Last Updated on October 30, 2023 by Content Team
If you’re an eCommerce brand, you’re likely trying to figure out how to advertise successfully on Pinterest. But Pinterest is a very different advertising platform compared to more traditional channels for eCommerce like Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
Pinterest is similar to Instagram, but since Instagram ads are created with the Facebook advertising tool, it can feel like those ads are more in line with what you’re doing on Facebook itself.
Pinterest is a whole different platform. While it is highly visual, like Instagram, the audience intent is very different, which means your ads must also differ.
Why Pinterest?
If you’ve tried creating some campaigns on Pinterest that aren’t performing well, it can be tempting to give up. However, Pinterest is an impressive platform with high returns when utilized properly.
The key difference for Pinterest comes down to audience intent. When users browse Pinterest, they are usually looking for inspiration. Inspiration for décor for their homes, crafts to make, food to buy, and more. They have purchase intent when searching, which means they are primed to be more receptive to advertisements.
This is a contrast to Facebook or Instagram, for example. When people browse these platforms, they are probably looking for updates on friends and family, sharing cute pictures, and scanning for any newsworthy updates. They are not necessarily in “purchase” mode and may be more likely to scroll right past your ads.
Pinterest is also one of the less-used platforms. Less competition means more opportunities for your ads to show to your audience. It also means there is the potential to spend less with greater results.
So now that you understand why you need Pinterest in your paid media mix, we can look at a tool to help you drive more success on the platform. Building out a Pinterest account can take a long time, especially now their algorithms have made organic reach a lot harder. One way to speed things up and get more referral clicks to your website is by using Pinterest ads.
What Do Pinterest Ad Spy Tools Do?
Like you might guess from the name, Pinterest spy tools allow you to search for all of the Pinterest ads for a certain brand. Do you have a competitor that is seeing a lot of success on Pinterest? Use a spy tool to figure out exactly what they’re doing and how you can mimic – and then overtake – their ads.
But Pinterest spy tools don’t just have to be for competitor analysis. The right tool can also show you what ads perform best on Pinterest regardless of industry. This can be very helpful, too. As paid media advertisers, we’re not striving to be the most successful in our industry – we want to be a top brand. Getting eyes on the top, most successful brands on Pinterest can help you create more impactful campaigns.
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Now – you could scroll around Pinterest for a few hours, search for keywords related to your industry, and hope that your competitors will serve you ads. However, this takes a lot of time. And chances are that you’ll only see one or two ads per competitor – which means there could be dozens of other ad types and copy you never see. With information all over the place, it can be hard to conclude what you should do.
Additionally, this type of searching doesn’t really tell you how the ads are performing. What if you decide to model your campaigns on some of the worst-performing ads that your competitors are testing? This probably isn’t going to have great results.
This is why investing in a Pinterest ad spy tool is important.
BigSpy – The Best Pinterest Ad Spy Tool
Since Pinterest is not one of the top platforms yet, there are fewer tools that work with its advertising platform. However, BigSpy is one.
BigSpy allows you to search for a URL that is running ads – and then it will show you all of the Pinterest ads that are running from that account. But BigSpy also shows you a lot more than just that. BigSpy also shows you performance and targeting information for those ads.
Additionally, BigSpy can show you ads from other channels too like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and more. This means you can get a feel for what a competitor’s entire campaign looks like – you aren’t limited to Pinterest only.
BigSpy also has tools that showcase some of the best performing ads across the web. This means that you can find and draw inspiration from some of the top-performing ads on Pinterest, even if they are not your competitors. If you want to create the best ads possible, you need to have this kind of insight.
How BigSpy Works for Pinterest Ad Spying
Using BigSpy for Pinterest ad spying is luckily straightforward. It starts with a search. When you open BigSpy, you can click on the “Pinterest” channel. Then you just enter your competitor’s username or product words that relate to your industry so you can look at ads for a lot of different competitors. You can also filter for marketing type, time when the ad has run, and sort by languages, device types, and more.
After searching, BigSpy will show your competitor’s ads. Just by viewing your ads, you can see how long competitors are running campaigns, what kinds of images they are using, what the copy looks like, what the main selling points are in that copy, and what the CTA is for each ad.
Next, you can take a look at the audiences for the top-performing ads. You can see what countries they are from and their genders. While this isn’t every piece of demographic information you could pull – it might be different than who you were expecting to advertise to. This type of optimization can save you a lot of time and money.
Is BigSpy for Me?
Whether you are a paid media expert or a beginner just trying to get your business off-the-ground, BigSpy is an easy-to-learn tool that can provide you a lot of insight quickly. When used correctly, BigSpy can help you optimize your campaigns so that you can find more customers on Pinterest, faster.
Gareth James has been in internet marketing since 2001. Gareth currently runs a portfolio of websites and works with a handful of clients.