The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 131. Creating a Pinterest Ads Strategy with Heather Farris

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Are you using Pinterest ads? Pinterest is a powerful platform for bloggers and business owners looking to promote their content and products. We have Heather Farris, a Pinterest ads expert, on to prov...ide insight on Pinterest ads. She shares her journey from Pinterest user to successful Pinterest strategist. Heather shares effective strategies, including targeting, budgeting, and measuring ad performance. She also highlights the benefits of running ads for digital products and blog posts, and gives practical advice for bloggers! Tune in to hear all of the value that Heather brings.Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out Short Pixel!Check out Big Scoots Plans here!Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode131

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinke and Jennifer Draper. We are 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 are just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we are 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
Starting point is 00:00:35 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. Well, Pinterest is always a hot topic here at the podcast. And it's something that I feel like we can always learn more about. It's always changing. It's ever changing too. And it's always a really good way for bloggers to get more eyes on their content. And another way to do that is by having Pinterest ads. And this is actually something that we've never really done a deep dive on, on the podcast. And so to talk about that, we brought on Heather Ferris today to chat about Pinterest ads and how that can promote and help promote your blogging business. So welcome to the podcast, Heather.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Thanks ladies for having me, Amy and Jennifer. Thank you so much. I am happy to be here. Yeah. Well, we are glad that you're here just to kind of have like this open and honest conversation about Pinterest ads because like I said, it's not something that we've really talked a lot about and you have a lot of experience with it. But I love talking to people who are Pinterest managers or have Pinterest agencies, because I think the really interesting thing, first and foremost, is that you were a Pinterest user first. And so I would love to hear just kind of like your origin story and how you went from being a user of Pinterest to now helping people manage and help them with their Pinterest.
Starting point is 00:02:00 I got started on Pinterest as a mom, like many people do. I was 20. My baby was just coming into the world and I did not know how to cook my way out of cardboard box. I could cook hamburger helper meals with some ground beef and a box. But I wasn't able to cook beyond that and I was getting so sick. I was always so sick. So I posted on Facebook in those third party Facebook status updates, Heather needs to learn how to cook. What do you recommend? And my sister-in-law was like, hey, you should check out this new website called Pinterest.
Starting point is 00:02:34 I've been finding a lot of great recipes on there. And she sent me an invite. This is when it was beta. And I signed up. It took two weeks for me to get my invite to the platform. And when I got on, it was just astounding how many recipes were already on there. And that's where I found the pioneer woman. I found the work at home wife. I found so many women on there. Crystal from money saying mom was on there. And I just started cooking all these recipes that I was finding.
Starting point is 00:03:01 And over the course from 2010 when it launched to 2016 when I started my business, I was just using it for my life. So food, finance, decorations, kid stuff. I planned a brand new baby on there when we had our second. And I had eventually found that there was stuff on there for businesses. And I was searching for like side hustles. It wasn't side hustles in 2016. It was work at home jobs. Yeah. So I searched for that and I found this whole other side, kind of like this concept of TikTok these days.
Starting point is 00:03:34 Like, you know, you're on dog talk or golf talk or whatever. It was like that. And I never knew this whole other world of Pinterest was available to me. And I just dove in and learned blogging and business tips and all this stuff. So full circle moment, by the time I had joined to today, I've cooked over 3,000 recipes from Pinterest. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, holidays, you name it. I've taught myself how to fully cook from food bloggers and Pinterest.
Starting point is 00:04:02 That is so cool. You are truly a power user. Yes. I am. I think what gives you such a different lens going into then helping people with their Pinterest is that you were a user first. Yeah. Yeah, for six solid years before I ever even considered business of any sort.
Starting point is 00:04:21 I understood when I started using Pinterest with my own blog, I had started a mom blog first, because I just thought that's how you made money, was a mom blog. So I started a motherhood blog, and I actually really quickly got traffic. With Pinterest 2016, it was fantastic. I used Tailwind, I made the pins, I put them on there, and within two months of pinning, I had over 5,000 page views on my website. And I was like, wow, this is like really incredible. And I had started talking about this in Facebook groups. And people were like, what are you doing? Can you help me? And that's kind of where all of this whole thing started. So that's so interesting. I love hearing how people
Starting point is 00:04:59 and just how you made that shift, you know, because we've all had it, Like maybe some of you aren't even thinking about content creation, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, I'm going to be a blogger and I'm going to try this new thing. So I just love hearing how everybody kind of comes into this industry from their own accord and all of that. So when did you open up your Pinterest business then in 2016? I started my blog in 2016, but I didn't start offering Pinterest services until 2017. And there's a bit of a funny story to this as well.
