If you are using a Pinterest Business Account (which you should be), you have a fantastic feature available to you called Pinterest Analytics. This can help you determine how well you are doing on the Pinterest platform. It can also be very confusing at first if you are not a numbers person. Since getting started with Pinterest, I have spent a great deal of time working with Pinterest Analytics and have a good handle on how it works, thanks to my background in engineering and technology.
Today I want to break down Pinterest Analytics, and make it easy for everyone to understand. The topics in this guide include:
- The five Pinterest Metrics (and what they mean)
- A Closer look at the five different Pinterest Analytics views.
We will also go step by step through each section of Pinterest Analytics, which means you will see my Pinterest Analytics for TechStarZone.com. You will not see millions of followers or impressions or clicks or saves for the following reasons:
I got started with Pinterest at the end of October 2018 and knew NOTHING about the platform.
- My goal with Pinterest was to learn how the platform really works, my goal was not the most rapid growth possible.
- I reached 500 followers after 78 days and 1,000 followers after 94 days. You can learn more about how I did it in those two blogs, and what I would do differently if I could do it over.
- My Pinterest account is a constant experiment as I try new things to dive deeper into how Pinterest works, so you may see periods of peaks and periods of not much activity. This is my little hobby. I have done extensive research on how Pinterest really works thanks to the Pinterest engineering blog and the engineering resources Pinterest publishes at Pinterest Labs.
- I decided to let my Pinterest account sit and do nothing for a while, until recently. Stay turned for the detailed case study on what happened, you will be as surprised as I was!
Could my Pinterest analytics be better if I followed my own advice? Of course, but where is the fun in that, and how would I learn anything that way?
Now, let’s dive into what exactly Pinterest analytics can tell us.
Note: This blog post has been revamped and republished after Pinterest updated their Analytics platform!
The Five Pinterest Analytics Metrics
Before we get started on our tour of Pinterest Analytics, I want to make sure you have a good understanding of the five metrics Pinterest uses most. These metrics are:
- Impressions
- Saves
- Link Clicks (Clicks)
- Engagements
- Closeups
With the newest Pinterest Analytics update, Pinterest started reporting both Engagements and closeups. Previously, these were not really examined. Pinterest also referred to Link Clicks as just Clicks previously.
Now, let’s talk about what they are, and what they mean.
Understanding Pinterest Impressions
An impression is simply how many times people have seen your pins. According to the Pinterest article on profile analytics, the views of your pin come from home feeds, category feeds, and search. You have probably already read many articles out there that say Pinterest Impressions do not actually mean anything, and to ignore this statistic.
I completely disagree with this. An increased number of impressions means you are doing something right from Pinterest’s point of view, and how can anyone ever re-pin your pin if they have not seen it? When you see impressions increasing it means you are writing good pin descritopns, and including good key words and hash tags that are related to your content, and this is a major milestone.
Likewise, if you do not see the number of impressions increasing on your profile, it means you need to change they way you are doing things, and focus on content rich pin descriptions. Remember, at the end of the day Pinterest is a search engine, and your target demographic is on Pinterest to search and find what they need.
Understanding Pinterest Saves
While we talk about “pinning” on Pinterest all of the time, if you look at the Pinterest user interface, the proper verbiage is Save. A save is when somueone saves (or pins) your content to one of their boards.
Saves are a good indicator of your pin design. You would not save a pin that did not look good, would you? A save means that someone in your target audience thinks your pin is worth referring back to or had the puotential to teach them something. Once again, your pin description helped with this, but so did the design of your pin graphic.
An increasing number of saves means you are creating good looking pins that people are seeing. Great job! If you are not seeing a lot of saves, try playing with your pin graphics. Look at other pins in your blogging niche, and see what they look like. Pay attention to their metrics, and see what resonates with your audience. Then, start designing pins with those things in mind.
Understanding Pinterest Link Clicks (Clicks)
Clicks are probably everyones favorite data point, since they are what drive traffic to your website. In Pinterest land, a click means someone clicked on your pin and visited your site! Awesome! This is an important metric, because it proves that we are writing good pin descriptions, and making pins that people want to engage with, beyond simply saving them for later. The more clicks we see, the better.
Designing pins that get clicks takes time. Time to hone in on your graphic design skills if that is not your area of expertise, and time getting to know and understand your audience. Once you spend enough time with your audience, and truly understand what they are looking for in a piece of content, you will naturally begin to see more clicks to your website as you further refine your pin descriptions and pin design.
This takes a bit of trial and error for everyone. There will be a time when you spend a great deal of time designing a pin you think will get clicks, and you will pin it to find it does not do well. Other times, you will throw a pin out there with less effort and it will take off. Go figured.
Make sure you are taking detailed notes on what pins are working for you and what pins are not. Pinterest Analytics can help you with this, and we are about to learn how.
Understanding Pinterest Engagements
When Pinterest revamped their Analytics platform, they started using a new term called engagements. This team simply means that someone interacted with your pin in some way, shape, or form.
It could be a view, click, or save. You can drill down more on the different engagement types within the platform, but the blanket term engagement simply means interaction.
This is different than Impression of course. Impression means someone saw a pin, and engagement means someone did something with it!
Understanding Pinterest Closeups
A closeup is a type of engagement. This is when someone clicks on your pin in their feed (but not necessarily through to your website). From the closeup view they of course have the option to save or click through.
