Promoted Pins are the original Pinterest ad format. You take a pin - something you've already published, or something you create specifically for a campaign - and pay to show it to a wider audience. It looks exactly like organic content in the feed.
When a Promoted Pin is well-made, people save it, share it, and engage with it the same way they would a regular pin. The paid promotion stops, but the saves and engagement don't. This is what makes Pinterest different from every other ad platform: your content can keep working long after you stop paying for it.
Promoted Pins vs. Shopping Ads: Which to Use
Before getting into strategy, it's worth being clear about the difference:
Promoted Pins are manually created pins - a specific image, title, and URL that you control entirely. You choose what the pin shows, what the link says, and where it goes. These are great for brand awareness, driving traffic to a new collection page or blog post, and showing content that needs context (like your process or story).
Shopping ads are catalog-driven and auto-generated from your product feed. They're optimised for direct purchases and pull product data automatically. These are better for direct-response sales.
For most artist stores, Shopping ads do the purchase-driving work. Promoted Pins do the brand-building and audience-warming work. The two complement each other - Promoted Pins introduce your work to new audiences; Shopping ads catch those audiences when they're ready to buy.
This article is specifically about Promoted Pins strategy.
Creating Pins Worth Promoting
The biggest mistake with Promoted Pins is creating something that looks like an ad. Pinterest users are pattern-matching for content that looks native. If your pin looks like a billboard, it gets scrolled past.
Image Specs
The format that performs best on Pinterest is 1000x1500 pixels (2:3 ratio). This takes up more vertical space in the feed than a square image, which means more visibility. Always use vertical format for promoted content.
Resolution should be high - blurry or compressed images look unprofessional and won't get saves.
Lifestyle Context Over Product on White
A print photographed on a white background tells someone what the product looks like. A print shown on a real wall, in a real room, tells someone how it could look in their home. That second image converts better.
Invest in good mockups. There are services like Smartmockups or MockupsJar that generate realistic room mockups. Or, if you can photograph your work hung on an actual wall, even better.
Text Overlay
Pinterest research consistently shows that pins with text overlay perform better than pins with no text. A short headline adds context and helps the pin succeed in search.
Keep it brief: "Hand-painted botanical prints" or "Limited edition landscape series." Your studio name or website URL in small text at the bottom of the image is also worth including - it travels with the pin when it gets saved.
What Makes a Pin Save-Worthy
Saves are the Pinterest equivalent of going viral. When someone saves your pin to their board, their followers can see it, leading to organic reach beyond your paid promotion.
The pins that get saved:
- Show the art in an aspirational room setting
- Feel complete and beautiful on their own (not just an ad for something)
- Have a clear subject that's easy to categorise (botanical, coastal, abstract)
- Spark the thought "I want this in my home"
Choosing Which Pins to Promote
Don't promote content that hasn't been tested organically. The best practice: look at your last 30-60 days of organic pin performance in Pinterest Analytics. Which pins got the most saves? Which drove the most profile visits or outbound clicks?
Promote what already works. Organic performance is a leading indicator of paid performance. A pin that's getting saves without promotion will usually perform well with a budget behind it.
If you're creating new pins specifically for promotion, publish them organically first, let them run for a week, and then put budget behind the ones that show traction.
Targeting: Keywords vs. Interests
For Promoted Pins, you have two main targeting options:
Keyword targeting reaches people who are actively searching for related terms. Use the Pinterest search bar to find real search queries - type your category and note every autocomplete suggestion. "Botanical art print," "art for bedroom wall," "neutral art prints" - add all of them.
Interest targeting reaches people who engage with related content, even if they're not actively searching right now. Interests like Home Decor, Interior Design, Art, and Sustainable Living tend to work well for art stores.
For awareness-focused Promoted Pins, interest targeting tends to generate cheaper reach. For traffic-focused campaigns, keywords are more precise. Running a mix works well: separate ad groups for keyword targeting and interest targeting let you see which delivers better results.
Bidding Strategy
Start with autobidding. Pinterest's automatic bidding optimises for the objective you set (reach, traffic, or consideration) within your daily budget.
For a brand awareness Promoted Pin campaign, $10-15/day is a reasonable starting point. For a traffic campaign driving clicks to a specific collection, $20-30/day.
Once you have 4-6 weeks of data and understand your cost-per-click benchmarks, you can switch to manual bidding to cap costs.
A Seasonal Promoted Pin Calendar for Art Stores
Pinterest users plan ahead. People are searching for "Christmas gift ideas" in October and "spring home refresh" in February. This matters for your promoted pin schedule.
A rough seasonal calendar for art stores:
- January-February: New year refresh content, "home for 2026" framing, cosy interior aesthetics
- March-April: Spring botanicals, floral work, lighter palettes
- May-June: Gift ideas for Mother's Day, graduation, Father's Day
- July-August: Summer landscapes, coastal themes, beach house aesthetics
- September-October: Autumn landscapes, warm earth tones, "home refresh before winter"
- November-December: Holiday gift content, "art as a gift" framing, interior styling
Start promoted pin campaigns 3-4 weeks before the relevant season, since Pinterest users plan in advance.
Tracking Performance Accurately
Pinterest analytics shows Promoted Pin performance natively - impressions, saves, clicks, and conversions (if your Tag is properly installed).
However, Pinterest's attribution model claims credit for conversions within a 30-day window after someone sees or clicks your ad. This can lead to double-counting with Meta attribution.
For a more accurate view of Pinterest's true contribution:
- Use UTM parameters on all Pinterest ad URLs. Set up a campaign UTM in Pinterest Ads Manager so every click is tagged (e.g.,
?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=promoted-pins-spring). - Check Google Analytics (or whatever analytics platform you use) to see Pinterest-tagged sessions and attributed revenue.
- Compare Pinterest's reported conversions to your analytics data. The gap tells you how much Pinterest is claiming via view-through attribution vs. actual clicks.
In our experience with Artvertise clients, Pinterest's native conversion numbers tend to be inflated relative to click-based revenue in analytics. The click-based number is the more conservative and reliable figure for decision-making.
If you're running Meta ads and wondering whether adding Promoted Pins makes sense for where you are right now, Artvertise's free audit gives you a straight answer based on your catalog, budget, and current performance. Book your free audit here.
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