click Publish

Ad review process

Once you launch your campaign, we’ll review it to make sure it follows our Advertising guidelines. The campaign review process can take up to 24 hours.

If your campaign targeting goes against our advertising guidelines, we’ll send you a notification in Ads Manager letting you know what needs to change so that your ad can be reviewed again for approval. Once approved, we’ll start distributing your ad.

Explore targeting on Pinterest

If you want to set up multiple kinds of targeting on Pinterest or edit current campaign targeting, you can learn more in our targeting overview article.

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