The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 115. Pinterest Predictions for 2024 with Kate Ahl

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Let’s talk Pinterest! With Pinterest ever-changing, it’s important to stay up to date. These are always popular episodes and we have Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media to share more about her Pinterest predictions for 2024. We dive deeper into the platform’s expansion, its user demographics, and more on e-commerce. Kate also shares about video content and the crucial focus on long-term conversion rather than immediate gains. This was a great conversation about Pinterest and we can’t wait for you to dive in!Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out Short Pixel!Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode115

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Today, we have our friend Kate Aul. And we love bringing Kate on the Ultimate Blog Podcast because she owns a Pinterest marketing company. And not only do you guys love Pinterest, but we love Kate. And so anytime that we get to hang out with Kate, it's just like sunshine to our day because she brings the heat and she tells us what we need to know, but she's going to do it in a very practical way that is just always helpful. So Kate, welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Thanks for having me back. And I love always spending time with you guys and especially in person. I know. It's even better.

It is. It's amazing. So we got to hang out at the tastemaker conference. We did last year with your $1 million shot of tequila. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Okay. Since you brought it up, I have to share with people now because it's just too funny not to share. This is totally not on the topic of Pinterest, which is what we're going to talk about today. But this is just a funny little story. So we were at Tastemaker Conference last year, and I had gone to Cabo like four months prior and had some really awesome tequila that I did not have to purchase for myself. The people we were with kept buying them. So I had no idea what kind it was. So we sit down at dinner and I order a margarita. And they're like,

what kind of tequila would you like? And I'm like, Oh, there's a white and blue bottle. It is so good. And she's like, Oh, yeah, we have that tequila. I was like, Awesome. I want that tequila. And she's like, oh, yeah, we have that tequila. I was like, awesome. I want that tequila. We are having a dandy old time. Thank God I am a lightweight and only had one of those margaritas. And when they brought the tab, it was as much as it would have been for a full meal and a drink.

And I about crapped. Honestly, I was just like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I was freaking out. I looked at Jennifer because obviously Spark is paying for it. And I'm like, I was just like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I was freaking out. I looked at Jennifer because obviously Spark is paying for it. And I'm like, I am so sorry. I just spent so much money on a drink. I felt bad the rest of the night.

So I've never ordered that tequila since. Educated myself with how much that actually is. So worth it. Oh, so worth it. And I mean, if you're going to do it, make it a business expense, right? So funny. Oh, Kate, thanks for bringing that little ditty up today. I had forgotten about that.

Yeah. There you go. So off the topic of tequila, and now that everybody's craving a margarita. Yep. We're going to talk about Pinterest. And Pinterest is a hot topic. We talk a lot about it here on the podcast. We talk a lot about it with our students. But we brought you in last year to give some Pinterest predictions for 2023. And that episode has done so well, but we wanted to do it again for 2024. And the reason being is like blogging, Pinterest is ever-changing.

And it is something you have to continually evolve with and re-evaluate and see what's working. You own Simple Pin Media. So you work a lot with a lot of different Pinterest accounts. So not just your own, which I think gives you a lot of insight. And so that's really what we want to dive into today is what predictions do you have for Pinterest in 2024 to somebody who is like, what do I do this year? In comparison to last year, where do I go in 2024 when it comes to Pinterest? Yeah, it's such a great question. And I think one of the things I like to tell people right away is that Pinterest has had a

great leadership change. So they changed their CEO about 18 months ago, they brought in a guy named Bill Reddy. He has a lot of experience with Google and PayPal, eCommerce. And so his kind of leadership over the last 18 months has been very clear, very consistent, and leading the company in a really great direction. The Q4 2023 results were out and they're almost at 500 million users, which is great because that's bigger than pandemic levels, which is great. They lost a lot of people. So I think number one is we still see Pinterest is very healthy. So we look at it overall too. I was actually just, I wrote this up for tomorrow's newsletter, but it was very interesting to me in telling that when all the CEOs of social media companies were grilled in Washington, the one who wasn't there was Pinterest because they were being questioned about their impact and their effect on teens and how they're really doing these things to protect them and create positive spaces. And Pinterest is really a leader in that space,

which makes it a place for Gen Z to go to because they don't have bullying, they don't have comments, they can curate their own life. And Pinterest still sets itself apart, right? Like being that really great search and discovery platform like Google, like YouTube. So I think in that sense, I like to tell people the company is going in a great direction. I feel like they have great core values. They have great vision.

