Pinterest Ads: The Complete Guide to Succeeding with Your Ad Campaigns

On Pinterest, a search rarely amounts to a casual glance. The user is planning a wedding, preparing a renovation, putting together a seasonal wardrobe. Pinterest Ads taps into this high-intent environment to reach an audience in buying mode, weeks before the final decision.

With 619 million monthly active users in Q4 2025, the platform continues to grow across visual categories. For a home décor, fashion, beauty or travel brand, a campaign on Pinterest places you where purchasing decisions are formed.

At Doko, the same questions come up with most clients considering Pinterest Ads: how much does it cost, how to target accurately, which format to test first. This guide answers all three.

Key takeaways

• Pinterest Ads reaches a potential advertising audience of 18.9 million people in France (DataReportal, 2025).
• No fixed minimum budget: the system relies on bid floors and a billing threshold.
• Five campaign objectives exist: awareness, video views, consideration, leads and sales.
• Targeting combines keywords, interests, demographics and custom or lookalike audiences.
• The Pinterest Tag is not mandatory, but remains key for retargeting and conversion tracking.

Why Include Pinterest Ads in Your Marketing Strategy?

Before setting up a campaign, let us look at why Pinterest occupies a unique position.

Pinterest’s Key Figures in France

In Q4 2025, Pinterest had 619 million monthly active users, up 12% year on year. Europe accounts for 158 million, a quarter of the global audience.

In France, DataReportal estimates the potential advertising audience at 18.9 million people at the start of 2025 (+15.9% year on year). This figure comes from Pinterest’s planning tools, not an official MAU count.

This audience remains predominantly female (71.2% women versus 23.5% men), a useful point for refining demographic targeting.

Note : ne comparez pas ce chiffre de 18,9 millions à des MAU officiels d’autres plateformes ; la méthodologie diffère d’un organisme de mesure à l’autre.

Why Pinterest Advertising Differs from Facebook or Google Ads

Facebook captures a social intent, Google Ads an immediate transactional intent. Pinterest Ads works like a visual search engine where the user plans their purchases.

A sponsored Pin continues to circulate in feeds and search results long after its initial promotion, unlike a social post that quickly loses momentum. This longevity changes the budget equation.

For a brand, it is the opportunity to build qualified traffic over time, through Pinterest’s native keyword targeting.

How Do Pinterest Ads Work? (Formats and Distribution)

With the audience established, let us look at what these ads look like and where they appear.

Available Ad Formats (Pins, Videos, Carousels, Collections)

Pinterest Ads offers a wide range of formats, all built on the same principle: the sponsored Pin integrates natively into the feed, without breaking from organic content.

Where Do Your Ads Appear on the Platform?

Three placements carry Pinterest Ads: the home feed, search results and related Pins. Pinterest recommends targeting all these placements to let the algorithm optimise distribution.

The Premiere Spotlight format is the exception: it guarantees an exclusive placement, outside the auction system, through a daily buy.

Step by Step: How to Create Your First Pinterest Ads Campaign

Let us get practical, with the four steps to launch a Pinterest Ads campaign, from the professional account to the final visual.

1. Install the Pinterest Tag and Set Up Your Professional Account

You first need a Pinterest professional account and, ideally, the Pinterest Tag installed on the site: not mandatory to serve an ad, but essential as soon as the objective goes beyond awareness.

At Doko, this is often the first box we tick before discussing creative or budget: without the tag, there is no way to know whether a campaign is genuinely delivering.

Definition:

the Pinterest Tag is a tracking code installed on your site, which measures conversions and allows you to build retargeting audiences.

Three methods allow you to install it:

• 1. Passer par un partenaire d’intégration (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.).
• 2. Envoyer les instructions techniques à un développeur.
• 3. Installer le code manuellement sur le site.

To make tracking more reliable, Pinterest also offers the Conversions API, as a complement to the tag.

2. Define Your Marketing Objectives and Budget

The Pinterest Ads Manager offers five campaign objectives: awareness (Brand awareness), video views (Video completion), consideration, leads and sales (Sales).