Starting point is 00:05:29 I started offering services to friends in January of 2017 for $200 a month. And I was paying like 800 things for that. But I was working in a bookkeeping and accounting job because that's my background. I went to school for accounting and finance and management, and I was working in an accountingkeeping and accounting job because that's my background. I went to school for accounting and finance and management, and I was working in an accounting firm making $12 an hour. So my entire salary for my job was going to daycare and my car loan and my student loan.
Starting point is 00:05:54 I made no money outside of that. So I was thinking, okay, well, if I can get a little side hustle going, then I can pay for vacations or pay off our debt or whatever. So that was actually great. So that's what I used all of this other money for. I was working like 16, 18 hour days because of all my clients pinning 800 things a month
Starting point is 00:06:12 for $200 to, and also my full-time job. And I had a family. I had a young daughter. She was less than a year old at the time, but it allowed me, this is where the kind of the ironic story comes in. I quit that job. I had given notice in May and I'd given a one-week notice because it was a kind of a bad situation that happened at work and I came home and I was so nervous to tell my husband I just quit my job.
Starting point is 00:06:35 And then like my last day is Friday. This happened on Monday. I'm leaving on Friday. And the same day he comes home, he's in the Air Force. He's like, I have something to tell you and I think it not going to be good. And I was like, Oh, no, I have something to tell you, it's not going to be good. He's like, I'm getting deployed and I leave in five weeks. And I was like, Oh, well, I quit my job in my last day's Friday. So I guess I just got chills. I went headlong into my business. I took my kids out of daycare and after school care. My oldest was in second grade, first grade. And I had no support because when you're a military spouse,
Starting point is 00:07:13 you have like, you usually live far away from your family. So we just did the thing. And now what is it? That was 2017, eight years later, we're thriving. Yeah. So, yeah. that was 2017, eight years later, we're thriving. So, yeah. Yeah, those kinds of stories just give you chills because it's like when you look back, you can see how everything was falling into place
Starting point is 00:07:34 and you didn't even realize it at the time. You had no idea why you were using Pinterest so much. I mean, yeah, you benefited from it from getting all these recipes, but there was so much more at play. You were learning all about the platform and you were set up in the perfect spot at that point, which is easy for us to say, obviously, I'm sure it was terrifying at the time, but you had what you needed and you could move forward and create this business for yourself with all of this
Starting point is 00:08:02 knowledge that you had to share with others. That's just our favorite part about the whole online content creator business is that, you know, everybody gets to share their experience and their knowledge and we're all better for it at the end of the day. And I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And by the time he'd come home,
Starting point is 00:08:21 I had, I was making maybe you know $1,600 a month before Taxes at my accounting job like nothing and then I probably By the time he came home from deployment. I was making a solid five to seven thousand dollars a month in Agency revenue like I wasn't really an agency. I was really sold to know at that point, but like I really grew I was really a soloponora at that point, but like I really grew quickly offering, you know, this vast knowledge that I have. So I can't complain. Yeah, that's an incredible story.
Starting point is 00:08:52 And I'm one of those odd birds that I really don't need him here. Like I can survive, you know, with the kids, like we get into a routine and we do our thing. So I worked nights because I had a two-year-old at home. So I did all my painting and everything at night for clients. It worked out great because that was his mornings on the other side of the world in the desert. So we would chat on like a Skype call while I worked
Starting point is 00:09:17 and he was doing video games or whatever. We would just like, kind of like current day Zoom. You get on and you hang out with your friends and you co-work. That's what we were doing. So yeah. It probably allowed you to have the connection though too, to where you didn't feel completely alone,
Starting point is 00:09:32 even though he was gone, but it allowed you to do that. And what I hear in that too is just, you made the most of the circumstance that you were dealt. And I think that a lot of us in this space, some of us do kind of come into this with that circumstance. Like, hey, I need to make something work or I need like a side hustle or something to generate revenue.
Starting point is 00:09:54 A lot of us come into this with that hope. And so thanks for just being vulnerable and sharing your story. Because I know that probably is inspiring somebody listening. But that was, like you said, that was in 2017. We're in 2024 now. So a lot has changed since then. And Pinterest has changed a lot. With Pinterest and yeah, and otherwise, like the blogging world has changed. The monetization methods that we have available to us these days has changed.