And that's good for us as marketers. Like it's not going anywhere. So I'll just say that. That's awesome. Yeah. The second thing I would say is that lots of room for e-commerce. So anybody who's going to lean into digital products, who's going to try to do both content creation and then spin off also into digital products, their integrations are getting great. So I would say that's a really good thing right there. So I'm going to compliment

sandwich this thing with the other prediction I have is that it's, I don't know with all of those new things, how this will affect organic. I don't think it will affect a lot. But I do know that Pinterest is leaning more and more into ad revenue, they have to, that's the sustainability of a company. So I think as I'm kind of leaning into it for myself this year, I'm trying to challenge myself to really explore more and more the ad options as a complement to what I'm doing organically. And I think these don't have to be really expensive. In fact, we tried really messy ads that I did myself. I didn't let my ads director do it. I just went in and did it back in September, October, November, which was an interesting extra bump for our organic traffic. And now we're leaning into it again to see like, okay, does this work? Can the two work together?

And I think a common thing with content creators is that they've always pushed back against ads. I'm not going to do ads. I'm not going to do ads. But ads can be very purposeful and very effective if you know why. Like, I'll never tell anybody an ad budget isn't going to fix a broken funnel, right? So like, if you want to get people on your email list, you can't just throw money behind it on an ad and hope people are going to do it. But if you know that people opt into your really great freebie that you have, why not try to see if you can play around with different Pinterest images and different targeting to get more people in there? I mean, that's what I'm challenging myself to think about. Like, okay, how do we kind of explore more of those options?

So that being said, I think ads definitely need to be looked at. That's a really important piece. And then I would also say that a lot of what we know has worked in the past will still work with maybe some minor tweaks and kind of questioning, is this right for me, which we talked about before this started. So I think that's kind of my predictions is you got to be laser focused on your data, your results, and what you want Pinterest to give you in your small business. You've said a lot here. There's a lot to unpack. I think you've said some, I think, really hopeful things like in terms of Pinterest is growing. It's still a platform where even like younger users are coming on board this platform. They like the feeling of

being there. And so as content creators, as bloggers, I feel like you're saying we still have some pretty good opportunities to utilize this platform. We just might need to start thinking about the way we go about it in a different aspect and bringing in, like you said, maybe some ad revenue. So can we talk a little bit, maybe to start with, about the users that are on Pinterest right now? What are they there for? What are they looking for? And what kind of content do they like to see? Yeah, I would say number one, they are looking for anything that's going to add value to their life. So Pinterest is in a big push. And I think I caught this yesterday in the investor report is they want to get people coming back to Pinterest more often. So it's really important

to note that Pinterest is not one of those ones like we visit Instagram like 175 times a day, we have to like, you know, do detox, right? People don't do that with Pinterest. They do like, okay, I'm going to visit it on Monday, then Thursday, or I'm going to in a doctor's office, I'm going to scroll through like, or when I have something that I'm intent on doing, like I have a good friend who's redoing her bathroom right now. And so she's searching all over Pinterest to prepare for this. So it's people who are also preparing for something three to six months in advance. So they're the dreamers, but they're ready to do things as well. And so if we have the type of content that gives them more context, and I think this is something I'm seeing as well, is with the TikTok rise, we saw this like

short form poppy content, and people are fatigued by that. I think people are like, wait a minute, I'm going to pump the brakes, I'm gonna slow down and I will read an article. I will watch a longer video. And so Pinterest is still the place where the longer video doesn't live on Pinterest. It still lives somewhere else. But it's still the place where I can gather

all the ideas that I want and I can save them to my boards because you can't do that anywhere else. And I can revisit them later. So I think can't do that anywhere else. And I can revisit them later. So I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind is that that ecosystem still works. And there's still boomers, Gen X, millennial. Gen Z is the darling of the day because it's the upcoming generation. But if your audience is millennial or Gen X, don't think that you have to chase Gen

