The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Analytics and How to Use Them
You probably already know how important it is to review your Pinterest analytics and to use what you learn to improve and adjust your Pinning strategy for the success of your Pinterest marketing. What you might be less sure of is how to interpret all the numbers and charts at your disposal both in Pinterest and Tailwind analytics.
It can be intimidating for sure, but stick with us – we’re about to take a look at some of the most important things to look at and identify impactful ways to incorporate what you learn into an even more successful Pinterest marketing strategy.
Pinterest Analytics
To access Pinterest analytics, you’ll need a business account – which you need if you’re using your account to promote your business anyway! Here’s how to convert a personal account. You’ll also want to confirm your website so you can use analytics to see what people are saving to Pinterest from your site. Here’s how to confirm or claim your site.
Now that you’ve unlocked all the analytics Pinterest has to offer, let’s dive in!
Pinterest Analytics – Overview
The three charts at the top show a summary of your activity for the last seven days along with top Pin impressions for the last 30 days. They don’t give us enough information to spot trends – this is really your jumping-off point to get to the actionable analytics. So, let’s do that by clicking on “More” next to “Your Pinterest Profile”.
Your Pinterest Profile – How All Your Pins Perform
Choose a date range to see how your account has performed over time. Glance at the impression data, but then move on to what really counts by clicking on the “Clicks” tab. See which Pins people are clicking on. These will be Pins you’ve Pinned – and may lead to your site or to someone else’s.
What you’re looking for here are topics that generate clicks. So, in this list, I can see several Pins that don’t lead to my own content. After excluding the ones I wouldn’t write about (keto hot chocolate, for example), I see one I should write about – Pinterest SEO!
I should also look more closely at that Pin image to see if something about it may have been particularly appealing – the image style, the layout, the description – and use that to create more images like that for my own content!
Underneath your most-clicked Pins will be your boards with the most clicked Pins. Make sure your Pins of your own content get to these boards which are generating clicks! Use this in connection with Tailwind’s Board Insights (discussed below) and create board lists in order to prioritize activity on your boards.
People You Reach – Insights Into People Who See Your Pins
Moving on to “People You Reach,” from the Analytics menu, you can see a snapshot of your 30-day average for Pin impressions and engagement. Switch to “All audiences” in the middle drop-down menu (see image below) to see activity by your followers plus those who are seeing your pins in their feeds, related Pins, or searches. Likely you will find that your followers account for just a very tiny percentage of the impressions and activity on your Pinterest account (frankly, I compared the two and was surprised at how little exposure my Pins have with my followers).
Check out your impressions for the last 30 days, and then switch the date to look at last month and last year. In what direction are you moving? Up? That’s the idea!
Now, let’s use this dashboard to learn about the people seeing our Pins. It’s a virtual goldmine of potential customer insights!! First, click the “all apps” button at the top right of the screen. Toggle between devices to see which devices viewers and engagers are using when they find you. A large number of my viewers come from iPhone – how about yours?
Knowing where your audience comes from allows you to optimize the content you share. You can also make decisions about which devices you want to target with Promoted Pins. Do you have a large number of iPhone users, but your web viewers actually engage more? Make note of that and use it to run more successful Pinterest ads.
Now let’s scroll down a bit to see the demographic breakdown of the people seeing and engaging with our Pins. If you’re marketing a product or service that appeals to a certain location (warm socks – cool locations, beach toys – warm locations) on Pinterest, you’ll be hoping to see a large number of audience members in those areas!
If you see a lot of activity from a country other than your own or in a language other than the one your site is written in, is it worth creating at least some content on your site for those viewers? It’s similar with the gender breakdown. If your numbers surprise you – is there something you could do with your content or your Pins to cater to viewers?
Now let’s switch over to the “Interests” tab. I love this one for planning an initial Pinterest strategy because it helps you get beyond just what you write about, sell, or offer as a service, to reach a wider audience by appealing to related needs and goals. Lately, the number of Interests displayed has shrunken in analytics, but it’s still worth a look. Here’s what I see:
If I don’t already have a board for Inspirational Quotes for Entrepreneurs, this would be a good hint that I should! Now, some of these you just won’t be able to make fit – but with a little creativity, I might be able to make a “Home Office Decor” board that would work! Don’t hesitate to create new boards if you can keep them filled up. Specific niche board titles are helpful for search. Always create a new board rather than dividing a more general board into sections — sections do NOT help your SEO and general board titles don’t either.
If you scroll down just a bit you’ll see Boards: Boards with lots of your Pins. I like to look at these to see how people are categorizing my Pins. I don’t have a board that uses the term “Traffic” in the title or really with a focus on website traffic in general – but maybe I should! Evidently, that is how someone sees what I’m Pinning and maybe I could appeal to more people like them by creating and maintaining a board with that focus and keyword.
