Adsmurai 
Pinterest is unique among other social platforms because of the objective of the users on it - inspiration, and new product discovery. An ideal context for brands to advertise and meet users in a perfect spot to convert them into customers. In fact, through the Shopping or Collection ads that Pinterest offers, brands can triple their conversion and double the positive incremental return on their ad spend (ROAS).
In this ultimate guide to Pinterest Ads, we’re covering everything you need to know about Pinterest Ad Formats: from choosing the right ad type to the ad specs required to make sure they stand out from the crowd.
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Are Pinterest Ads worth it for your business?
According to Pinterest, nine out of ten people use Pinterest to inspire their purchases and eight of them end up buying what they saw on the platform. Pinterest Ads are like ads on a bus full of people going to the mall - everyone is ready to shop and your brand is just in front of them.
If we go one step further, Pinterest Advertising adds sense to the discovery aim of the platform. As Pinners are looking to discover new products, brands and projects, they’re more likely to appreciate ads than on any other platform. This context is super effective for businesses that want to either boost brand awareness, drive traffic, increase conversions, or launch a full-funnel strategy.
Another interesting thing about Pinterest Ads is that as an account holder of the platform, you can promote existing best-performing pins, create new images and videos, or promote an image that has been pinned from your website. These ads will typically be shown to the audience based on the user’s historical activity.
So, now that you know why you should start running Pinterest Ads campaigns, let’s dive into the platform ad types and the specifications of each format to help you run effective campaigns to stand out from the crowd.
Different Pinterest Ad Types based on campaign objectives
Probably one of the most important Pinterest Ads best practices is to use an ad format that meets your specific campaign goals. The platform offers several ad types with unique values to reach key campaign objectives.
Whether your goal is to drive awareness, get visitors or get people to take action, Pinterest has an ad solution to fit your task. Let’s map Pinterest marketing solutions and give some tips for each of them based on client objectives.
Awareness
These campaigns will help your business get discovered everywhere by everyone. You can also run Video Views campaigns to get the most eyeball possible on your content.
- Objective and bid type: Awareness (CPM)
- Recommended format: Standard ads, standard & max-width video, Premiere Spotlight
- Targeting: demographics, interests, keywords
- Creatives: Strong branding, prominent logo, aspirational imagery, product shots
- KPI: Reach, CPM, Brand Lift
Consideration
This goal is for businesses who are looking for clicks on their Pins, to move Pinterest users deeper into the funnel.
- Objective and bid type: Consideration (CPC). Automatic bidding.
- Recommended format: Standard ads, Collections
- Targeting: Interests, keywords
- Creatives: Content with clear call-to-action encouraging click-through, on-theme products, and copy
- KPI: CPC, CTR
Purchase
Either if you are choosing Conversions or Catalog Sales as your campaign objective, you are focusing on obtaining a specific result related to getting money.
- Objective and bid type: Conversions (CPA). Automatic bidding
- Recommended format: Standard ads, standard video ads, Lead Ads
- Targeting: Broad targeting, actalikes at 10%
- Creatives: Strong branding, prominent logo, clear call-to-action encouraging “shop now”, including pricing, shopping pins
- KPI: CPA, ROAS
Now that you know the different Pinterest ad types, take a look at the specification for each Pinterest ad format: definitely, the first Pinterest creative best practice when advertising your brand, as you are facing a purely visual platform.
All the Pinterest Ad Specs you must know
Have you heard about the power of compelling ads? Once you have chosen the right Pinterest Ad format, it is key to follow the specifications related to file size and other tricky details of the ad. If you run pixelated or oddly cropped creatives, your ads will not be seen by your target audience and you will be missing some key screen space that could be used to showcase your product or service.
Down here you will find Pinterest creative specs for each of the Pinterest ad formats you can choose for your campaigns:
Pinterest Ad Format #1: Standard Ads
What are Standard Ads on Pinterest? An Ad format that features only one image.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 20 MB.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels. Pins with an aspect ratio greater than 2:3 might get cut off in people's feeds.
- Title: Enter up to 100 characters. Depending on the device, the first 40 characters may show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Enter up to 500 characters. Descriptions do not appear when viewing the Pin in the home feed or search feed.
Pinterest Ad Format #2: Standard Width Video Ads
What are Pinterest Video Ads? Standard with video ads are those that have the same size as a regular Pin.
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Max file size: Up to 2GB.
- Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: Shorter than 1:2 (width:height), taller than 1.91:1. We recommend making your videos square (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16).
- Title: Enter up to 100 characters. Depending on the device, the first 40 characters may show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Enter up to 500 characters. Descriptions do not appear when viewing the Pin in the home feed or search feed.