Z. They're still on there. They're still searching. And guess what? They got the monies. Gen Z is broke, right? So you have to remember that who's paying for Gen Z life is, well, us. I have Gen Zers, right? So I think that's an important thing to take away is that's who's on there. And that is who Pinterest wants to keep bringing back. They're like, we want to keep bringing back. We want to keep people here. We don't want them to be addicted to our app, but we want them to be invested in our app. And I think those are two different things. I think it's just a healthy relationship, which is kind of what we want. And you want to think of it as a resource.

I like that they like that. I like that they don't want it to be an addiction and something that we're going to have to detox from, but more something that's going to stay relevant Mm-hmm. like you can serve just about anybody. So like I have a health and wellness blog, Jennifer has a food blog, but then we also have Spark Media that it's all just about blogging. And so all three of those things are on Pinterest and they all do very differently. But there are people looking for all kinds of things. It's not just DIY on Pinterest anymore, the way it started many years ago. A hundred percent. And I think an important point to pull out of what you just said is that that's important when you're listening to other people. You guys could come on and you could teach what worked for health and wellness, but you have a bunch of B2B people in your

audience. It's never going to translate. So while there are so many niches on Pinterest, one of the things you have to know is there's always the top five, right? And the top five are going to generate most of the engagement. But that doesn't mean there's not room for you in a smaller niche and more targeted searches. What it does mean is you have to be really cautious about when you hear information or when you hear somebody teaching, asking yourself, what niche are they in? Does this translate to mine? Because what, you know, your Spark Media with Simple Pin Media is probably going to have more aligned stats because we're both B2B. So that's just an important thing to call out. Yeah. Speaking of that, what are some stats that you recommend they keep track

of and take a look at? Is it in Pinterest analytics? Or where would you recommend bloggers be looking at things to see, okay, this is working or it's not or I need to shift? So that's question one. Question two is how do you know when to make the shift? Like how long do you give it before it needs an update or a revision? Yeah, I would always tell people before you make a change, three months at a minimum, right? And that's what we kind of follow the rule for us.

But going back to like which ones you should look at. Now, I think number one is always going to be outbound clicks because you can really track conversion. So Pinterest is better. It's great. With the switch to G4, it's like we all got discombobulated. We're still trying to figure it out. We're pining for UA

still. It's just the worst. But actually, as I've been leaning in more to G4 and realizing what we can do, I've always cared about email conversions coming off of Pinterest. And now that I can really see a clear path of that in G4 tracking to like when they hit that thank you page, then I kind of know like, oh, it actually is bringing me email subs. That's pretty cool. That's an important metric to me. Well, somebody else might not really care about that metric. They might care more about total clicks. Maybe their ads and affiliate monetize. So

their whole thing is going to be looking at how many outbound clicks on the Pinterest analytics side they're getting and they're driving over. So there's other... Saves is really important too, because of what I just said about the 3 to 6 months timeline. Especially if you're in the home decor space, your people aren't coming back to look at the links. I mean, like they're going to save that like couch six months. No one's buying a couch off Pinterest, but you get it. Like they're going to save like paint color or whatever. And they're going to come to your website six months later. So looking at your saves and kind of how those are changing every month is really important to look at too. And I have to say this,

it's probably the first time I've said it publicly. Okay, I've called total BS on the monthly viewer number. I really hate it. But lately Tabby and I have been trying to challenge ourselves out of our norms and looking at like, what really do we think goes into that? So we challenged ourself over the last quarter to see like, does more outside content