Starting point is 00:10:26 So yeah. Yeah. So Pinterest used to be really organic, a lot of organic traffic when 2016 era, what you're talking about, because there were less people on the platform, there were less pins on the platform, it was a newer platform and all of that. So as things have shifted, as more people have been blogging, as more content is being created, there's had to be a shift in how we're using the platform as well. And for the sake of today's episode, we really kind of want to dive into Pinterest ads and who should consider using ads and why this is even a possibility.
Starting point is 00:11:03 So can you first just kind of describe what is a Pinterest ad and how does it function? So Pinterest ads are totally different than in the way that they look and they act compared to other platforms. So Facebook and Instagram, it's really meant to disrupt what you're doing. Whereas on Pinterest, they really want the ads to just feel like normal pins. So a lot of the ads that you see on the platform,
Starting point is 00:11:28 they don't scream at you and they're not like begging you to like a flashing light to please look at me. You're just engaging with a lot of Pinterest ads when you probably don't even realize you're doing it and it says that they're promoted. Like it says promoted by and then the creator. So that's one big difference from other platforms is they really do fit in natively to the platform and they're just there, they're in the ecosystem. So it is just simply a Pinterest pin that someone has put money behind. That's like the most simple way to describe what a promoted pin or Pinterest ad, you might hear both of those terms.
Starting point is 00:12:03 I use both interchangeably because Pinterest also uses both interchangeably. So I like to mimic their language. So with that, you take some sort of pin that you want to put some money behind. You need a goal, you need objectives to do that. So kind of answering your question, like who's a good fit? The people that I see that are the best fit for Pinterest ads are business owners that are already established. They have an email list of some sort. They have products to sell, and they have funnels that are established and converting organically.
Starting point is 00:12:35 So if you have, let's say you have a recipe blog funnel where you're giving away a cookbook for free or a cooking checklist, and that's like dumping into a more advanced funnel and people are joining that willingly organically through your blog and then also buying the products that are in that funnel behind it, you're a prime candidate for Pinterest ads. 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
Starting point is 00:13:10 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 ShortPixel and image compression, click the link in our show notes. So, is there any one particular type of product that does better on Pinterest?
Starting point is 00:13:51 So, I guess for example, we have bloggers that blog about all different sorts of topics. So I know a lot of people go to Pinterest for recipes. So a recipe book might be a good fit. But what other types of things do you see that perform well in terms of, you know, being able to set this up and be successful on Pinterest? I have seen a myriad of different things. So anything from ebooks to checklists to courses. I did a celebrity entrepreneurs Pinterest ads for a course launch and it was a business course teaching people how to run their own businesses. So that's kind of a different field from what you guys are in.
Starting point is 00:14:27 But as far as like the the niches that you guys mainly are talking to, any of the digital products that you're already accustomed to seeing and creating in your businesses. So ebooks, guides, checklists, templates, spreadsheets. I've ran ads to webinars and workshops and that like master classes. They're all different names, but they're all doing the same thing. Video courses and programs, if you have some sort of sales funnel that you're doing elsewhere, chances are people are already searching for that on Pinterest because Pinterest very much like your other guest experts have spoken to as a search engine. So people are going there and searching for like functional eating diets, for example.
Starting point is 00:15:12 And they might be presented with blog posts on those topics, but also ebooks and guides that are going to help people to really quickly consume some information and get a plan in place for themselves. So do you recommend that people just put ads towards like products and services? Or do you find that people can also put an ad on like a blog post, for instance, that they just want to do really well? Yeah, I actually have done all of the above. So I run ads primarily for conversions because most business owners want some sort of conversion. They want to go to the email list. They want to sell products.