Pinterest Ad Format #3: Max. Width Video Ads
This format of Pinterest Video Ads are those that expand across people’s entire feed on mobile.
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Max file size: Up to 2GB.
- Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: Square (1:1) or widescreen (16:9). Note that max. width videos can't exceed the height of a 1:1 aspect ratio.
- Title: Enter up to 100 characters. Depending on the device, the first 40 characters may show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Enter up to 500 characters. Descriptions do not appear when viewing the Pin in the home feed or search feed.
Pinterest Ad Format #4: Carousel Ads
Have you ever used Carousel Ads on Pinterest? These Pinterest ad formats feature multiple images for people to swipe through. They are a good way to showcase different features of a product or tell your brand story in chapters.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 32MG per image.
- Creative quantity: 2-5 images per carousel.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 2:3
- Title: Enter up to 100 characters. Depending on the device, the first 40 characters may show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Enter up to 500 characters. Descriptions do not appear when viewing the Pin in the home feed or search feed.
Pinterest Ad Format #5: Shopping Ads
By choosing the catalog sales objective in Ads Manager, you can create Shopping Ads. This ad format is made of a single image that promotes a product relevant to people’s interests, that’s why their specs are the same as the Standard Ads.
Pinterest catalog ads or Shopping Ads are key to engaging with customers early while they are on the platform looking for inspiration. You just need to know how to set up a catalog on Pinterest, make sure your Pinterest tag is correctly configured, and Pinterest will do the rest for you. Through product data from your data source, the platform will show relevant products to interested people on all Pinterest surfaces.
Pinterest Ad Format #6: Collections Ads
Pinterest Collection Ads just appear in the Pinterest mobile feed and appear as a combination of one large, hero asset followed by three smaller assets. When someone taps into these ads, they get into a fullscreen experience where they can see the hero creative and up to 24 secondary creatives.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Max file size: 10 MB.
- Creative quantity: Must have 1 hero creative. A minimum of 3 secondary creatives is recommended. Maximum of 24 secondary creatives.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: The hero creative must have either a 1:1 or 2:3 aspect ratio and can differ from the aspect ratios of the secondary creatives. All secondary creatives must have the same aspect ratio-either 1:1 (square) or 2:3 (vertical). We recommend making your secondary creatives with a 1:1 ratio to best control how they appear in people’s feeds. If the creative is not 1:1, the cropping will occur at the center of the image.
- Title: Enter up to 100 characters. Depending on the device, the first 40 characters may show in people’s feeds.
- Description: Enter up to 500 characters. Descriptions do not appear when viewing the Pin in the home feed or search feed.
In case you want to use a video hero creative, follow these specs:
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
- Encoding: H.264 or H.265
- Max file size: Up to 2GB.
- Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes.
- Recommended Aspect ratio: Shorter than 1:2 (width:height), taller than 1.91:1. We recommend making your videos square (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16).
Pinterest Ad Format #7: Lead Ads
It's a new ad format for the lower funnel that helps find qualified leads on the platform. Lead ads use native forms so Pinners can share information with a couple of taps and advertisers quickly get the information they need.
This ad type works with standard-width, static video Pins with up to 10 predefined, custom questions.
- File type: PNG or JPEG
- Maximum file size: 20 MB.
- Recommended Aspect Ratio: 2:3
In case you want to use a video, follow these specifications:
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v.
- Maximum file size: Up to 2GB.
- Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes.
Pinterest Ad Format #8: Premiere Spotlight
Premiere Spotlight is a new solution for high-impact advertisers designed to help them reach large-scale audiences at the most important moments. Brands can own premium placements on the platform for as long as they want to promote high-visibility campaigns to users.
- File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v.
- Recommended file quality: 1080p.
- Video length: Minimum 6 seconds, maximum 30 seconds.
- Recommended aspect ratio: 1:1 or 16:9.
In conclusion, Premiere Spotlight features video ads in places like the search page. It allows brands to reserve their placement for product launches and take over the screen, so that they occupy about 50% of the space on a mobile device.
Pinterest Ad Format #9: Customized video pins
Another option for your business to advertise on Pinterest is to use the Promoted Video Pins format. The only difference between this advertising option and the others is that the multimedia used is a video. These are pinterest advertising formats that are guaranteed to get your audience's attention in their home feed and search results on Pinterest.
When users come across your Promoted Video Pins, the ads will automatically start playing once they are halfway through the user's view.
Since these videos play automatically, you should create a video that tells a story without sound if you choose this ad format. Pinterest promoted video ads don't have sound, so you must capture your audience's attention and get the point across with your video alone.
Pinterest offers advertisers a wide variety of formats and powerful tools to captivate the audience. This information will help you offer users an easier shopping experience.