manipulate that number? Do other things manipulate that number? Now I'm saying that from like a testing perspective, but if I was to really look at business and conversions are important, that may be like a background kind of number. It's not first for me. It's, and it's also looking at like, okay, what pins are getting clicks? What is the topic? Like, how do I kind of see what's happening there? And if you're totally new to Pinterest, don't ask any of these questions until you're about six to nine months in because you're throwing spaghetti on a wall. Like you don't even know what the Pinterest user is gonna like. So for you to even be like, okay, how do I evaluate this pin when I just pinned it like two

weeks ago? Don't don't stress yourself out like that. I think that one thing that I want to elaborate on a little bit and you kind of talked about this, you said you kind of forced yourself out of your your norms, you challenged yourself to look at things differently. And, you know, I think we've we've beaten this to death talking about like, how many pins per post and how many times and how many boards and all that stuff. And I think one thing we could maybe elaborate on is what are the different things that we can do as bloggers to get pins out there and get traffic to our site? One thing that we are working with our students on a lot lately is challenging them. Don't just worry about getting a ton of traffic. Don't just worry about ad revenue. It's time to think outside the box. We have to serve our

audience in different ways. We have to diversify our monetization. And I think that also goes with Pinterest. We're going to have to reach people in different ways and for different purposes. So can we talk about maybe some different ideas in terms of creating pins that would reach people in a different way or give them a different experience? Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I see, we did a town hall live, we try to do them once a quarter. And what I love about these is that we get a pulse on the questions people are asking. And we were blown away with the scheduling, the how many pins per day. And it's like, whoa, this is what we're going for. You're looking for this magic number.

That's not it. What it needs to be pulled back into is, have you taken a look at your images lately? Have you changed them up? Have you looked at the copy? Have you taken... I'm not a fan of going back to old stuff and updating all the time. There was that previous thing where people would go back to an old post and they'd create 25 new images. I don't think you can get enough input. That's too hard to track. I don't know. Call me crazy, but I'm overwhelmed by even the thought of that. But you can go back and add something fresh that maybe is like event relevant. Like let's say you have a really great recipe and it's been doing well for years. Change up the image to target like Mother's Day or graduation. You didn't make it for that, but you

can easily put that on there and it doesn't take that much work, right? Because you're just kind of tweaking the image a little bit. I think if we were looking at two of our clients that have the exact same niche the other day, we're kind of cross comparing like, why is one up into the right like crazy? And why is one like kind of up and flat? Number one is how much content they were creating. So I know content creation is a slog, like it's really hard. But I can't say that if you stop creating content, you're still going to grow on Pinterest just by updating your images. It doesn't work. We've tried to prove it 100 different ways. If you're creating at least one new post a week, you're going to get better

traction on Pinterest because it's a long form content game, right? And that's what Pinterest likes. If you stop doing that, you're creating one to two a month, you're kind of going downhill. So that's a big one right there is it doesn't have to be crazy long posts. I know there's the tension between Google and Pinterest and what to create for. There's a lot there. But that was number one. And then video, video, one client was doing video and one client was not. And I know video is a really big hurdle for people. Like it's hard. I struggle with it as well, but I don't think people need real perfect video anymore.

I think if you can do something that's 30 to 60 second or repurpose off Instagram, I think a lot of people are creating fervently for Instagram and a lot of that can be repurposed to Pinterest. So you could go back to something you created on Instagram a year ago, download it, pull it over, like there's a lot of options there. So getting out of these norms of okay, what scheduling tool should I use? How many times per day? I mean, I just gave you three things that you can do that has no bearing on how many times per day, but it has a way bigger impact.

