Sharpie
This campaign drew a clean line from inspiration to sales
Goal
Sharpie wants to help people reimagine what a marker could do. It goes beyond just signing a document or labeling a box. Sharpie markers have the ability to bring any craft or project to life with bold, vibrant color.
In 2025, Sharpie shifted gears. After building strong awareness for their Creative Marker in 2024, the brand turned its attention to driving purchase consideration and sales, particularly during high-intent seasonal moments like Mother's Day and back-to-school season. Sharpie needed a platform that could reach qualified shoppers who were already thinking about their next creative project and bring them from idea to checkout. Pinterest, with its efficient reach and audience of craft enthusiasts and school supply shoppers, was a natural fit. Now it was time to drive results.
Strategy
Getting people to consider buying isn't enough if you don't make it easy for them to follow through. This is what Sharpie’s approach was built around. The brand deployed a full-funnel strategy on Pinterest, combining native targeting, lookalike audiences and retargeting to reach core shoppers at different stages of their journeys. But the real differentiator was what happened after someone engaged with an ad.
Every Pinterest placement, from awareness to consideration, linked to ecarting landing pages, which let shoppers add Creative Markers directly to their carts at key retail partners like Target, Walmart, and Amazon. With no extra steps and no friction, shoppers were able to go straight from inspiration to purchase.
The brand also leaned into interactive ad formats, particularly Carousel ads, to showcase the Creative Marker's range of colors and project possibilities. By running the campaign through back-to-school season and measuring the mid-flight impact on offline sales, Sharpie tracked exactly how upper and mid-funnel Pinterest activity translated to real purchases at retailer point-of-sale.
“
This campaign delivered meaningful measurement insights that reshaped how we approach multi-objective initiatives for Sharpie. By expanding our reach and intentionally simplifying the consumer path to purchase during the critical Back-to-School season, we unlocked positive offline sales lift and incremental impact beyond digital engagement. We’re very encouraged by the positive NCS lift results and remain committed to collaborating on a consumer-first approach in our platform activation with Pinterest!”
Briana Swain
Sr. Manager, National Media - Writing, Outdoor & Recreation, Newell Brands
"
Crossmedia was proud to partner with Sharpie and Pinterest to apply a data-driven measurement solution designed to better understand the sales impact of a multi-objective strategy, delivering transparent, actionable insights to guide smarter future campaigns."
Kimberly Clary
Associate Director, Crossmedia
Results
The campaign proved to Sharpie that Pinterest could drive people from browsing to buying. According to an NCS Offline Sales Lift Study, Sharpie's Creative Marker activation generated a 4.93% incremental sales lift, a result that came in 644% above the NCS Household Care category median. Even more impressive: 74% of those incremental sales came from new buyers, with the response index from new customers landing 22% above the category benchmark.
The campaign successfully converted Heavy Brand Switchers, Low Brand Loyalists, and Prior Non-Brand Buyers — the qualified shoppers Sharpie wanted to reach. While awareness tactics drove the highest volume of sales, consideration-focused media delivered stronger sales lift and incremental return on ad spend, proving the value of Sharpie's full-funnel approach.
Interactive formats like Carousel ads were particularly effective, driving an incremental return on ad spend that was more than 10x above the NCS Household Care category median and more than double Pinterest's own offline sales benchmark.
4.93%
Incremental sales lift driven by Sharpie's Pinterest campaign
74%
Percentage of incremental sales that came from new buyers, with a response index 22% above the category median
10x +
How much Carousel ads' incremental ROAS spend exceeded the NCS Household Care category median
Explore Related Resources
Direct links and ecarting solutions
Make it easier for shoppers to buy by reducing friction in the purchase journey. Direct links let you send people from your Pinterest ads straight to product pages or retailer carts, cutting out extra steps between inspiration and conversion. Additionally, incorporate our new Where To Buy (native carting) links to help shoppers add your products directly to their carts at key retailers right from the ad.
Carousel ads for product storytelling
This interactive format lets you feature multiple images in a single ad, making it perfect for showcasing product variety, demonstrating different use cases, or walking people through a creative project step-by-step. Sharpie's results prove the impact. Carousel ads drove incremental return on ad spend that was 1,000% above category benchmarks, turning engagement into measurable offline sales.