Scaling Pinterest ads effectively requires balancing growth with profitability. Many advertisers increase budgets or broaden targeting without a clear plan, causing ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) to drop. The key is to scale systematically, leveraging Pinterest’s unique user behavior and ad mechanics. Here’s how you can achieve this:
- Use Vertical Scaling: Gradually increase budgets (15-25% every 3-5 days) on top-performing campaigns to avoid algorithm disruptions.
- Apply Horizontal Scaling: Test new audiences and refresh visuals to prevent ad fatigue.
- Focus on ROAS: Monitor ROAS closely to ensure increased spending drives proportional revenue.
- Leverage Pinterest Features: Use Actalike audiences, retargeting, and dynamic retargeting to reach high-intent users.
- Prioritize High-Quality Visuals: Use vertical images, bold colors, and lifestyle imagery to stand out.
- Test Ad Formats: Experiment with Standard Pins, Carousel Ads, Shopping Ads, Video Pins, and Collection Ads for different objectives.
- Optimize Budgets and Bids: Gradually increase budgets, use automated or manual bidding based on campaign data, and allocate funds to top-performing ads.
- Track Key Metrics: Monitor ROAS, CTR (0.5%-1.5%), CPA, conversion rates, and CPC to refine strategies.
- A/B Test Regularly: Test creatives, audiences, and bidding strategies to improve performance.
Scaling Pinterest ads isn’t just about spending more - it’s about spending smart. By combining data-driven strategies, consistent monitoring, and creative updates, you can reach larger audiences while maintaining or improving your ROAS.
10 ROAS - Full Pinterest Ads Strategy (2025)
Scaling and ROAS Basics
To make the most of Pinterest's unique dynamics, it's crucial to understand the fundamentals of scaling and how Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) plays a pivotal role.
What Scaling Means for Pinterest Ads
Scaling Pinterest ads involves two main strategies: vertical scaling and horizontal scaling.
- Vertical scaling focuses on increasing the budgets of your best-performing campaigns. A common practice is to raise your campaign budget by about 15% every 3–4 days. This gradual approach allows Pinterest’s algorithm to adapt and find new qualified users without disrupting performance. A sudden budget spike, on the other hand, can lead to inflated costs and poor results.
- Horizontal scaling expands your reach by testing new audiences and experimenting with fresh creative content. Pinterest’s reliance on visual content makes it essential to keep your creative assets updated. Reusing the same audiences or visuals can lead to ad fatigue, so refreshing your content ensures continued engagement.
By balancing both strategies, you can scale effectively without compromising performance.
Why ROAS Is Critical When Scaling
ROAS, or Return on Ad Spend, is the key metric to track when scaling Pinterest campaigns. It helps answer the critical question: Is your increased spending driving proportional revenue growth, or are you just paying more for less?
When scaling vertically, ROAS provides insight into the budget ceiling for each campaign. Initially, as you increase budgets, ROAS may hold steady. But as you start to exhaust the most responsive parts of your audience, ROAS can drop. Spotting this decline early allows you to adjust your budget increases and avoid overspending.
Focus your budget on campaigns with stronger ROAS to ensure profitable growth. Pinterest’s audience demographics also play a role here. The platform reaches 40% of U.S. households earning over $150,000 annually. This affluent user base often maintains steady conversion rates as you scale - provided your creative and targeting align with their preferences.
How Pinterest Users Behave and How It Affects Your Ads
Pinterest’s 518 million monthly active users bring a unique mindset to the platform. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest users often arrive with a high level of purchase intent. They use Pinterest as a planning tool - whether it’s for future purchases, home projects, or wish lists.
This behavior means users may interact with your brand multiple times before converting. For advertisers, it highlights the importance of consistent branding across all creative assets. Strong, recognizable visuals help build trust and familiarity over time.
Another key factor is Pinterest’s discovery-driven nature. Users often save content for later, which can delay visible results compared to platforms with immediate conversion cycles. This is especially true for higher-priced or more considered purchases. However, this delay is balanced by Pinterest’s ability to introduce new brands and products - 80% of users report discovering new brands on the platform.
To succeed, your creative content must stand out. Pinterest’s visual-first environment demands high-quality, varied visuals that can make a strong first impression. Regularly updating your creative assets not only prevents ad fatigue but also ensures your campaigns remain effective as you scale.
Advanced Targeting Methods for Scaling
Scaling your Pinterest campaigns effectively requires tapping into advanced targeting strategies that ensure your increased ad spend reaches the right audience. These methods help you maintain a strong return on ad spend (ROAS) while expanding your reach to new, qualified users. Here’s a closer look at some key techniques.
