If you’re eager for more engagement on Pinterest, your analytics are the perfect place to start.
Because you can’t figure out what’s working (and what isn’t) until you look at the numbers.
The good news is that Pinterest Analytics is surprisingly robust. Within the app and without relying on any third-party analytics tools, you can do the following in a matter of seconds:
- Identify top-performing content and popular pins that result in traffic and revenue
- Understand which keywords, tags, and terms your audience is using to find you
- Uncover a baseline for your content’s performance metrics
But we’ll bite: Pinterest Analytics can be a bit overwhelming to beginners.
That’s why we put together a simplified guide to translate your dashboard into action ASAP.
How to Access Your Pinterest Analytics for the First Time
First thing’s first: you’re going to need a Pinterest business account to gain full access to your analytics.
On the Pinterest homepage via desktop, simply look to the top left-hand corner of your screen next to the app’s logo and click “Analytics.”
The Overview dashboard provides a big-picture breakdown of your Pinterest analytics, while Audience Insights digs into granular data about your followers and folks that engage with your content. For the sake of this guide, we’re going to focus on these two dashboards.
Granted your Pinterest account isn’t brand new and you’ve had an opportunity to gather some data, go ahead and click “Overview” to get into the good stuff.
How to Navigate Your Pinterest Analytics Dashboard
At a glance, there are plenty of numbers, graphs, and data points to sort through.
Don’t panic! Let’s start by breaking down the basics of what Pinterest Analytics can teach us.
For starters, you’ll see a chart highlighting the last 30 days of your performance data on Pinterest.
This includes impressions (the number of times your pins were viewed) and overall engagements (saves, clicks, swipes). as well as your engaged audience (how many people total who’ve engaged with your pins). The graph measures (in %) how your latest performance data compares to the previous 30-day period.
The chart above serves as a good gut-check in terms of your Pinterest presence and account health. That is, your numbers should ideally tick upward over time.
Pinterest Analytics makes it a cinch to check changes in specific metrics over a data range. This allows you to monitor and assess particular campaigns and their performance. You can also compare different metrics side-by-side. For example, you might look at the correlation between your impressions and link clicks.
The dashboard itself is fairly easy to navigate despite being so “busy” at a glance. Another nice added bonus of the dashboard is the ability to quickly pinpoint your engagement metrics. The platform puts impressions, saves, and link clicks front-and-center as soon as you log into your Pinterest Analytics.
Just below this data is a breakdown of your most popular pins, sorted by both boards and individual posts. Here you can identify the best type of content to create for your audience and likewise what might be worth creating in the future.
For example, you might notice that your how-to pins or list posts consistently crush it. This is a shining example of how understanding your Pinterest Analytics is the first step to optimizing your content strategy.
“What Are the Most Important Pinterest Metrics to Measure?”
Good question! While Pinterest provides users with a heap of data to sift through, the platform makes the process of organizing it seriously simple via categories.
Many of the metrics presented in Pinterest Analytics are pretty straightforward. However, not all metrics are equal when it comes to their impact on your business. As a quick refresher, here are some of the most important ones to track:
- Clicks. This data point highlights the number of times your Pinterest content was clicked on. Unlike impressions that are often considered a vanity metric, clicks clue you in on what’s driving interest when it comes to your Pinterest profile.
- Top pins. No surprises here. This metric identifies your top-performing content and lets you know whether or not your pins are (literally) clicking with your target audience.
- Outbound (link) clicks. This lets you know which pins are driving traffic and where that traffic is going. By tracking the behavior of your Pinterest traffic, you can clearly assess your overall ROI from Pinterest and social media at large.
- Saves. Similar to clicks, this metric indicates interest from your audience in the form of saved pins.
- Total engaged audience. This data point lets you know how many people are interacting with your Pinterest content.
The metrics are must-know because they directly inform your content strategy. This includes what to post, how often you should publish pins, and how to optimize your content (think: tags and keywords).
How to Use Audience Insights to Grow Your Pinterest Presence
Pinterest’s Audience Insights provides a treasure trove of data to assist with the optimization we talked about a second ago.
In short, this section of your Pinterest Analytics provides critical information concerning people that actually interact with your content. This includes shared interests, keywords used to find your pins, and audience demographics.
Another useful feature of Pinterest Analytics is the ability to compare your performance data versus the rest of Pinterest and other players in your industry.
Oh, and you can also double-check your demographic data to make sure that your Pinterest audience actually matches your customer personas. This section of Audience Insights also highlights location data and assesses mobile versus desktop users. Understanding these points can help uncover new content opportunities (think: optimizing posts for mobile, posting content in multiple languages, etc).
“What Other Pinterest Analytics Should I Pay Attention To?”
As it should come as no surprise, Pinterest hooks you up if you’re taking advantage of their paid ad targeting options. For example, their platform allows you to assess the performance of your organic (free) content versus paid ads. This makes it easier to ramp up or scale back your ad campaigns with confidence.
Don’t forget to mind your Pinterest analytics off the platform as well. For example, you can use the “Acquisition” tab in Google Analytics to monitor traffic coming from Pinterest.
Based on this, you can see how your Pinterest traffic behaves versus other social networks. For example, do they spend longer on-site? How do they convert? Are they more engaged than followers from Instagram? You might be surprised at the numbers.
Are You Making the Most of Your Pinterest Analytics?
All of the data above highlights the level of depth that goes into your Pinterest Analytics. There’s a lot of numbers to crunch, but so much insight to help you grow.
And likewise, you should consider the importance of performance data if you’re looking to hire an influencer on Pinterest. Like any other sort of brand or business, influencers are responsible and accountable for their metrics. Thankfully, hiring a proven influencer from a platform like IZEA means you know that they’re legit.
But no matter what your goals are, mastering your Pinterest Analytics means that you don’t have to second-guess what’s resonating with your audience.
