How FMCG brands boost their sales with Pinterest

In consumer goods marketing, there’s a fundamental attribution challenge: while media plans are often built around neat funnel labels like “brand” for the upper funnel and “performance” for the lower funnel, the typical customer journey is anything but straightforward. Before a product is added to the shopping basket, it may have been saved on a Pinterest board for weeks. Despite this, brands still tend to allocate most of their media budgets to the channels closest to the actual purchase.

For years, brands mainly used Pinterest to build awareness and boost brand affinity. And they were successful with this approach! But what if they overlooked an even bigger opportunity by doing so? Because on Pinterest, brands can not only inspire people, they can also help drive purchase decisions that are visible in retail data. In this blog post, we’ll explore what’s possible when Pinterest isn’t just part of your awareness strategy, but used as a conversion catalyst across the entire funnel.

Comparing 14 sales lift studies

To demonstrate the direct impact of Pinterest campaigns on retail sales, we partnered with independent measurement specialists Nielsen and Circana to run 14 matched market sales lift studies in Germany involving 10 FMCG brands. Advertisers collaborated with the Pinterest team and WPP Media to apply full-funnel campaign best practices and ensure a proper campaign setup. A meta-analysis of the 14 studies was then conducted to uncover broader insights into offline sales uplift and return on ad spend (ROAS).

In addition, marketing mix models (MMMs) from Circana benchmarked Pinterest against other channels, including social, online video, display, search, print and out-of-home.

Pinterest delivers strong performance for FMCG brands

100% of sales lift studies show a significant uplift: All 14 sales lift studies showed a statistically significant uplift in offline sales. In fact, 78% of Pinterest campaigns outperformed the benchmark for sales uplift. The weighted average ROAS across all campaigns came in at 1.8x, which means that for every euro invested in media, €1.80 in incremental retail sales was generated.¹

Pinterest delivers the strongest ROAS in the Circana MMM benchmarks in the marketing mix: Particularly noteworthy, In Circana’s MMM benchmarks, Pinterest delivered the highest ROAS of all measured channels. Pinterest also performed well in sales per 1,000 impressions, ranking among the two most effective channels in the study.² 

A place where purchase decisions are made

How can these strong results be explained? Firstly, the mindset of Pinterest users is fundamentally different from that of users on other platforms. They’re not looking for passive entertainment, but are instead actively searching for ideas and products they want to try, create or buy. This means they’re already moving proactively towards a purchase decision. On top of that, advertisers reach their audience on Pinterest at exactly the right moment: when users are open to discovering new brands and products. Ads on Pinterest don’t feel intrusive, but blend naturally into the user experience.

Positivity also plays an important role. Brand messages aren’t presented between controversies or political debates — they’re a natural part of the platform and the user experience. This has a direct impact on advertiser performance: insights from media intelligence company MAGNA (commissioned by Pinterest) show that ads placed in environments users perceive as predominantly positive can deliver stronger results. This includes an increased impact on purchase intent of up to 94%.³

Best practices for strong lower-funnel results

Looking to drive measurable lower-funnel outcomes on Pinterest? Then stick to these best practices:

• Campaign duration: Plan for a campaign period of 4 to 12 weeks. This helps you capture the right marketing moment while avoiding ad fatigue — the point at which your audience becomes tired of seeing the same creatives.

• Reach and campaign objectives: Use a mix of campaign objectives, with around 70–75% of your budget allocated to awareness campaigns to build broad reach.

• Targeting: Keep your targeting broad across interests and keywords to reach new audiences and expand your conversion pools. We recommend enabling Pinterest Performance+ targeting. This AI-powered solution uses visual signals from your creative to widen your targeting and reach additional users on Pinterest who may be searching for (or may be open to) relevant ideas. Pinterest Performance+ targeting is available for all campaign types and objectives and can help improve reach, click-through rates and a reduction of overall spend.

• Formats: Use at least three different ad formats per campaign. Standard video ads and static ads should always be included. Additional formats create more varied touchpoints for your audience and increase flexibility in ad delivery. This allows you to enter more auctions, which can positively impact campaign performance by boosting both cost efficiency and reach.

• Varied creatives: Use at least five different creatives per ad group. This gives your audience a more varied set of touchpoints and helps reduce the risk of ad fatigue. You can find Pinterest’s best practices for creatives here.

Success story: Alpro boosts sales and ROAS with Pinterest

One of the FMCG brands included in the study was Alproa brand known for its plant-based drinks and yoghurt alternatives. Alpro and its partner WPP Media used a wide range of creative and interactive Pinterest ad formats to create meaningful touchpoints around people’s individual breakfast habits and build on those moments. The campaign had been optimised for awareness and brand preference and delivered measurable sales growth in grocery retail. Nielsen recorded a 3.2% increase in retail sales and a 2.6x increase in ROAS.⁴

As budgets shrink and performance pressure rises, it’s more important than ever for marketing teams to measure campaign impact reliably. Pinterest supports this with sales and conversion lift studies conducted in partnership with independent measurement providers. Get in touch with your Pinterest team now or explore our measurement solutions in this guide