Using Pinterest's Actalike Audiences
Pinterest's Actalike audiences function similarly to lookalike targeting. They use your most valuable customer segments as a base to identify users with comparable behaviors and interests. To make the most of this feature, start by pinpointing high-value groups within your existing customer data. Test different audience segments based on behaviors and engagement levels to discover which ones drive the best performance.
Retargeting to Increase Conversions
Retargeting takes your targeting efforts a step further by focusing on users who have already interacted with your brand. Pinterest's platform is ideal for this, as users often save content for future use. By launching timely retargeting campaigns, you can capture conversions from users who didn’t act immediately but are still interested.
Dynamic retargeting is a particularly effective tool when scaling campaigns. It allows you to reconnect with users who have visited your site or added items to their shopping carts by showing them the exact products they viewed or similar ones. To implement dynamic retargeting, you’ll need to:
- Upload your product catalog to Pinterest.
- Install the Pinterest tag to track key actions like checkouts, add-to-cart events, and page visits.
- Ensure you have sufficient traffic data to optimize the algorithm for better results.
In addition to dynamic retargeting, standard retargeting strategies can help re-engage users at various stages of their journey. For instance, you can create tailored messages for visitors who browsed your website or abandoned their carts, ensuring your creative aligns with their current interests and needs.
Targeting by Demographics and Devices
Demographic and device targeting can further refine your campaigns. By analyzing user behavior across different demographic groups and devices, you can adjust your bidding strategies and creative formats to better connect with your audience. For example, mobile users tend to prefer vertical imagery, while desktop users often engage more with detailed visuals.
Timing is another important factor. Optimizing your campaigns to run during peak hours or days when your audience is most active can significantly improve performance. This approach allows you to scale your campaigns effectively without compromising ROAS.
Improving Creative and Ad Formats for Better Performance
When it comes to scaling Pinterest campaigns, the visuals and ad formats you choose can make or break your success. Pinterest’s image-driven platform thrives on eye-catching designs and well-thought-out ad styles, both of which are crucial for maintaining a strong return on ad spend (ROAS) as you broaden your audience. By pairing engaging visuals with the right ad formats, you can unlock better campaign performance.
Visual Content Best Practices
To grab attention on Pinterest, start with high-quality vertical images that clearly convey your brand’s message and fit seamlessly within Pinterest’s layout.
- Leverage color: Bright, bold colors that match your brand’s identity can make your pins stand out and encourage engagement.
- Use text overlays wisely: Add text sparingly with fonts that are easy to read and contrast well with the background. Avoid cluttering your design so your message is clear at a glance.
- Incorporate lifestyle imagery: Help users picture your products in real-world settings. For instance, instead of showcasing a standalone coffee mug, feature it in a cozy, styled kitchen scene to make it more relatable and inspiring.
Choosing the Right Ad Formats
Once your visuals are optimized, the next step is selecting ad formats that align with your campaign goals. Pinterest offers a variety of options tailored to different objectives.
| Ad Format | Best Use Case |
|---|---|
| Standard Pins | Build brand awareness |
| Carousel Ads | Highlight multiple products |
| Shopping Ads | Drive direct purchases |
| Video Pins | Showcase features dynamically |
| Collection Ads | Promote lifestyle-driven brands |
- Standard Pins are a great way to test new creative ideas and reach a broader audience.
- Carousel Ads allow you to tell a story or spotlight multiple products in one ad.
- Shopping Ads connect directly to your product catalog, automatically updating pricing and availability, making them ideal for e-commerce.
- Video Pins and Collection Ads offer dynamic and immersive ways to engage users, whether through motion or storytelling.
Testing New Ad Formats
Pinterest frequently rolls out new ad formats and features, giving marketers an opportunity to stand out by being early adopters. For example, Idea Pins (formerly known as Story Pins) offer multi-page, interactive experiences that encourage deeper engagement. Interactive features like "Try Before You Buy" and AR try-on tools are especially effective for beauty and fashion brands, often leading to higher conversion rates.
Joining Pinterest’s Verified Merchant Program can also give your campaigns a boost. Verified merchants gain access to perks like automatic Rich Pins, improved search visibility, and early access to emerging ad formats - all of which can support long-term growth.
When experimenting with new ad formats, set aside a small portion of your budget for testing. Keep a close eye on metrics like engagement, click-through rates, and conversions to measure success. Planning creative tests ahead of major shopping seasons can also give you an edge, allowing you to tap into early user interest and outpace competitors. By refining your visuals and embracing new ad options, you can drive higher engagement and keep your ROAS strong as you scale.