Starting point is 00:15:46 That's great. And I also run a lot of consideration ads. So one of my most successful consulting clients right now for Pinterest ads, they sell home decor. And the product listings themselves on the website don't actually convert the best. What converts the best is this blog post about how to decorate a bathroom with their product and it gets like anywhere from a 10 to 12 ROAS every single day on average so 10 to 12 times more return on ad spend than what we're spending on the ad. So it can be blog posts too. You can always run ads like if you have most
Starting point is 00:16:20 especially content creators they're optimizing their blog posts because they have been taught to do this with affiliate links, with product links of their own, with other blog posts and with opt-ins to their email lists. So if you're optimizing your email or your blog posts like that, then blog posts can be a great way to generate some traffic and then also some conversions. Yeah, because people like the context in terms of buying products. I think that that's what we see as bloggers
Starting point is 00:16:50 and content creators is people don't just want to see a picture of a light fixture or whatever the case might be. They want to know like, what would it look like in my room? Why would I choose this one? Or why would I choose this color or whatever? So I like that context in that you, you still have a goal in mind. You still have those products available, but you're running it directly to the blog post so that, you know, those people are getting more information and, and are probably more likely to buy that product. Now, is there a certain amount of sales or traffic
Starting point is 00:17:28 or anything you should be seeing to that post before you should consider running ads? You talked about getting organic sales before you start to pay for ads. What kind of is the threshold or some of the tests you can give yourself to know when you're ready to start investing a little bit on a Pinterest ad for that blog post?
Starting point is 00:17:48 Really great question. So what we're really looking for is the fact that it is converting organically. So if you get 100 people to that blog and 10 people are signing up for your opt-in, that's a really good conversion rate organically. When you put some ad money behind it, you're probably going to see that conversion rate drop slightly, but you should still be between, there's a big range here, and I'm going to give you the range that I see. But if you're in this, it's healthy. So anywhere from one to 5% when you run ads, it's a great conversion rate. conversion rate. And how patient do you need to be?
Starting point is 00:18:24 So like how long does the ad need to run before you jump ship or you decide to put more money behind it? Really great question. So there's a few means tests that we need to run here and I'm using that word because I'm an accountant by trade. So couple of means tests we really should run before we just ditch it. So when you first start an ad really depends on what kind of ad you run. So there's a few different types. I'm just going to walk we just ditch it. So when you first start an ad, really depends on what kind of ad you run. So there's a few different types.
Starting point is 00:18:47 I'm just gonna walk you guys through it. So there are ads and there's what we call traffic ads. There's other types, so I'm not gonna talk about them today because they confuse people. So traffic and conversion. Most people who are getting started on Pinterest that might be listening to this
Starting point is 00:19:01 may not even have their Pinterest tag installed. That's your pixel in Facebook language. If you don't, first of all, that's the first step, install your pixel, and then you're going to run, you can start running some ads. I would consider waiting about 30 days after installing your pixel to start running ads because we want the pixel to start collecting some data. At that time, if you don't have between 50 to 100 events on your tag in that time frame, you're going to run a consideration ad.
Starting point is 00:19:29 Consideration ads are billed only when someone clicks on the pin to leave Pinterest. So they're actually the cheapest form of Pinterest ads. So if you are running a consideration ad, you can wait a little longer because your money is not getting spent until someone clicks on the ad. Whereas if you are running conversion ads, and that's what they are called as conversion ads, you're billed per 1,000 people that see the ad. So you're maxing your budget every single day. Whereas if you were to start a Pinterest ad to a blog post, it's like 10 ways to braise beef or something like that. I don't know that it's actually 10, but maybe that's what it is. And you are doing
Starting point is 00:20:06 $5 a day for a budget, which I don't think I would recommend to start. But if let's say you're spending that little amount, you're probably getting beat out at auction by other people. So it might not be maxing your full budget, because it's consideration, you're only getting built when you click. So that allows you a longer window of time. Beyond that, what you're looking for in your ad campaign is what's your click-through rate? Is your click-through rate below 0.55%? If it is, then you really need to start looking to inject some new imagery and graphics, and then you wait a little bit longer. So another seven to 10 business days or so, business days, days. It's not like the ads only run on business days.
Starting point is 00:20:46 I was actually going to be like, Oh, does that make a difference? Seven to 10 days and then be looking at it again. And then in this timeframe, you're looking at other things. So you're looking at who in the gender bucket is seeing the ad and engaging and you're removing the people that are not. I actually, I'm gonna, I might hurt some feelings here for some listeners, but as a power Pinterest user and an ads runner, I don't run any ads on Pinterest to men because they cost more to reach and there are just fewer of them on the platform. So you can choose to remove them when you set up your ad campaign. And I always remove them every time. Okay.