Changing up your keywords. I was looking at my account to see like, okay, what's happening? I'm not really ranking that high for Pinterest marketing anymore. Why? I have to ask myself those questions and then be willing to go do the research, Pinterest trends, Pinterest search. Okay. Well, how do I get some of this back? So there's a lot of, if people are only asking how many pins per day, they're asking the wrong question. Imagine if there was a tool that could easily make your website faster. Not only that, but it would save you time and effort when dealing with images. Image compression is something that we are really passionate about educating bloggers about, and it doesn't have to be confusing.

With ShortPixel tools, you can accomplish all of this and more. Their goal is to deliver the original looking images at the smallest size possible, which means that your website can run faster, which provides a better user experience for your readers. To learn more about short pixel and image compression, click the link in our show notes. I think that that offers some insight because I think we want it to be very concrete. And sadly, it's just not that easy and not that simple. But once again, like we keep saying and hounding on, you have to treat this like a business. And it's a business decision when you're asking yourself, okay, how do I need to show up on Pinterest? And if this is an area that you want to grow in, it might mean that you have to take a step out of your comfort zone

for a minute. And maybe video is the thing. So let's kind of talk about that just briefly. What kind of video works on Pinterest? Is it like a how-to video? Is it just like a face-to-cam like we do on Instagram stories? I mean, obviously, with recipes, it's going to be like making the recipe. But I think that we know that. I think if you're a blogger listening to this particular episode, you know that that's working for food bloggers. I'm more talking to the rest of us who do not do recipes, you know, two or three times a week. What is working? Is it more a face to cam type thing? Or what do you recommend them at least

trying first? Just maybe something to get their wheels turning? Yeah, I thought it wasn't based for a long time. But I will say on my account, we repurpose a lot from even we pull YouTube shorts, and we put them over there. And then Instagram, we put them over there, those are actually doing really well with short explainer tips. So thinking of like that thing that's going to catch them, the thing that you want to tell them, or a soundbite, we've started using Opus AI. Love it, love it, love it. Like when I sent it to Tabby, our social media manager, she was like, I think my world just shifted. She was like, I love it so much. It pulls down the captions.

It can take a longer form video and pull short. So if people are already doing longer form video, that's an easy conversion. And then number two, if you are not and you wanna try putting that on Pinterest in just the shorter form, I have a hard time believing that there's nobody doing video anywhere else, right?

So take what you're doing on Instagram as long as it's not day focus, time focus, you focus like that stays off of Pinterest. But if there's a quick how to or if there's a quick like buzz through how to use one of your digital products, or maybe you're talking about here's like my five favorite tops for spring for pair body types or something like that. Then you don't even have to show yourself on camera. You can just be talking over it. Like I love this one from Amazon and this one from here and this one. If you want all the links, go to my post and you can link to it. I want to say this too, because Pinterest has been having

a little bit of a crisis and like where they're going. They were going to fuse video and idea pins a year ago together, right? And in March of last year, I lost all ability to do idea pins. I only had video pins. And then in November of this year, suddenly idea pins came back and people were like, what is happening?

And then just this week, they've gone back to what they were a year ago. And we've confirmed with Pinterest that apparently the tech developers just can't make up their minds. So when you see idea pin, don't ignore it. Like just think video. So that's what we're doing. And I think that'll eventually be fused into just a pin. And then you'll be able to upload like the format that you want.

So leveraging short form video with static pins, 10 out of 10, like definitely try it and go for it. And it sounds like really it all still comes down to providing those things that are going to help somebody take an action on something that they're looking for. It's, it's not an entertainment platform, like you said. It is a like, how do you do something? How can I improve something? How can I design something kind of thing?