Next, check out Brands: Businesses your audience engages. You could think of them as your competition – OR you could take a cue from what they’re sharing and adapt it to yourself. What is it about the Pins on these accounts that appeal to your audience? Almost every account will show Buzzfeed, ETSY, and Tumblr, here, but you’ll be looking for anyone more closely-related to your business. My analytics turn up Tailwind as a brand my audience engages with. Imagine that! When I click to see more, I do see another couple of Pinterest bloggers I should check out. You can always learn from your “competition.”
Pinterest Website Analytics – Your Content on Pinterest
This is where it all comes together – the impact of Pinterest activity where it matters – on your website! All the activity here is limited to Pins that link to your website.
Impressions and Saves are interesting and give you an idea of which of your Pins linking to your own content are getting lots of exposure and engagement, but what really counts is Clicks! Switch over to that tab. Here’s what you’ll see:
The Pin type “P” is promoted, so it’s no surprise those are showing up. I’m going to ignore those since I paid for those clicks. “R” means it’s a Rich Pin. All Pins from my site should be Rich Pins.
Now, here’s something interesting. Oftentimes infographics get a huge number of Saves (Repins) but not a lot of clicks. This one is an exception. Perhaps because at the bottom of the image there is a very strong call to action promising more if they visit the website. It also just gets a huge number of impressions. Since this infographic took me all of 20 minutes to make on Canva, I should make more!
The next organic Pin that is doing well is for an article on “10 Pinterest Promoted Pin Mistakes.” Maybe it’s time to create more content that addresses people’s concerns about overspending on Pinterest ads? Maybe I should make an infographic for five of the mistakes and then my call to action should be “Catch the other five on my blog!” I should also be adding this Pin to my Tailwind Communities!
Are you starting to see how these analytics can help you refine your content marketing and repurpose what you already have?
Click over to “Original Pins” to see what people are Pinning from your site this month. No big surprises here for me. Most of what appears here are newer posts and even a page for my course. What about you? Are you seeing older content surface here? If so, try Pinning it again yourself and add it to applicable Communities and group boards.
Finally, let’s move on to the “All Time” tab and spend a few minutes with our all-time best performing Pins. Check out Most saves: Your most shared Pins and see if you can spot a theme in the content or the image style. If something stands out, try making more Pins like that!
I’m anxious to see Best in search: Pins that rank higher in search. We would all love to crack Pinterest’s SEO code, but since that’s not 100% within reach, it’s beneficial to see what you can learn from your Pins that do well in search.
Check out each of your “Best in search” Pins, looking at who Pinned, to which board, whether they changed your description or not, etc. Look for any clues as to why this version of your Pin (if not Pinned by you) outperformed your own!
Moving on to Power Pins: Pins with a high mix of saves, clicks and more, you can see your all-time all-star Pins. Repin these, add them to Communities, and look for patterns in content and image style so you can make more like it.
Tailwind Analytics
Tailwind’s Pinterest analytics can’t be beat! And now with a full 30 days of data on our popular Plus plan, you get even more insights into what’s working and why.
Profile Performance
In Profile Performance on any Tailwind plan, you can see up to 30 days of information which gives you an overall look at the health of your account. See how your followers and Pins are growing. Watch your Pinterest Repin and comment numbers grow.
Across the top, you have four charts to choose from. By default you’ll see your Followers. Of course, everyone likes to see those numbers climb, but don’t worry too much about it as most of the activity on Pinterest these days happens in search. If you see periodic drops in follower count, this could be a result of Pinterest cleaning up fake accounts.
Switch to Pins to see how many Pins you adding this month. But wait – what’s this drop? Occasionally, someone will report a Pin as having some kind of copyright issue and Pinterest removes it from the platform. Sometimes you get an email to let you know hey, it’s not you, but we had to remove this. No big cause for concern.
Now move over to Repins. This is just a cumulative count. Of your Repins. If your Repins go down, it’s likely because some Pins were removed.
Finally, Comments. Comments aren’t real common on Pinterest anymore, but it’s interesting to see the activity.
Your virality score is the total number of Repins (saves) you’ve received divided by the number of Pins you have ever saved to Pinterest. This indicates how effectively your Pins are reaching others through Smartfeed, searches, and more.
What’s a “good” virality score? Anything that’s higher than it was before!
The 30-day average virality score can be compared with your all-time score to see how your Pins are being received now compared to all-time activity. A full gauge means you are at at 30-day high. Aim to keep those numbers trending upward.
Engagement Score shows you how engaged your own followers are and is calculated by dividing your total Repins by all of your Pins and then by per thousand followers. Higher is better, and maintaining a 30-day high means you are moving in the right direction.
If you notice a spike in your engagement score, look at your Pin inspector to see if one Pin has taken off this month and make sure to share it to more all relevant boards and to your Tailwind Communities to help drive more exposure to it.