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Budget and Bidding Scaling Methods
Scaling Pinterest ad budgets effectively is all about balancing growth and efficiency. The trick lies in making small, calculated adjustments while keeping a close eye on performance metrics. This ensures you can expand your reach without compromising your return on ad spend (ROAS).
Gradual Budget Increases
When increasing budgets, think small steps, not giant leaps. Aim for 20-25% budget increases every 3-5 days to give Pinterest's algorithm time to adapt. For instance, if your campaign is thriving with a $50 daily budget and maintaining a 4:1 ROAS, raise it to $60-65 and monitor the results over several days.
Keep an eye on key metrics like CPC, conversion rate, ROAS, and CPA. If your CPA rises by more than 15-20%, pause the scaling to evaluate. To avoid overspending on underperforming campaigns, set clear performance thresholds. For example, if your target ROAS is 3:1, stop increasing budgets if it dips below 2.5:1 for two consecutive days. This approach ensures every adjustment supports your profitability goals.
Automated vs. Manual Bidding
Once your budget increases are underway, focus on selecting the right bidding method for your campaign. Pinterest offers both automated and manual bidding options, and your choice depends on your campaign's data and objectives.
- Automated bidding works well for campaigns with at least 15-20 conversions per week. The algorithm uses this data to optimize bids, helping you achieve your target cost per acquisition (CPA) or ROAS.
- For newer campaigns or those without much conversion history, manual bidding gives you greater control. Start by setting manual bids slightly above Pinterest's recommendations to ensure your ads are delivered, then adjust as you gather more data.
For campaigns with a solid performance history, target cost bidding can be a game-changer. This strategy lets you set a desired CPA while allowing Pinterest to adjust bids to maximize conversions. For example, if your average CPA is $25, setting a target CPA of $25-30 gives the algorithm flexibility while keeping costs in check.
Once your campaign achieves consistent performance - say, 50 conversions over 2-3 weeks - consider switching to automated bidding. With more data, the algorithm can identify opportunities that manual bidding might overlook, helping you maintain a strong ROAS.
Moving Budgets to Top-Performing Ads
To make the most of your budget, focus on your top-performing ad sets. Use a performance scorecard to evaluate metrics like ROAS, conversion volume, and cost efficiency. Allocate 60-70% of your budget to these high performers while keeping 3-5 other ad sets active for diversification. If an ad set underperforms, pause it temporarily, but give new ads at least 7-10 days and 1,000 impressions before making decisions.
If your ad frequency exceeds 3-4 impressions per user, it may be time to expand targeting or refresh your creative assets. Diversifying your ads helps protect your campaign if a top performer starts losing its edge.
Pinterest's campaign budget optimization tool can also simplify budget management. This feature automatically adjusts your budget across ad sets based on their performance, saving you time on manual tweaks and ensuring your funds are allocated efficiently. As you reallocate budgets to top-performing ads, continue monitoring and refining your strategy to maximize results.
Tracking Performance and Ongoing Optimization
Scaling Pinterest campaigns successfully requires constant monitoring and fine-tuning. Without proper tracking, you risk missing opportunities to boost performance or address issues before they harm your Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). The goal is to focus on the right metrics and make consistent, data-driven adjustments.
Key Metrics to Track
ROAS is the cornerstone metric for measuring how much revenue you're generating for every advertising dollar spent on Pinterest.
"ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) is a metric used in digital advertising, including Pinterest Ads, to measure the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. It helps advertisers understand the effectiveness of their campaigns by calculating the ratio of revenue generated to the amount spent on advertising. A higher ROAS indicates a more profitable campaign, while a lower ROAS may suggest inefficiencies that need to be addressed."
In addition to ROAS, keep an eye on these daily metrics:
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This measures how well your ads capture attention and drive engagement. A strong Pinterest CTR typically falls between 0.5% and 1.5%. If your CTR drops below this range, it may be time to refresh your creatives or adjust your targeting.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): CPA reveals how much you're spending to convert each customer. Monitor this alongside your target CPA as defined by your bidding strategy.
- Conversion Rate: This tells you how effectively your landing pages turn clicks into customers, helping pinpoint whether issues stem from your ads or the post-click experience.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Use CPC alongside CTR to fine-tune your bidding strategy. For context, the average Pinterest CPM in the U.S. is about $1.47, which can serve as a useful benchmark.
Leverage Pinterest’s native analytics to track these metrics, and cross-check conversion data using tools like Google Analytics or your e-commerce platform. Keep in mind that Pinterest uses a last-touch attribution model, while Google Analytics relies on a last-click model, which might create some discrepancies. These insights are critical for refining your A/B testing strategies.