Starting point is 00:21:26 So you had to have done some tests with that in order to come to this conclusion. Lots. At this point, I probably have spent millions of dollars on ads between myself and clients in the last, since 2019. And I'm telling you, they cost so much more to get to. And a lot of the people that are, that we're running ads for are running ads targeting women anyways. Like women are the decision makers in the households in the United States. Almost always. We're the ones doing the mail planning and the school shopping and all that stuff. So through all of these tests, I've determined
Starting point is 00:21:58 that men are just more expensive to target and to convert and they bring the health of the campaign down. So you're looking for things like that, like which gender is converting the best, remove the ones that aren't, which device is converting the best, remove the ones that aren't. Most of the time it's things like desktop because most users are mobile users. So remove mobile web and desktop. So those are kind of, you're doing a little bit of a detective work in your setup to determine,
Starting point is 00:22:25 okay, after a month of running this consideration ad, I've gotten 100 leads and I've spent $200. That's a pretty healthy margin. That's a pretty healthy cost per lead and that's kind of what you're looking for. And you have to kind of set your own willingness of what you're willing to actually pay per lead too. So Amy might be willing to pay $3 a lead because she knows on the back end,
Starting point is 00:22:47 she's gonna make $30 sale, 5% of every person that comes through, they're gonna buy and it's gonna be a $30 sale. So that's a healthy sales margin for her. Whereas maybe I only have a $17 product, so I need more people to convert on a $17 product. So I need a lower cost per lead. So you have to kind of factor in what is a healthy cost per lead for your business that you're willing to spend.
Starting point is 00:23:11 And that's why I say, if you are looking to run Pinterest ads, you probably need to be a little bit more intermediate to advanced, have some conversion mechanisms in your business to be able to recoup that money. Now, a caveat to this is if you are launching, if you're in the process of like a runway for launching, Pinterest is a really great way to do lead gen, and those ads are usually cheaper. I was just gonna ask that question.
Starting point is 00:23:36 So when you say lead gen, that means like getting people on your email list, right? Correct. Okay, okay. So that could be another way you run some ads. You just have to decide, you know, what you think it would be worth to get that person on your list for that upcoming product. You might not have all the stats, but like you said, if you've been doing this for a
Starting point is 00:23:56 while, you have enough stats. You can start to think about what, what your budget could be. And I'd like to talk a little bit about that initial budget for somebody who's getting started and maybe has a small product or is trying to do some lead gen for an upcoming launch. And I know it's gonna be really individualized, but like what's kind of a minimum they should expect
Starting point is 00:24:19 to spend in order to get some results? Is there a number like that that you can point out? Yeah, and I feel confident in this, and it's going to sound low, but I would say around $20 a day. OK. $600 bucks a month. If you can set aside that amount of money to do some testing, I would always
Starting point is 00:24:37 recommend doing testing for a period of 60 to 90 days. So Pinterest is a slow burn. We know this organically, that Pinterest is a slow burn. We know this organically that Pinterest is a slow burn. Pinterest users, especially in the ad space of getting people to convert from seeing the ad to actual checking out and getting that product in their mail, it's about 18 days from seeing the ad to purchase is an average timeline of conversion. So knowing that it can take timeline of conversion. So knowing that, it can take a little bit of time up front that first month of starting your ads to really test out which offer, which images, which audience, which messaging is going to work the best. That's going to take a few weeks of really testing and figuring
Starting point is 00:25:15 that out. And Pinterest ads are not one of those like Facebook where you can turn it on and in 24 to 48 hours know if that ad is going to convert or not. And if it's going to convert a healthy rate. I can turn a Facebook ad on today to my membership or to a free offer or something like that. And by the end of day tomorrow, I know which of those images is going to convert. That's not the case on Pinterest. It's usually about a seven-day learning period for Pinterest. So we really want to turn them on. Wait an average of seven and 10 days
Starting point is 00:25:46 before we really do any major gutting of that campaign before we do any optimizations, any changing of images or audiences. So if you can start with about 20 bucks a day and let it run for 16 to 90 days, while in that timeframe you're making some adjustments, I think you'll come out of it having some data and some really good strategic decisions that you can make with your investment.