So maybe just keeping those types of things in mind. And then I like how you said you can reuse your content in a little bit of a different way, like putting a pin out about Mother's Day for a recipe that you didn't create

for that purpose. You kind of talked about this a little bit before too, but like maybe driving people to different types of posts as well, like ways to sign up for your email list and affiliate links that you might have. What does that look like specifically? I think those would be of high interest to many bloggers. What would it look like to create a pin that has somebody sign up for your email list or gives them an affiliate link? Yeah, we've tried that several times for my account. I think it's tougher to see results just because we are in a smaller nation. It's B2B. But the way that we've tried it is number one, you can always go to a landing page where you're talking about that freebie. But I would be cautious like a lot of people and what I see their super short form,

like even just like the form name email, I think you have to give more context because the people from Pinterest are totally cold to you. They don't know you, they don't know why. And so to like work over your email is pretty tough. And one of the number one complaints we hear from even Pinterest users is they're so annoyed by the pop ups. Like they're so fast and they're so fierce. Even I get annoyed with it. I'm like, oh my gosh, like on my phone, I can't even find the X. Right. So I hate that. Oh, I hate it. So be really cognizant of your pop up. Right. Like it's not intrusive, but it's there. And I think that's why a landing page is a little bit better. Because it's not like, hey, sign up for my weekly recipe. Well, I don't even know what kind of

recipes you create yet. We haven't gotten to that point. So I would say giving more context, giving more why. Definitely have that going in the background. And then affiliates are interesting. So it's actually coming out tomorrow. I recorded affiliate marketing podcast because I think this is a very hot, I don't know, it's a hot topic with a dose of toxicity. So here's how I'll say that. The affiliate marketing on Pinterest, like wave of people teaching that is rampant,

especially on YouTube. And it's this thing of like, just slap up a post, just give as many affiliate links as you can into it, create a ton of different pins and then just like wave it all there. Well, what we found is that people don't convert off of that. Like they need more like buy-in.

Like, why are you the person to trust to tell me these are the jeans I'm gonna buy? And the funny thing about the video that I watched is it was a dude who was pulling links from affiliates talking about women's spring fashion and then stacking a post with those. I'm like, something doesn't line up here, right? Like this is not long-term conversion. So I think going back to that place of small business, like I love this theme of, okay, if you have a small business and you're trying one thing, you've tried it for a super long time and it's not working, we're going to try something a little bit different, right? And so

we're going to tweak a little bit. There's that one, it's one show I've seen a long time ago, but it's the guy that basically reorganizes the store for high profitability. Think about that with your website. Where are people coming number one? That's a really important part in your Google Analytics that you want to know. Because people from Pinterest might be coming to a really old post that you didn't even know they were coming to. And now you know, update that post. Make sure it's really relevant to new affiliate links. And you can certainly share affiliate links on Pinterest,

but we don't see a high number of conversions off of them. Because people are not going to buy stuff right away on Pinterest. I mean, Pinterest even knows that and they've been really trying to challenge themselves to like, how do we generate more clicks to conversions? Because even off of an ad, which is how they make their money, it's hard for people to buy right away. Like you have to have a good warmup. And here's the last thing I'll say on that is that people on Pinterest have high intent and low intent. So high intent is I really want to build the spa bathroom of my dreams, right? But the low intent is they come across something about a candle or maybe something that's like really amazing soft towels. They're interested in that too. And they're not going to say no to it.

So even though they're set on the bathroom and they see this coming across their feed, whether organic or paid, they're open to it. So if you're talking about the best bathroom towels, Pinterest might put those together. So it's just really helpful to know that you don't know what point people are at in their journey.

So try to make it as really connecting with them as you possibly can, which is what I think is important in any small business, right? It's why do they want to buy from you? Yeah. I think you brought up something I wrote down right away and that was long-term conversion.

And it's creating a relationship and recognizing that on Pinterest, it's like a blind date, essentially. Like you're not not sitting down and right away asking them to marry you. They have to see whether or not you even have anything in common. I mean, think of it that way. But that long-term conversion... I've been blogging since 2017. And my most popular Pinterest post that brings me there is from a post in 2018. And I know that that is annoying for new bloggers to

hear, but it is long term. And so when you're creating content on Pinterest, asking yourself that question, is this just a quick win? Or is this something that's going to continually serve the people who are going to find it on Pinterest? And I think that that can help shut out the noise a little bit too. I like that you've provided some of those examples like affiliate marketing in the way that we think it might work like on Instagram. It doesn't work like that on Pinterest. Not only that, but you don't want to have broken links either in your Pinterest pins. Let's not make this harder than it needs to be.