Engagement Rate is the percentage of your Pins with at least one Repin. Ideally, you want all of your Pins to be Repinned at least once, so the closer you can get to 100%, the better.
Want to find out which of your boards are the most successful? Head over to board insights in Tailwind. This is an absolute must – especially if you contribute to group boards. Pinterest Group boards can be helpful for getting your content in front of new people, but if they’re not performing, it’s time to leave. You don’t want your Pins in a “bad neighborhood” on Pinterest because that can decrease the reach of all your Pins.
You also want to know which boards are working well for you so you can spend more time creating and curating content to save there.
Here’s what to look for.
Uncheck the “secret boards” box – we don’t care about the virality or engagement on those boards since no one else sees them. Sort by virality or engagement score. Virality score shows the number of Repins per Pin, while engagement score factors in activity based on the number of followers, so the one you choose to prioritize is up to you.
Personally, I start with Virality Score. Sorting by virality score, I look for boards with a lower than average (MY average) score and decide whether I want to keep them or not.
A board with great virality or engagement scores may seem like a board you should automatically prioritize – making sure to keep fresh, quality content coming in all the time. But it’s important to make sure it is STILL working. Kate Ahl of Simple Pin Media suggests you click on the board name to get to the Pin insights on that board and see if there has been any activity on your recent Pins. Case in point: my board with the highest Engagement score hasn’t generated any repins in the last eight months. It seems that board is NOT worth prioritizing any more!
Monitoring your Board Insights regularly can help direct your Tailwind scheduling toward boards that perform well for both your Pinterest profile and your blog, maximizing the growth of your Pinterest profile and the traffic to your blog from Pinterest. – Chrissie Baker, The Busy Baker, as Published on Food Bloggers of Canada.
If you find that some boards are not performing well or are no longer relevant to your account, you can delete, archive, or set the board to secret and it and the Pins on it will no longer be visible to others. Just
Click the arrow in circle icon to navigate to the board you want to edit on Pinterest.
go to the board on Pinterest, click the pencil icon to edit and:
Delete the board if you don’t need to access it ever again and don’t mind losing followers who might be following only that board.
Archive it if you might want to bring it back again some day but don’t want this board or its Pins to be visible to others or to see suggestions based on those Pins in your feed anymore. You can restore the board to your profile later if you want to.
Set it to Secret if you still want to save Pins on this topic for your own reference and you don’t mind seeing content like that in your feed. You can always set it back to public later.
Pin Inspector
With Pin Inspector, you can look at your last five thousand Pins, whether they were scheduled through Tailwind or Pinned manually. You can filter by date Pinned and then sort by date Pinned, number of comments, number of Repins, or the board title.
When looking at all Pins, see which Pins leading to other peoples’ content performed well. Could you create something similar – either in the style of the Pin or in the topic of the content it leads to?
You could also filter by Category, Board, or to show only Pins from your own website or search for specific keywords. When you spot high-performing Pins from your own site, reschedule those and add them to your Tailwind Communities.
Now that you know what’s popular, you can reschedule this content to other relevant boards, or even to the same board. It’s a great way to boost traffic from old posts and expose it to your Pinterest followers who may have missed it the first time. – Craig Makepeace, yTravel
Tina Gammon, Pinterest Marketer, says that when she spots winners in her Pin inspector she will often write more articles about the subject and create additional images to repurpose the existing content.
Real-Time Top Pins Report
Have a verified/claimed domain on Pinterest? Nestled in Insights in Tailwind, you’ll find a little gem added in 2019 – the Top Pins Report.
You’ll see Top Pins for clicks and saves for the past month, along with the click and save rates for each. That’s right – no more math!
By default, you’ll see Pins from your domain which you may have saved or which someone else might have saved. Switch to “Pinned By Me” to see which Pins you saved from any source are resulting in the most clicks and saves.
Something you might miss: you can hover over the Pins and the Pinners to get more details. For example, hover over one of our top Pins and you’ll see this!:
How you can sort:
7 day, 14 day, 30 day periods
Most Clicked or Most Saved
Pins from your domain saved by anyone
Pins you saved (to your domain or someone else’s)
Use these insights to see what is working for your own content but also to get inspired by other people. Is there a topic that really took off when you shared it that you could cover as well? Is there a Pin design in your “Pinned by me” report that you could try for your own content?
In Conclusion
Now that you know what all of these analytics mean, which are most important, and how to use them, it’s time to put them to work! Set a recurring monthly calendar reminder and take just 30-60 minutes to review all your available Pinterest analytics so you can adjust your Pinning strategy for more traffic, leads, and sales on your site. Include a link back to this post if it was helpful to you. You can always Pin it, too. 😉
As you can see, Tailwind analytics are the perfect complement to Pinterest’s native analytics. In addition, when you schedule your Pins through Tailwind they’ll publish at the best possible times for generating engagement. Add in the power of Tailwind Communities and you’re going to love the way your analytics look next month!