Starting point is 00:26:09 Because we're buying data, we're not necessarily in that very first time that we run Pinterest ads looking for a million bucks. When it comes to hosting your website, you want somebody you can trust. That's why we recommend Big Scoots. Not only do we recommend Big Scoots to our students, but we both use them for our own blogs as well. We love them because as a new or experienced blogger, their hands-on 24-7 support is invaluable. Anytime we've submitted a support request, we've gotten quick responses from a real
Starting point is 00:26:46 person ready to help. Big Scoots has an uptime of 99.99%, meaning your site won't go down at critical times like with other hosting companies. With managed and shared plans, you'll be able to get support that fits your budget. Big Scoots is the perfect hosting company for bloggers. Use the link in our show notes to find a plan that works for you. I think numbers are always helpful. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:16 You know, $20 to someone is a lot, $20 to somebody else is not a lot. But having that, you know, just tangible number like, okay, if I start something like this, I need to give it X amount of time, X amount of investment, you know, just tangible number, like, okay, if I start something like this, I need to give it X amount of time, X amount of investment, you know. And also, I really appreciate that you've said, like, wait till you're seeing some of this organic growth. And so this is more for, I'm going to say an advanced blogger, intermediate to advanced blogger. So understand that too, that if you are not at that point in your blogging journey, like Pinterest ads might not be
Starting point is 00:27:48 where you're at, but being active on the platform is going to possibly get you to a point that you can generate ads. So like basically what I'm hearing Heather say is don't like set up your Pinterest, have a couple of pins and then start buying ads because it's likely not going to serve you very well if you just like jump right into the ads portion of Pinterest. No, and most people when they set up ads, it's haphazard. There is a boost feature on Pinterest
Starting point is 00:28:15 where you can boost pins, and it's very not strategic. It sends it to the entire Pinterest audience, and not everyone on Pinterest is interested in functional food or pasta blogs or whatever it is, not everyone's interested in that. So we want to be really strategic with the way we set it up. So a lot of people will make that mistake where they will set it up and then they'll boost a pin or they'll run an ad, but they don't actually know what campaign types there are. They don't know what the billing differences are. They don't
Starting point is 00:28:44 know what the metrics mean. They don't have a Pinterest tag are. They don't know what the billing differences are. They don't know what the metrics mean. They don't have a Pinterest tag installed. So don't make those mistakes. Don't just jump right into putting money behind it. And I'm a really big proponent of running a lean business because I do, I am an accountant by trade. So I want you guys to be profitable and I don't want you sending money on things
Starting point is 00:29:03 that you shouldn't be spending money on when you could be using that money to feed your family. So we have to make really smart business decisions when we start doing advertising because these platforms are going to take your money and run. Yeah, they're not going to refund you if you accidentally start an ad and you're like, oh crap, I, it's gone. So you want to be smart about it. And you really do want to have your profile set up and establish and understand your users on the platform. A really hot tip I'm going to give your audiences. When you are running ads, there are ways to run ads and people will never see those pins organically. You're losing out on a massive amount of engagement if you do that. So if you are listening and you're like, oh, I have a funnel that I really want to test out, I want you to upload your pins organically, optimize them fully for the platform, like your experts on previous episodes have mentioned. And I want you to pull those ads into your ads manager as you're building your campaign
Starting point is 00:30:01 out because on other platforms, when you turn an ad on and turn it off, it's gone. It's like flipping a light switch off. On Pinterest, when you turn an ad on to a pin that has been ran organically first, uploaded organically and then advertised, anyone who has engaged on that pin organically is not gonna be obviously counted in that ad,
Starting point is 00:30:21 but anyone who saves that pin while it's an ad will continue to see that pin on their boards and other people on Pinterest will see that pin organically on Pinterest and now you're earning metrics. So let's say I am running an ad, Jennifer saves it and Amy goes and converts on that ad. Amy's conversion is completely free to me. I didn't pay for it. So that's a great tip. I had no idea. Not that I know a lot about Pinterest
Starting point is 00:30:48 ads, but that's yeah, that's, I think, a huge benefit to the Pinterest, you know, to the idea of testing out advertising on Pinterest for your blog to see, you know, if something's performing really well, gosh, you're just giving it a boost, but you're also getting organic traffic to it too. It's just really exciting. Yeah, I would have thought that you would have had to use a totally different pin. Yeah, like not being able to kind of reuse it. No. And one of the great things about the ads when you run an
Starting point is 00:31:16 ad, you can actually that ad will usually become a legacy pin for you. So what I consider to be a legacy pen is I log into Pinterest today and I'm seeing pens from two, three years ago, sometimes four years ago. I was in there on Monday and there was a pen from four years ago in my top pins for the last 30 days. So you'll actually see those pins that you've ran as ads become legacy pens over time because of their reach and their engagement. So if you do have something that you run an ad to