Whatever links we're sharing on Pinterest, we want to make sure that those links aren't going to be broken because that's not going to serve you well in the long haul anyways. Yeah, 100%. And to really like, I guess when it comes to starting something new or kind of leaning into it, like pick one, right? If you're going to really lean into email conversions, lean into creating great images and creating great landing pages. Don't try to do both affiliates and landing pages at the same time. Just say, I'm going to focus for the next 90 days on really nailing this and then get good at it to where it then is in the background. And then you can move to affiliates or then you can move to another conversion of a digital product that you're looking for. But man, one thing at a time, I think you move faster,

quicker, better when you slow down. That's true in blogging. Yeah. Good advice in general. Yes. Yeah. So say you do get one of those things really pinned down. It's working well organically for you. You're getting people to your landing page and signing up for your email. Is that something that would be a good example of, okay, maybe now it's time to play with ads a little bit. And maybe I put an ad to this because I know people like it. Yeah, definitely. And that's what we did. There's two different types of ads that you can do. There's the deep ads dashboard, go all in, you're picking conversions, awareness, all these things. Well, you see on pins that word promote. That's a promoted pin. So promoted pin and a Pinterest ad

are two different things. So when you promote off of a pin, there's not as many options for targeting, right? You can do some, but that's what I did at a really low cost per day on a particular podcast blog post because we kind of combine the two that we had done about leveraging your Pinterest traffic to grow your YouTube. Because that's the thing that we wanted to challenge ourselves on last year is I've said forever, you can do it. But then Tabby's like, well, let's see if we can, we start pinning short form video that goes directly to YouTube. And it's actually actually getting clicks and it's working. So then what we did was we created this podcast

about our data, what we're learning and what we're trying. And we gave away a free Pinterest template for YouTube. Like this is how we want you to do your Pinterest pin and this is how you can get them to YouTube. So then we saw people were opting into that. So then we put ad dollars behind that particular pin on Pinterest because we knew that it was going to create this like flow towards our email list and they were going to learn from

us. And we learned a lot. Like it took a little bit. I only did a dollar a day for like 30. I was going super cheap. Right. And then I increased it and increased it over time. I think maybe we spent $25 or $30.

And we ended up getting like 10 email leads off of it, which is not an amazing number. But at least out of the gate, it's like, okay, let's try this. I mean, it's $3 a lead. But I wanted to do something I'd never done before because I heard all this noise from people saying like, don't do ads or once you do ads, your traffic is going to tank or they're going to know that you're an account that's going to spend money. Like all these kind of urban legends of it. And I was like, well, I've run ads before in the past and it's never affected my traffic. So I knew that wasn't true, but maybe I'll try this promoted pin option and just see. And it worked great. And it did increase our impressions

and it did increase our monthly view and those kinds of things. It didn't get to the heart of what I wanted, but now I'm willing again to try it and say, okay, I'll set aside 60 bucks for this. Let's see what round two does. I don't know. But I know already that the conversion

is happening on my website. That's a really, really important piece. I might need to tweak the Pinterest image, or I might need to tweak like the targeting of my ad. And I might even need to do some updates on my blog posts. Like maybe people aren't understanding, maybe I need to move the opt-in up higher. There's a lot of different things that I can do, but you got to test it. And it's never going to work the first time. I think that's the thing I have to tell myself is you're just going to get data the first time. That's it. I think it's just being willing to try. Yeah. I hate to say it, but that's just the nature of this game right now. And that you just have to be willing to try something new.

