If your holiday campaign anxiety is high, you’re not alone. Holiday campaigns come with a low hum of nerves. Budgets are bigger, expectations are higher and every decision on media or creative feels amplified.
Holiday campaigns don’t leave much room for guesswork. As shoppers move from inspiration to purchase, brands need to know what’s working, and adapt quickly when it isn’t. That’s especially important when reaching high-intent shoppers is a top holiday concern for marketers: according to tvScientific by Pinterest's 2026 Holiday & Seasonal Shopping Trends Report, 30% of marketers say reaching high-intent shoppers is their top stressor heading into the season. 1
This year, you have a new way to take the anxiety out of holiday optimization: the campaign optimization score. This new feature turns your campaign setup, signals and creative mix into a clear, at-a-glance score with specific ways to improve. It's one score that tells you exactly where to focus next, so nothing about your holiday setup is left to guesswork.
People who use Pinterest already show up ready to shop, so you’re starting in the right place. This guide shows you how to put your new campaign optimization score to work, pair it with live diagnostics and Pinterest Performance+ creative, and keep your campaigns improving while the season is on.
Let real-time recommendations sharpen every campaign
Campaign optimization score in Ads Manager gives you an instant read on how closely your campaign setup aligns with proven best practices for performance. Across all objectives, we see that higher campaign optimization scores correlate to better campaign performance.2
You can use campaign optimization score when creating, editing or duplicating campaigns. Your score is built on three pillars - campaign setup, creative mix, and signal strength. It starts with a few simple foundations—focus on getting these right:
Fully adopt Pinterest Performance+ so targeting, budgets and bidding work together, instead of relying on one-off manual tweaks.
Give the system options. More creative variations and a broader product set help people see ads that feel relevant, which can lead to more impressions, clicks and conversions.
Keep your audience broad, or use Pinterest Performance+ targeting, so it’s easier to find people who are likely to act.
Choose a steady budget that’s big enough to hit your goals, and avoid changing it too often. If you’re unsure where to land, use Media Planner to see projected outcomes.
Stay present as people turn holiday inspiration into decisions
Two thirds of people who use Pinterest describe their sessions as purposeful shopping.3 And it’s not just focused—it drives expanded discovery: 71% say Pinterest helps them discover products and ideas they wouldn't normally encounter.3
That combination of intent and discovery is your holiday advantage: when you connect with people in the moments they’re actively planning, you can influence what makes the list instead of just fighting for the last click. Use that mindset to pressure-test your holiday plans. Ask yourself:
Are your current campaigns showing up in those decision-making moments?
Are they helping people discover something new?
Are you staying present as people move from inspiration to purchase?
Creative is the new currency of performance: how are you spending it?
Holiday shoppers don't scroll in a straight line, so your creative shouldn't look the same in every placement. Variety helps you show up in more of the moments when people are deciding what to buy—without relying on a single asset to do all the work.
Within each ad group, aim to run at least three different ad formats. Then expand the number of creatives in that same ad group so the system has more options to test. Once you move to five or more distinct ads, you give it enough signals to understand what resonates with different audiences and contexts.
When you toggle on Pinterest Performance+ creative, you let the system remix your existing assets into additional formats and variants without adding production overhead. That makes creative variety sustainable all season. That makes creative variety sustainable all season.
Put your biggest moments in the spotlight
For your biggest moments use Premiere Spotlight, our high-impact video placement that reserves prominent space in the Home feed and search results to maximize reach and awareness. It’s designed for your biggest moments. With Premiere Spotlight you can broaden the top of your funnel, then let your always-on media build on that awareness and drive day-to-day performance. Awareness strategies that included Premiere Spotlight saw a 1.5x improvement to median lifts in Pin Awareness AKA ad recall.4
As you build this mix, keep creative fundamentals tight: show the product clearly, use lifestyle scenes and make the offer easy to understand at a glance.
Strengthen your signals so every decision counts
All of this creative and campaign work only pays off if your signals keep up with real behavior. Strong, timely signals help Pinterest understand what success looks like, identify people most likely to take action and invest your budget where it can have the greatest impact.
Make sure your conversion data reflects what is happening now so bids can respond to current shopper behavior—not last week’s results. Use Pinterest Conversions API (CAPI) alongside the Pinterest tag so you can see web, app and offline conversions in a single view, instead of piecing them together after the fact.
Keep your product feed healthy and up to date. Accurate product details, availability and pricing give the system stronger inputs—and help people see relevant products when they are ready to act.
Then set your intentions by defining how you’ll measure success. How will you judge performance across your media buys and on Pinterest this holiday season?
Holiday jitters won't disappear, but you can turn them into momentum. Strong signals give your holiday campaigns a clearer path to learn, adapt and improve throughout peak season. Check your campaign optimization score in Ads Manager to see where you can strengthen your foundation and keep performance moving forward
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