Pinterest Ads Targeting: Audiences, Interests, Keywords and Performance+

This guide uses Pinterest Business Help only, mainly Review and select targeting options and Set up audience targeting, plus the articles linked where they are used. Setting up the business account, the Pinterest tag, the Conversions API and the ad formats is in our Pinterest for business guide, so it is not repeated here.

The targeting options at a glance

Targeting is set per ad group. Pinterest says you "can combine targeting criteria to create an audience as narrow or as broad as you like", and the Potential audience size bar on the right of Ads Manager shows the predicted reach as you change things. The options:

• Audience: customer lists, site visitors, or people who already interacted with your content on Pinterest.
• Actalike audience: new people who behave like one of your existing audiences.
• Interests: topics linked to your ad, to reach people with similar tastes.
• Keywords: words or phrases to include or exclude as people search on Pinterest.
• Demographics: gender, age, location, language and device.
• Placement: home feed, search results and related Pins.
• Performance+: automatic expansion to people searching for or interested in ideas related to the ones you chose.

Targeting strategies in Ads Manager

When you open Targeting in a new ad group, Pinterest's audience steps start from a targeting strategy. Reconnect with users is where site visitor, customer list and engagement audiences sit. Find new customers is where actalike audiences sit. Choose your own lets you combine audiences, interests, keywords and Performance+ yourself; Pinterest's Performance+ article says the Performance+ check box is under Choose your own, in the Interests and Keywords section.

Interest targeting

Interest targeting reaches people "based on their interests, tastes and life events". Pick interests that match what the ad promotes. Pinterest's interest targeting article uses mid-century modern living room furniture as the example: target "mid-century modern", "modern living" and "living rooms", and test broad interests (living rooms) against precise ones (mid-century modern). In the bulk editor, interests go in by ID and name, with the interest codes list giving the IDs.

Keyword targeting and match types

Keyword targeting reaches people as they search for an idea on Pinterest. To see which terms are rising and when they peak, use Pinterest Trends. Pinterest's keyword targeting article gives the limits: up to 20,000 keywords per ad group, at least 25 recommended, and in Ads Manager you can add or remove up to 5,000 or update up to 2,500 at a time. The bulk editor handles the full 20,000 in one go.

Match types work much like search ads elsewhere, but with Pinterest's own rules:

• Broad match (the default): your keyword plus misspellings, synonyms and related searches; word order does not matter.
• Phrase match, in quotes: searches that contain the whole phrase in the same order, plus misspellings and close variations.
• Exact match, in square brackets: the keyword or a close variation of it; word order matters.
• Negative phrase (-"...") and negative exact (-[...]): searches the ad should not show on. Negative keywords can be set at the ad group, and the bulk editor also has campaign-level negative match types.

The brackets and quotes are only needed in Ads Manager; in the bulk editor the match type has its own column. How match types work in Google Ads is in our Google Ads match types guide.

Audiences: site visitors, customer lists, engagement

Audience lists are made under Audiences, then added to an ad group under Targeting. Per Pinterest's audience article:

• Site visitors need the Pinterest tag, with the base code on every page and event codes where the actions you care about happen. You can build the audience from events (for example people who added a product to the cart but did not check out) or from pages visited, choose how many past days to include, and add filters. The size updates within 24 hours.
• Customer lists are a single-column CSV of emails or mobile ad IDs, with no names, phone numbers or addresses. Emails can be cleartext or SHA256 or MD5 hashed; Android ad IDs must be lowercase. A list needs at least 100 matches before you can use it, and its size updates within 24-48 hours. Lists are hashed on upload and cannot be downloaded again, and they do not update themselves unless connected to a CRM through a Pinterest API partner. You can add people, remove people or replace the list.
• Engagement audiences are people who interacted with your Pins, ads or campaigns, or with Pins from your claimed domain. Any engagement action includes Pin clicks, outbound clicks, saves, comments and video views; Optimized engagement actions picks people from high-intent actions such as saves and outbound clicks.

Two rules for customer lists come from Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework: do not upload lists based on user activity from an app or website on an iOS device, and leave out anyone who opted out of targeted advertising. Consent rules for remarketing in general, across platforms, are in our remarketing guide.