This is sort of confusing, and also why Pinterest renamed Clicks to Link Clicks. Remember, it isn’t enough for someone to just click on a pin, you want them to click through to your website!
The Pinterest Analytics Views
We can access Pinterest Analytics by heading over to Analytics.Pinterest.com. You will also see Analytics in the top left of your screen next to the Pinterest logo when you are logged into Pinterest with a desktop web browser. When we click on Analytics at the top left of the screen, we will see the different view options:
Pinterest has really simplified this, because there used to be five separate views for analytics!
There are now three simple Pinterest Analytics views:
- Overview
- Audience Insights
- Video
Now, we are going to break down each of these Pinterest Analytics views, how to access them, and what you can learn about. We are not going to cover Video just yet, since I haven’t really played with it.
Pinterest Analytics Overview Screen
When you log in to Pinterest Analytics view, the view you see is the Overview. This is the starting place for most of the information you are looking for.
Here are the things you will see in the main analytics overview:
- Reports
- Filters
- Main Chart with Options
- Export Button
Then, you can scroll down passed the chart for even more useful information like:
- Board Views
- Pin Views
Now, let’s go step by step through this screen and how to use it.
This is a great place to get started with Pinterest Analytics, and will give you at a glance information about the most useful metrics, Impressions and Engagements.
Now, let’s talk about the numbers on the screens. We know about Impressions and Engagements and what they are already.
Impressions is higher than total audience, because sometimes the same person sees more than one of your pins.
Engaged audience is just how many people in your audience engaged with a pin.
You can also see the percentage increase over the date range selected in green text next to each of the metrics.
Other Pinterest Analytics Chart Options
The default view in the Pinterest analytics chart is impressions. Let’s click that box and see the other options we can show charts based on:
When I select a different one of these metrics, I can see more based on that metric. In this case, I have selected Link Click Rate.
Instead of telling me how many link clicks, it is telling me the percentage of how many people saw a pin versus clicked on a link. Think of it as a CTR on Google Search Console.
You can select any of those views to see the data in a chart like this.
The Pinterest Analytics Export Button
This button is awesome. You can export all of you ur data into a CSV file, and look at it however you would like. I highly recommend everyone try this and take a closer look at their data.
Pinterest Analytics Filters
You can filter your Pinterest analytics data on the left:
The filters are pretty self explanatory, and let you get really granular with what you are viewing.
The most important one to take a look at is the Date range.
The most you can go back is 90 days. It is really important that you take a look at your analytics at least this often, or you may miss something!.
Pinterest Analytics Top Boards
The first thing you see after you scroll down passed the chart is your top Pinterest boards. You will see three boards at a time, and need to scroll through them. Mouse over a board to see more information:
See that drop down with Impressions in it? You can sort the boards based on any of the Pinterest metrics.
You can also see all of this information if you export your data. The export does not contain images, but the URL of each board, along with the key metrics of:
- Impressions
- Engagements
- Closeups
- Link clicks
- Saves
This is the same information you can see visually on the Pinterest Analytics site and is a little easier to work with because you can see all the boards at once versus having to scroll through them.
Pinterest Analytics Top Pins
Now, if you scroll down past the chart, and passed the top boards, you will see your top pins. This data is also included if you export your analytics data, with the URL to each pin.
Looking at your top pins is a great way to see what is working, and what is not!
If you guessed that you can sort your pins on any of the metrics you want, you guessed correct! Just select what you would like from the drop down menu. Once again the choices are:
- Impressions
- Engagements
- Closeups
- Link clicks
- Saves
You will see a list of top pins to compare, but I just showed you the first one to save some space!
Pinterest Audience Insights
The second big part of Pinterest Analytics are Pinterest Audience Insights.
Pinterest Audience Insights basically tells you all about the people who are viewing your content. This is helpful because it can help you determine if you are reaching the right audience. It can also alert you to new audience potential you may have never even thought about!
If you keep scrolling on the Audience Insights screen you will be able to see more data on the following:
Categories and Interests, with the ability to drill down deeper to find out what your audience is looking at
For example, if you have audience looking at the Women’s Fashion category, you can then see how interested your audience is in sub topics such as women’s jewelry and women’s style.
Demographics, including Age, Gender, Location, and Device.
Pinterest Analytics Audience Insights is all about creating targeted Pinterest ads and promotions. This feature would allow you to run a targeted ad campaign, say to people interested women’s jewelry if you were selling women’s jewelry.
If you are selling a product or service, this area may be worth spending some time in. As usual, Pinterest makes it easy to access your data and manipulate it by exporting it to a CSV file.
Becoming a Pinterest Analytics Pro
Whew, that’s it! You are now familiar with Pinterest Analytics, and the data it provides you. The best way to get more comfortable with Pinterest Analytics is to head on over and start using it.
Keep in mind these tips while you get started:
Impressions are how many times your pins have been seen.
Saves are how many times your pins have been saved to a board, pinned or re-pinned. People use different terms for this.
Clicks are when people click on your pin and visit your website.Start with the Overview section of Pinterest analytics. From there, you can begin to get a handle on the data you are seeing, and click graphs to view different areas of Pinterest Analytics.
Pinterest Analytics lags a day behind, and stores data for 90 days, so make sure to check in on your Pinterest Analytics data regularly, and keep notes.
Pinterest Analytics contains a great deal of data, deigned to make you a better Pinterest publisher. Make sure to spend time getting familiar with the interface, and take a look at how your pins are doing. I hope this guide was helpful. Good luck with Pinterest Analytics!