And like you've said, don't try everything all at once. Try one thing. Do that one thing for three months and see where you're at. You've also given great suggestions on what exactly to be tracking that I think is really important. So open up a Google Doc, write those things down. Know where you stand today. This episode is coming out in February. So know where you stand in February. Give yourself through Q2 and see what it's doing or whenever you're listening to this, but give it a solid three months. Be consistent and then see where it goes. And if you feel like it's gaining a little bit of traction, then allow a little bit more time. But don't be afraid to then go back to the drawing board. And I think that that's just advice for content creation in

general. We would love to say, this is exactly how you do all the things. And when you do this, then you will be a multimillionaire and you can have a beach house and you will have all of your dreams come true. And we would be lying. We are never going to come to you and give you unrealistic expectations about the work that is involved to grow an online blogging business. Sorry. Yeah. Hope we can still be besties.

That's just the truth of the matter is that it does take work. It takes looking at the data. It takes some systems. It takes some consistency. And I know that that's not the fun part of this when all you want to do is be creative. But what's really awesome

is when it actually takes off and it actually works. And so just remind yourself that that's what you're working for. Yeah, such wise advice. And I think especially now, what people need to know too, is there's this thing that happens every couple years in online business. So I started blogging in 2011, right with a friend and started doing all this stuff. And then I started my own business in 2014. And then in the last 10 years of Pinterest marketing, there's always this, this tension between Google and

Pinterest for content creators, like which one's going to take the lead, right? And one gives an update, and then the other one takes Supreme and then one gives an update. And in those times, right, we just had the helpful content update from Google. So two years ago, people were like, I hate Pinterest. Pinterest sucks. It's totally horrible. Well, two years before that was the pandemic and everybody thought Pinterest was amazing because they were getting insane amount of traffic. Right. So it's important to know like the ebbs and the flows of what's also happening in your industry so that you can critically analyze the news that is coming out from other people and what people are selling. I've seen it three times now. I've seen a wave in 2017. I've seen a wave in 2019, 2022, and now in 24. And it's like, it just keeps coming. And the same themes keep coming up of people want to go towards tactics.

But it's really important. Like what's your strategy? Why are you using something? And just because other people have told you to use something doesn't mean that it's important for your business doesn't mean your customer and be like the person on the corner who owns a gym being like, well, the burrito guy down the street told me that I should do this like crazy sign. It's like no small business owner would trust the burrito guy down the street when you own a gym. We have to apply those same tactics here.

Like we are in a wave where, again, where Pinterest advice is now like wild, wild west. It's like coming out of the woodwork post Google update. And in about a year, Google's going to take over again. So it's just kind of like the, you know, the darling of the woodwork post Google update. And in about a year, Google's going to take over again. So it's just kind of like the, you know, the darling of the day with the tactics of the day.

But why do you use it? Like, why do you want your customer to move off of Pinterest to your blog? If you know that, well, then you can try all you want and figure out what you want to do. I hope if nothing else, what people take from this episode is really what you just said, because it's just such wise, experienced advice. And that is that you cannot just live in these absolutes. It's not like here I am all in on this or I'm all in on that. And I'm going to be at the top of whatever's happening at the moment. Those are important things to look at. But you really have to think more long term and knowing what you just said, even if it goes down for a little bit, it's going to come back because that's the nature of these companies. They're going to continually try and improve, serve their users and serve their content

creators. So you just have to keep an open mind and be flexible, but don't just jump on every bandwagon either. And don't ever panic about anything. Easier said than done, but don't panic. Yes, totally. Kate, can you please let everybody know how they can connect with you and learn more about Pinterest marketing from you?

Yeah, simplepinmedia.com is where we have everything. And we do a Wednesday weekly newsletter and talk about challenging norms. I'm challenging myself to write a little bit differently this year and to talk about my journey of kind of like challenging where Pinterest is at. So that comes out every Wednesday. And that's probably start there. And then we'll kind of direct you out to where you need to go. But we have lots of resources and services and things like that. Plus the podcast, the Simple Pin Podcast. Awesome. Thank you so much for always sharing what you're learning, especially since you have such a wide array of people that you serve. So

thank you so much for serving our community today with us. Yeah, you bet. Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp.

The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.