Pinterest Analytics: What You Need to Know

More users than ever are using social media to figure out which products to buy, and no social channel is better primed for product discovery than Pinterest. The visual pin-based channel is the perfect place for all of your content to live, and with the addition of Idea Pins, your ability to tell your brand story using text, images and video has never been more customizable. The time is now to start investing in your Pinterest strategy.

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Proudly described as a visual discovery engine, pinners thrive on the alchemy of searching and being served actionable and engaging content on Pinterest—and brands have made their stake on the channel. Pinners, no matter which stage of the buying cycle they are in, are in a purchasing mindset. Unlike other channels, Pinterest is about yourself, not your selfie. Pinterest users share their most intimate creative thoughts, which is no surprise, considering two thirds of users describe Pinterest as a place to find products, services, and ideas that they trust.

Savvy brands are making the most of the opportunity to connect with their purchase focused buyers through multiple touchpoints. How? If you caught our three-part series on how to grow your organic Pinterest strategy, you know that brands need to approach it with a completely different lens than Instagram. Content best practices, optimal times to post, and audience behavior are each a whole different ball game.

What are Pinterest Analytics and Why are They Important?

Pinterest analytics are various metrics that come together to explain your overall brand presence and success on the platform. Each of these individual Pinterest metrics help explain what is performing well, and why, as well as vice versa, what isn’t performing well.

The reason it is so important to track your Pinterest analytics on mobile and desktop is because it gives you an in-depth understanding of what your target audience is looking for. Pin impressions, engagements with your pins, video views, and your top pins are all signals for which content pillars your brand should be leaning into on the channel. Without these specific insights, it’s nearly impossible to tell what points of your pins users are interacting with and more.

The Most Important Analytics to Track

Now that it’s clear exactly what Pinterest analytics are, and how important they are, it’s time to explore the most important analytics and metrics for you to track. 

Historically, engagement, saves, and top converting pins are great metrics to keep eye on. Each gives you insight into what users are engaging with, and what they like in certain date ranges, such as the last 30 days. This can really help you build your strategy for the future. Outbound clicks (formally link clicks), are also a must when it comes to metrics to look out for. This metric lets you know the total number of times your pins drive customers to your site.

Lastly, there is a lot of value in simple demographics. Knowing who your audience is, or where they’re from, can really help you personalize your pins to those special users and curate an engaged audience.

Pinterest Analytics by Dash Hudson

Ensuring that you are measuring and optimizing for every conversion on this referral and revenue-driving channel is crucial for brands to drive real ROI on Pinterest. With many brands being new to Pinterest, understanding performance on the channel tends to be a mystery to many social marketers. To save you from wasting time with spreadsheets and grueling calculations, we brought you the first-ever Pinterest analytics tool built for the enterprise— Dash Hudson Pinterest Analytics.

Built with the most important brands in the world in mind, Dash Hudson’s Pinterest Insights surface meaningful data that inform which pins you’ve created are engaging a brand's target market, and ultimately, driving traffic and revenue. Easily uncover what visuals are inspiring action from pinners, monitor KPIs in one place, and bulk publish content to feed the Pinternet. It’s your favorite visual marketing channels all seamlessly integrated in the Dash Hudson platform that you already know and love.

Let’s dive into how sophisticated marketers are using the platform to propel growth on Pinterest.

1. Surface, Schedule, Publish, Repeat.

The number one priority on Pinterest is to feed the engine. Pinterest is a visual discovery channel—think of it like a well-curated Google for millenials. Your content only has a few ways to get into the network, so it is important that you’re using each opportunity to pump inspiring creative and actionable ideas into your channel.

We’ve chatted about the magic of repurposing photos and videos for Pinterest. With best practices encouraging posting 30-300 times a week (whew!), leveraging your content library and killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, is critical. Lucky for you, Dash Hudson Library is fully integrated across channels, earned and owned content, and within your multi-channel scheduler.

Start with our AI-backed library, search based on visual queue, and select the photos that you want to optimize for Pinterest. Ensure that you are following Pinterest's content best practices with ratio (2:3 is preferred!), and stacking engaging content with Dash Hudson's Story Studio to optimize conversions.

Once the content is Pinterest-ready, seamlessly bulk schedule up to 10 pins at a time through the Dash Hudson Scheduler. With Pinterest Auto-Publish, set it and forget it.

2. Pin Performance: Measure, Optimize, Convert, Repeat.

Think about Pinterest engagements like a sales funnel. Ensuring that your content is getting impressions is critical. If you aren’t being found on home feeds, you are missing the top of funnel opportunities to educate your audience and be discovered.

The next engagement would be a close up. A close up is the next step of deeper engagement, when a user clicks the pin to enlarge it. This shows their interest and intent is getting deeper, and that the visual caught their attention.

After getting a closer look, pinners either save the pin for later, or click through to your website, which is the ultimate goal for most brands. With Dash Hudson Pinterest Analytics, brands can easily understand what pins are driving each stage of engagement, and gather actionable insights to drive performance at each stage of the process.

Pins are like a fine wine—they keep getting better with age. Unlike other social posts that are only relevant for a hot sec, pins have a lifespan of years. Identifying and measuring these pins over time is critical to demystify the success behind your Pinterest strategy.

3) Create Content Pillars and Benchmarks, Inform Creative, Increase Conversions.

Dash Hudson’s eternally loved content segmentation tool, Boards is fully loaded and ready for Pinterest. Not to be confused, Dash Hudson Boards and Pinterest Boards are two different tools. Pinterest Boards are for organizing your content on your Pinterest profile. Dash Hudson boards allow brands to identify visual trends for top performing content, measure specific campaigns, even create benchmarks for different content pillars. You’re welcome.

Start by grouping all of your most clicked content to figure out what is stopping your audience mid scroll. Your holiday campaign? Put it in a board to create measurable benchmarks for the next one. Are lifestyle, product shots, or educational content working best for you? Create boards to surface what your audience wants, inform creative, and move the metrics that matter.

Ready, Set, Pin.

Savvy marketers know that it’s time to take Pinterest to the next level, and dig deep on what is working, and most importantly, understand why. Interested? Reach out to our customer success team to get started.

Pinterest Analytics FAQs

How do I read Pinterest Analytics?

Luckily, analytics on your Pinterest business account are quite easy to decode. Each metric should have an explanation accompanying it, describing what exactly your data is trying to tell you. To access Pinterest Analytics on mobile, open your Pinterest app and click your profile. Select the bar chart in the top left corner, and click 'Analytics' to check native Pinterest analytics on your mobile device.

Are Pinterest Analytics accurate?

All analytics tools measure metrics differently. That being said, Dash Hudson’s analytics tool uses API access in order to ensure the most accurate representation of analytics possible.

How do I see how many views my Pinterest has?

The metric that will help you see this information is total audience. This metric allows you to sort your views based off of whatever timeline you choose.

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