Mapping Your Way to Pinterest Ad Success: What Every Business Needs to Know About Pinterest Attribution
Thinking about running ads on Pinterest? If you have an online business, you need to have an ongoing Pinterest presence and Pinterest ads certainly deliver. Part of your success on Pinterest lies in understanding Pinterest attribution.
Whether you’re brand new to the world of Pinterest ads or are a seasoned in Pinterest marketing, you can’t miss this read on Pinterest attribution.
What is Attribution?
There’s a lot to know when it comes to launching a successful and sustainable marketing campaign on Pinterest-including the significance of attribution.
In short, attribution is the way advertisers determine how their marketing efforts and customer interactions contribute to conversions, sales and other goals.
Some platforms rely upon a last-click attribution model that measures which touchpoint a customer last clicked on or engaged with right before purchasing.
This action is the one that a last click data tracking model gives 100% of the credit to.
Pinterest doesn’t rely on a last click model.
Below we dive into how and why Pinterest attribution varies from other platforms and what marketers need to do to ensure their success when launching ad campaigns on Pinterest.
Pinner Behavior and Attribution:
Pinners are planners. They go to Pinterest with the intent to plan their next event, make a purchase or both.
Not sure how Pinterest Attribution works? Here’s a quick peak using an example from a typical shoppers point of view:
You are at the mall dropping off a friend. You're driving around in your car and someone approaches you with a pamphlet explaining there is a jewelry sale in one of the shops.
You park your car and head into the mall on your way to the store you get stopped again by someone passing out the same pamphlet regarding the jewelry sale.
You find the store and get in line with the present you have selected, while waiting in line, someone else approaches and gives you another pamphlet for the same sale.
The original person who approached you outside of the mall, that's Pinterest, the one inside the mall is Facebook and the one who approached you while you were in line, that's Google.
If you didn't have any intent on coming into the mall, neither Facebook or Google would have had a chance to get in front of you, but because Pinterest inspired you to park your car and come in, you were driven to that final sale.
Once a potential customer discovers a Pin that speaks to what they’ve been searching for, they will perform one of five actions based on their own intent and the content on the Pin.
They will:
- Click on the Pin to view the information further
- Save the Pin: because they are planners, they’ll save it for their next big event or idea
- Go to a search engine and research your product and the other options out there
- Go to your website directly or through branded search in a browser to look more closely at your company and your products
- Make a purchase
This type of behavior is not accounted for in most attribution models, but is very normal and expected behavior on Pinterest.
This is why Pinterest works off of a first click attribution model that accounts for these actions.
Pinterest Attribution: Everything You Need to Know
Pinterest has a first click attribution model that captures the demand of their customers so they can attract, inspire, and increase basket size-- which in turn results in business growth and scalability.
When advertisers only rely on last click analytics, they miss out on all the other steps of the marketing journey that actually impact results.
The Pinterest attribution model takes in account the actions taken in the purchase journey of your customers.
Actions such as:
- Views
- Saves
- Video plays
- Click throughs
These actions are what build brands, customer loyalty and longevity.
Conversions on Pinterest, then, can be attributed to a click, an engagement or a view.
The issue with last click analytics is that they only give credit to the very last platform that drove the final action before a purchase was made.
Unlike the one and done mentality similar to what last click relies upon, the Pinterest attribution model relies on the different actions taken in the customer journey.
Using this model, Pinterest attribution takes into account those actions that contribute to an increase in conversions, repeat sales and the customer journey.
These are the actions that not only build profit, but build brands.
This mindset and expertise is exactly what Sunlight Digital specializes in.
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How To Track Success With Pinterest Attribution
Understanding Pinterest attribution will allow marketers to set attainable KPI’s and will lead to successful ad marketing on Pinterest.
Tracking conversions using third-party site analytics like the what you’ll see on Google with last-click solution won’t provide an accurate read on ad performance when marketing on Pinterest.
Using Ad Manager on Pinterest is one of the best ways to gauge the overall success of your Pinterest ads campaign.
When tracking the success of your Pinterest ads marketing, you’ll want to ensure that your attribution window is set for the best timeframe for the ad to be attributed to your campaign.
The default attribution window on Pinterest is 30/30/30. This means that Pinterest is reporting 30 days clicked/ 30 days engagment/30 days viewed. If an action occurs on day 45, for example, you wont’ see that conversion on the Pinterest dashboard in ads manager.
Conversions will always be attributed to the strongest action on your pin. So, if there’s been a click, it will be under clicks. If the strongest action was an engagement, it’ll be there, etc.
How to Measure Beyond Last Click: Action Steps for Tracking Pinterest Conversion Data & Attribution
Deciphering which actions garnish a conversion rather than relying on last click metrics in your online advertising efforts has long been a struggle of sorts for brands.
Last click metrics won’t provide the insights you need to measure your ad campaigns performance on Pinterest.
Here’s some action steps for combating this:
- Set a longer attribution window: a whopping 75% of Pinterest conversions happen a week after ad exposure! If your window is set too short, you won’t have accurate data. Remembering Pinner behavior (Pinners are planners!) Set that attribution window longer will eliminate this issue. As a general rule, the attribution window is 30/30/30.
- Use Enhanced Match to tie actions on your website to people on Pinterest. This feature on Pinterest provides insights into how your Pinterest campaigns are driving actions that may occur across different devices or browsers.
- Record ad views: Up to 95% of conversions captured by the Pinterest tag are attributed to ad views. Because ad views play a big role on Pinterest, recording these views across sessions, browsers and devices provides you with the data you’ll need to move your ad campaign forward.
Setting your attribution window on Pinterest as well as using Pinterest Ads Manager to set KPI’s for your ad campaigns are essential in measuring your marketing success on Pinterest.
If you’re looking to track your data further, you an implement Google Analytics and UTM tracking codes on your Pins.
This will enable you to further pin point which Pinterest ad contributed to email signups, website traffic and sales.
Accurately measuring your ad performance can be tricky. That’s why there’s Sunlight Digital: –we take the guesswork out of your ad marketing.
Wrapping Up Pinterest Attribution
Understanding attribution on Pinterest is key to any marketers efforts on the platform. While last click or last touch will continue to be a goto for marketers, using a combination of the Pinterest attribution window, ads manager and UTM tracking will help marketers track Pinterest conversions.
Pinterest continues to offer it’s marketers tools to ensure the success of their marketers. One such newer product that has just landed is the Premier Spotlight. This highlights retailers and brands within their ads and guides customers to a purchase decision.
With over 460 million monthly viewers, 1 billion videos being shown every day, and over 89% of it’s audience going to Pinterest with purchase intent, if you’re not marketing on Pinterest, you’re missing out on explosive traffic and sales.
Looking for more support with ensuring your success and profitability on Pinterest?
Sunlight Digital is here to guide your brand to the next level with expert Pinterest Ads Marketing, Organic Pinterest Marketing and so much more.
It’s time to grow your brand the way you’ve always imagined: schedule your call right here.
