Creative best practices for your next lower-funnel campaign

Let’s be honest: It can feel daunting to get your ads right for every goal, on every platform. But we’re here to be your guides. With our expanded performance marketing solutions, you’ll find more options to reach your lower-funnel goals on Pinterest. And to really help you succeed, we’re giving you data-backed insights into what works best. 

Our team analysed hundreds of performance campaigns to see what drives success.¹ Here are our top tips to help your performance campaigns really perform. 

1. Use your visuals for storytelling

Don’t just pick an image and call it done. Pinterest is a visual platform—so you really want to make those visuals shine. Tell a richer story by combining different Pins, ads or even boards to create a strong narrative.

We recommend combining lifestyle shots with clear product images across ads so that people really understand your products. For example, a retail clothing brand could create story-driven boards such as ‘Urban explorers’ and ‘Weekend getaways’, featuring stylish outfits for both city adventures and relaxed retreats. Seeing products in action helps people to get a better sense of your brand and helps them to imagine your products in their lives. 

2. Keep CTAs direct

When someone’s ready to buy, seamlessly guide them to the next step. A clear call-to-action (CTA) such as ‘Shop now’ or ‘Buy today’ helps to guide them to purchase. Use strong action verbs and align your CTA with the ad’s intent. Make your CTAs really focused and direct. For example, don’t write ‘Learn more’ if you’re hoping that people will go to checkout at the next step. Position your CTA prominently, at the bottom of your ad, ensuring that it doesn’t obscure other elements of your creative. For extra emphasis, consider implementing a complementary CTA such as ‘Explore the collection’ within the ad design to reinforce the main CTA, such as ‘Buy now’.

3. Write short, clear copy 

Especially for lower-funnel ads, you’ll want to prioritise clarity over cleverness. Tell shoppers exactly what they’re getting. You can use text overlay to grab attention and make the offer more enticing or relevant. Overlay can provide extra info about what you’re selling, such as special benefits or brand information (e.g. ‘waterproof’ or ‘free delivery’). If you use text overlay, think about your font size so that it’s easy for people to read what’s on the Pin. 

4. Use a combination of ad formats

Our research shows that using multiple ad formats can drive better results.² If you’re looking to optimise your return on ad spend (ROAS) and conversion rates (CVR), shopping ads, carousels and collections have been shown to be the most effective formats.³ In fact, brands that have added shopping ads to their mix have seen 15% higher ROAS and 2.6x higher conversion rates.⁴ Shopping ads allow you to promote products directly from your catalogue, helping to reach shoppers when they’re most likely to act, while carousels and collections let you share complementary products that ‘complete the look’ or that other people also purchased. 

For example, a jewellery brand could create a carousel ad highlighting a variety of charms and beads for their popular customisable bracelet.  Then, they could retarget people with a shopping ad showcasing the bracelet, complete with charms, driving the shopper directly to the purchase page.

5. Create a seamless click-through experience

Imagine clicking on a gorgeous ad for comfy jumpers, only to land on a website with harsh colours and no jumpers in sight. It would be pretty jarring! That’s why it’s important to make sure that when people click on your CTA, your landing page matches the look and feel of your Pin. 

Make sure to incorporate elements that help maintain brand identity into your ads. Try to include prominent branding by using your logo or key colours—just make sure that they don’t overwhelm your ad’s message.

Putting it all together

Level up your lower funnel

These research-based tips are a great start to boost your ad campaign on Pinterest. But ad creative is just one step in better performance marketing on Pinterest. That’s why we coach our partners to success with our Path to Performance framework. Our coaching includes info on how to optimise your product feed and a campaign testing strategy to gather nuanced insights and tweak specific variables.