Starting point is 00:31:45 and it is something evergreen that you offer in your business long-term, and it's not a one-and-done thing, you have this ability over time to really recoup your ad spend organically for years. We already know that happens with just organic marketing on Pinterest, but with ads too, if it's a long lifespan that you're
Starting point is 00:32:05 offering this product or your service, like I've been offering Pinterest services since 2017. I started my website in 2018, so all the stuff on my Pinterest that I've promoted or have organically that people are coming back to, I keep it up to date. Most of it, about 70% of it. And I'm still benefiting from all of that goodness. Yeah, that's one of the. And I'm still benefiting from all of that goodness. Yeah, that's one of the things that I think, collectively, you know, that as a whole, people that we've had on the podcast, our students, Jennifer and I, is that Pinterest works for you continuously. It's generally the platform,
Starting point is 00:32:41 other than blog and email that we're like for most content creators, Pinterest is the next place that we recommend that they go because it works different than social media where you have to constantly be pumping out content. But on Pinterest, your content continues to work for you there. And so just figuring out how that content can continue to work for you and how you can serve the audience that you're looking for, I think. I know it can be, it can feel frustrating when the platforms change or we feel like the rules have changed, but that's blogging in general. And I think
Starting point is 00:33:16 that just when we learn that and we accept that, then we can be a lot more successful with it and instead take it as a challenge. Like, okay, well, you know, the rules to the game just changed. So how can I think about this differently? And maybe you've never considered we can be a lot more successful with it and instead take it as a challenge. Like, okay, well, you know, the rules to the game just changed, so how can I think about this differently? And maybe you've never considered Pinterest ads before, but maybe you do have some content that's working really well. You might have a product or service
Starting point is 00:33:34 that you would like to share and you have some money that you would wanna back it and you learned something new today from this. And Heather, I know you do a lot of education and you also help people with their Pinterest. I would love for you, before we sign off here, to give people the resources that they have to connect with you and if they would like your help in managing their Pinterest.
Starting point is 00:33:56 Yeah. So you can find me at HeatherFerris.com. It's just like my entire home on the internet is on HeatherFerris.com. I have a really like busy YouTube channel that is just full of resources and I actually teach just freely on there. So if you're ever looking to create your first Pinterest ad, I have a video for that and I'm gonna walk you from A to Z and I'm not gonna gatekeep anything in that video. So you can visit heatherfaires.com and just,
Starting point is 00:34:24 it's all there. You don't need to go anywhere particular on the website. It's on the homepage, it's on the resource page. There's a blog, there's a YouTube channel. Just go peruse. And if all else fails, you can email us hello at HeatherFerris.com. It comes straight to me, but that's my assistant Sarah's inbox. So I will see your email, but she might be the first one to respond. Yeah. Heather, I would like to link that specific video in our show notes too. I think that would be really helpful because I think that this is kind of one of those things that people want to visually understand how to do.
Starting point is 00:34:56 So I would love to provide that resource. I'll send you the playlist because there's different campaign types and different videos. I'll send you the playlist. Awesome. Perfect. That you the playlist. Awesome. Perfect. That would be fantastic. Thank you. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:09 Thanks for coming today and sharing about Pinterest. Is there any one tip that you would want to share with somebody who might just be thinking about making Pinterest a bigger part of their business in 2024? What would be your one tip for them? It's mindset. And I actually just published a video on this this week. It's mindset. So I talk about this and this is my lingo.
Starting point is 00:35:30 So if you hear anyone else talking about this, it's come from me, okay? It's developing a mindset of parking your content on Pinterest. I don't want you to be emotionally tied to the outcome and the results. I really just want you to park your content on there for the long term.
Starting point is 00:35:47 So whether it's for organic or you're running some advertising campaigns, I just want you to think about how Pinterest can really benefit your business for the long run because I have traffic for clients where it's, these pins are sometimes like eight to nine years old that are still sending massive traffic. And then some of them are brand new and there's a lot of opportunity on Pinterest.
Starting point is 00:36:08 So I really want you to develop that long-term Pinterest mindset that this platform is different. They really want to support their creators and their audience because without us, they wouldn't have a platform and they would not be a multi-billion dollar company being traded on the stock market. So I just want you to think about that and just develop that long-term Pinterest mindset of, Pinners are planners and buyers, and they are excited for you and your content. So park it there and just let it grow. I think that's great advice. It is. Yeah, it is. Thanks for coming today, Heather. We really appreciate you sharing so beautifully and so openly.
Starting point is 00:36:45 It is just helping everybody in the industry. So thank you so much for it. And thank you, Jennifer. 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.
Starting point is 00:37:07 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.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.