Contrary to a common misconception, Pinterest Ads imposes no fixed minimum budget in euros: the platform applies bid floors by country and format, for example a minimum CPC of $0.10 in the United States and Canada.

A billing threshold of $50 applies for a new advertiser, which rises over time with payment history. The actual budget depends primarily on the daily budget set in the manager.

Note : no reliable cost-per-click benchmark exists for Pinterest Ads; the actual cost depends on your sector and competition on your keywords.

3. Target Your Audience Precisely (Keywords, Interests, Lookalike Audiences)

Keyword targeting remains one of Pinterest Ads’ key strengths. An ad group can contain up to 20,000 keywords, with a recommended minimum of 25.

These keywords combine with interest targeting, demographic criteria (age, gender, location, language, device) and custom audiences: site visitors, customer lists, engagement audiences.

Lookalike audiences extend reach towards profiles similar to your best customers. Performance+ goes further by automatically broadening distribution, for those who prefer to let the algorithm decide.

4. Create High-Performing Pin Visuals

The visual remains the number-one point of contact on Pinterest, a visual search engine rather than a scroll-through feed. Respecting the 2:3 ratio for images and keeping video to 6 to 15 seconds maximises compatibility.

A Pin that works shows the product in context, with text that is legible even at small size, since most browsing happens on mobile.

Best Practices to Maximise the ROI of Your Campaigns

Once the campaign is launched, the real work begins: continuous optimisation across three levers.

Polish the Design and Copywriting of Your Pins

A visual that respects the technical specifications starts with a distribution advantage. Copywriting must stay direct: a clear headline, a benefit identifiable at a glance.

Test several variants of the same sponsored Pin to identify the design and headline that generate the most traffic.

Leverage the Power of Retargeting

Retargeting on Pinterest Ads relies on the Pinterest Tag, which allows you to build audiences of site visitors, people who have engaged with your Pins, or existing customers.

These audiences typically display a higher conversion rate than a cold audience, and cover the full funnel when combined with a lookalike audience.

Analyse Performance via Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest Analytics centralises campaign tracking: impressions, clicks and conversions fed back by the Tag and the Conversions API. It allows you to filter results by campaign, period or device, to identify the ad groups that need adjustment.

The challenge is to regularly cross-reference this data with your objectives, to reallocate budget towards the best-performing ad groups. This is often where budget is lost, for lack of time to compare results against the initial objectives.

Pinterest Ads rewards accounts that iterate, not those that launch a campaign and forget it. For an outside perspective, the Doko team offers a free audit to identify the priority levers.

FAQ: Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest Advertising

What Is the Minimum Budget for Pinterest Ads?

There is no fixed minimum budget in euros: Pinterest applies bid floors by country and format, with a billing threshold of $50 for a new advertiser.

What Is the Difference Between a Regular Pin and a Sponsored Pin?

A sponsored Pin follows the same codes as an organic Pin, but is distributed via the Ads Manager, with targeting and an auction system, for paid visibility in the feed or search results.

Pinterest Ads vs Facebook Ads: What Are the Differences?

Facebook Ads responds to a social intent, Pinterest Ads captures a search and planning intent: a complementary tool within a multi-channel strategy.

How Does Targeting Work on Pinterest Ads?

Targeting combines keywords (up to 20,000 per ad group), interests, demographic criteria and custom or lookalike audiences, with automatic extension possible via Performance+.

What Is the Pinterest Tag?

The Pinterest Tag is a tracking code that measures conversions and powers retargeting — not mandatory to serve an ad but essential as soon as the objective goes beyond awareness.

Sources

• Source : https://backlinko.com/pinterest-users
• Source : https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-france
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/set-your-bid
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/how-billing-works
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/keyword-targeting
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/simplified-objectives
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/pinterest-product-specs
• Source : https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/create-a-carousel
• Source : https://www.demandsage.com/pinterest-statistics/