Pin performance and distribution

How distribution works

Pinterest takes different factors into consideration when distributing Pins to people. When your Pin is seen by someone, they can engage with it in different ways. As users search, save and engage with your Pin, Pinterest uses that engagement information to determine what content is most relevant to share with people. Engagement is driven by what people who use Pinterest want to see and that can change over time.

There's no set engagement window for Pins, so it's possible that a Pin can gain engagement hours, days, months, or even years after it's first published. Engagement of your Pins can be impacted by language, location, seasons, holidays, formats and trending topics. You might see a brand new Pin have success right away, or older, previously published Pins suddenly increase in engagement.

Troubleshoot your performance

Over time, you may see your performance on Pinterest trend down. To troubleshoot your performance, review and make sure you’re following these best practices:

Include saved Pins: The Analytics Overview page shows only published Pins data by default. Check the box next to Include saved Pins under Data to include stats for Pins you’ve saved that are not linked to any of your claimed domains.

Claim your website: Claim your website to get access to analytics for the Pins you publish from your site, as well as the analytics on Pins that other people create from your site. Without claiming and verifying your website, all content you save will be considered saved content, and will not be highlighted in your Analytics Overview page.

Create your own Pins: Publish your own Pins with fresh, new content instead of saving other people’s Pins you find on Pinterest to see this reflected in your analytics. Pinterest no longer defaults to showing both published and saved Pins data in Analytics.

Create quality Pins: Make sure to create content using high quality images or videos. Blurry or distorted images and videos will make it difficult for people to see your idea. We recommend a 2:3 aspect ratio for images and videos that are anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds long.

Create regularly: Create Pins frequently and consistently to grow your following and increase your reach. Aim to create original content weekly. You can schedule Pins up to two weeks in advance that can be published in the future.

Avoid creating duplicate Pins: Try not to repeatedly save the same Pins or upload content that already exists on Pinterest. You may get flagged as spam and get temporarily blocked from creating Pins. If your content was uploaded by someone else, use the Content Claiming Portal to claim it.

If you’re a merchant, you can also:

Review your catalog: Check your catalog to make sure it has the correct metadata to distribute your content. Include optional fields that are applicable to your products in your product feed to increase reach to relevant Pinners. Pins with correct and comprehensive information such as up-to-date stock information, Google product category field and keyword rich metadata get more distribution.

Improve your performance

Once you’ve taken the steps above to troubleshoot possible changes in your performance, here are some best practices to follow to improve your content’s performance. When it comes to creation, you can:

Create inspiring content: The best-performing content on Pinterest incorporates solid lighting, great framing, high-resolution assets and stylized effects and/or text. Most of your Pinterest audience is on their mobile device, so it’s best to create with a vertical aspect ratio.

Encourage your audience to save your content: Engage your audience by including a call to action for them to save and follow. The more your ideas are saved or your account is followed, the more your content will show up across Pinterest. People on Pinterest feel even more invested in your content when you engage through comments and takes.

Add context to your Pins: When you add the right text to your Pins, more people will discover them. Add a description, title or link to your Pins, choose a strong thumbnail for your videos and save your content to a relevant board. When creating Pins, you can also list ingredients or instructions and tag relevant topics.

Use images and videos: You can easily upload images and videos to Pinterest with our publishing tools. Review your analytics and Pin stats to see what your audience is saving and engaging with the most and create more of that.

Create Pins in your audience’s language: Depending on your location and what language your content is in, your Pins can be distributed differently. For example, if you want to reach a French speaking audience but your Pins are in English, you may not get as much engagement as Pins that are in French.

Create trending content: Discover trending searches with Pinterest Trends to identify topics on the rise, the top search terms and topics or find seasonal changes to create relevant Pins. The search bar or the creator hub are other places to discover trending content. Pins last forever on Pinterest and high quality, relevant Pins can continue to resurface seasonally.

Add a Save button: Add the Save button to your website so people can save things straight from your site to Pinterest, allowing even more people to discover your content.

Create an ad: Create an ad from your Pin to distribute it to a wider, more targeted audience. Select a campaign objective to raise awareness, increase clicks to your site or increase sales.

Once you've created your Pins, here are some best practices when it comes to reviewing your Pins' performance:

Review your performance: Review your Pin stats on an individual Pin to see how people are engaging with it or review your Analytics overview to see your content’s overall performance, such as saves or Pin clicks. Make sure that the box next to Include saved Pins is checked under the filters to include stats for Pins you’ve saved that are not linked to any of your claimed domains.

Review Audience Insights: See which of your Pins resonate with your audience by looking at your Audience Insights. If you see that they have a high affinity for a certain topic or format, try producing content that might encourage higher engagement, especially saves.

Review Conversion Insights: Use the Conversion Insights dashboard to see which of your Pins drive the highest conversions on Pinterest. Pay attention to top conversion driving Pins and create more content like this or promote the content that's already leading Pinners to shop from your site.

Optimize your content: Review previously published Pins to include relevant keywords in your Pin title, Pin descriptions, board titles, board descriptions and website URL that follow our best practices. If you’re creating new Pins, add topic tags during the publishing process.

If you’re a merchant, you can also:

Upload a catalog: If you’re a merchant, upload a catalog of your products and create product groups that can be promoted with shopping ads.

Apply to be a verified merchant: For online retailers, the Verified Merchant Program helps people on Pinterest discover and buy from vetted brands. As a verified merchant, your Pins can appear organically on Pinterest Shopping surfaces to people who are actively searching for products and shopping on Pinterest.

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