Actalike and persona audiences

Actalike audiences are Pinterest's version of lookalikes. You pick a source audience, a country and an Actalike range (the percentage of people to target), and Pinterest finds people who behave similarly. The source audience is not part of the new actalike audience. Size updates within 24 hours, or 72 hours if the source audience is new too.

Persona audiences are different: Pinterest's sales team builds them on behalf of advertisers, from behaviour that interest and keyword targeting do not easily capture. They appear on your Audiences page once made, and work only with the brand awareness, video views and consideration objectives. Ask your account manager about them.

Age, location, language, gender and device

• Age: All ages covers everyone 13 and over. Otherwise pick from Pinterest's preset ranges, such as 25-34, 35-44, up to 65+, or 21+. The age targeting article says custom age ranges are not allowed.
• Location: by country, region, metro area or postal code. The default is your business's country. Pinterest's location article has an availability table: of the 89 countries listed, metro/DMA targeting is available in 10, including the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany. In the bulk editor, postal codes go in the Geos column; filling in Locations as well cancels the postal codes.
• Language and gender are part of the demographics section in the targeting overview.
• Device: Android mobile, Android tablet, iPad, iPhone (all the Pinterest app), Web (desktop or laptop) and Mobile Web (a phone browser, not the app), per the device targeting article.

Placement: browse, search or all

Pinterest's placement article lists three choices: Browse (home feeds and related Pins), Search (search results and related Pins) and All, the default. Pinterest recommends starting with all placements. Search only suits an ad that should appear just after a specific search, such as the overview's "mid-century modern furniture" example.

Performance+ targeting

Performance+ targeting uses visual signals from your ad to reach more people who may be interested in or searching for related ideas. It is on by default for new campaigns in Ads Manager and you can switch it off at any time. Pinterest's example: a snack brand targets "recipes" and "snacks"; Performance+ can also reach people interested in road trips.

What it does not change matters as much:

• It works on interest and keyword targeting only. It "will not affect your other targeting parameters such as location, gender, language, placement or age targeting."
• With an audience list (customer list, site visitor, engagement, actalike or persona), it does not expand beyond the list.
• With no interests, keywords or audiences, it uses signals from the ad itself; reach is up to everyone active in the country.

In reports, results from Performance+ targeting are labelled (Automatic), so you can see what the expansion brought in.

Targeting templates, bulk editor and review

Targeting templates save a set of audience lists, keywords and interests, demographics and placements under a name, to reuse in later campaigns. Use Save as template in Targeting details, and Use existing template to apply one; deleting a template does not affect campaigns already using it. Most options can also be set in the bulk editor, from its sample sheet.

After launch, Pinterest reviews the campaign against its advertising and targeting guidelines, which "can take up to 24 hours." Some ad categories have targeting limits, for example an age or location restriction; then the ad is approved but shown only to that allowed audience.

Our view

This part is our opinion, not Pinterest's. For a new advertiser we usually run two ad groups: one prospecting with interests and 25 or more keywords plus Performance+, and one site visitor audience from the Pinterest tag. Placement stays on All until the reports show a reason to split. We check the (Automatic) rows in the report after a couple of weeks to see whether the expansion is worth keeping. Customer lists go in only when the client has consent for that use, and we refresh them on a schedule, since they do not update on their own.

Frequently asked questions

How many keywords can a Pinterest ad group have?

Up to 20,000 keywords per ad group. Pinterest recommends at least 25 for best results.

What is the minimum size for a Pinterest customer list?

A customer list needs at least 100 matches before you can use it. With fewer, its status stays red on the Audiences page.

Can I turn off Performance+ targeting on Pinterest?

Yes. It is on by default for new campaigns, but you can untick Enable Pinterest Performance+ targeting in the ad group's Interests and Keywords section, or enter NO in the bulk editor.

Does Performance+ targeting change my location or age targeting?

No. It only broadens interest and keyword targeting. Location, gender, language, placement, age and audience lists stay as you set them.

What are actalike audiences on Pinterest?

Pinterest's lookalike audiences: new people who behave like a source audience you already have, in a country and range you choose. The source audience itself is left out.

Targeting works best when the landing page matches what people saw on Pinterest. See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].