Using A/B Testing for Optimization
A/B testing plays a pivotal role in improving campaign performance, especially when scaling. Even small adjustments can significantly impact ROAS. Focus your testing efforts on elements that directly influence conversion rates and costs.
- Test creative elements like pin designs, headlines, and calls-to-action. For example, one advertiser achieved a steady 4.85 ROAS across three campaigns, with two campaigns consistently performing above 6x ROAS. This success was largely due to ongoing creative testing.
- Experiment with audience segments. Duplicate ad sets and vary targeting parameters, such as broad versus narrow audiences, different interest combinations, or demographic filters. Aim for at least 1,000 impressions per test before drawing conclusions.
- Compare bidding strategies. Run similar campaigns using both automated and manual bidding to determine which approach works best for your audience and products.
By aligning test results with your key metrics, you can refine your campaigns effectively. Keep detailed documentation of your tests, noting which creatives, audience types, and bidding strategies yield the best ROAS while maintaining consistent traffic and conversions.
Tools to Support Optimization
Scaling Pinterest campaigns requires reliable tools to manage, monitor, and optimize performance. The Top PPC Marketing Directory offers a curated list of platforms designed to help with these tasks.
One standout option is Skai, an omnichannel platform that supports Pinterest Ads alongside other channels. Skai provides automation, monitoring, and reporting features tailored to Pinterest campaigns. With ratings of 4.0/5 on G2 and 4.3/5 on Capterra, the platform delivers the insights needed to streamline execution and measure performance across multiple media.
Other tools available in the directory include:
- Campaign management platforms that let you oversee multiple Pinterest campaigns from a single dashboard, with automated alerts for deviations in metrics like ROAS or CPA.
- Performance tracking solutions offering advanced attribution modeling and cross-platform reporting, ensuring Pinterest ad performance is integrated into your broader marketing strategy.
- A/B testing tools that automate testing for creatives, audience segments, and bidding strategies, freeing you to focus on strategic decisions.
When selecting tools, prioritize those that integrate with Pinterest’s API for real-time data, custom dashboards, and automated reporting. These features will make managing and optimizing your campaigns far more efficient.
Key Points for Scaling Pinterest Ads
Scaling Pinterest ads effectively while keeping a strong return on ad spend (ROAS) requires a well-thought-out strategy. It’s all about balancing growth with efficiency by focusing on targeting, creative content, budget management, and performance tracking.
Advanced targeting is the backbone of successful scaling. Pinterest's Actalike Audiences are a great way to find users similar to your best customers, while targeting past visitors can help re-engage potential buyers. Use 75–100 carefully selected keywords to capture high-intent searches and let Pinterest’s algorithm discover new, relevant users for you.
Creative optimization plays a huge role in driving engagement and conversions. Start your campaigns with at least 10 ad variations per ad group, experimenting with formats like Standard, Video, Carousel, Collections, and Idea ads. For instance, Prime Prometics achieved impressive results in 2023, increasing revenue by 200% and boosting ROAS by 33% through creative testing.
When it comes to budget scaling, patience is key. Avoid sudden budget increases that might reset Pinterest’s learning phase. Instead, gradually raise budgets for high-performing ad groups while reallocating funds from underperforming ones. For bidding strategies, begin with highest volume bidding to gather data, then transition to highest value (ROAS) bidding once you have enough performance insights.
Automation can also simplify scaling efforts. Tools like Pinterest’s Performance+ align ad spend with performance goals. In alpha tests, Performance+ boosted ROAS by over 15%. A standout example: Timberland’s summer 2023 campaign saw a 50% higher acquisition ROAS and a 16% increase in click-through rates using this tool.
Performance monitoring is essential to maintain profitability. Keep a close eye on metrics like ROAS, CPA, CTR (aim for 0.5–1.5%), conversion rates, and CPC. Regular A/B testing helps fine-tune your creative, targeting, and bidding strategies for better results.
Lastly, don’t overlook local details. For U.S.-based advertisers, ensure financial metrics are in U.S. dollars ($), use MM/DD/YYYY date formats, and tailor your ad content to resonate with U.S. audiences. To make scaling smoother, check out the Top PPC Marketing Directory for vetted tools and agencies that specialize in campaign management, bid optimization, and performance tracking.
FAQs
How can I use Pinterest's Actalike audiences to improve targeting and maintain a strong ROAS?
To make the most of Pinterest's Actalike audiences, start by building audiences based on your top-performing customers or highest-value conversions. This approach allows you to connect with users who share similar behaviors and interests, boosting engagement and helping you maintain a strong Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
For even sharper targeting, pair Actalike audiences with interest and keyword targeting. This combination helps you fine-tune your reach and connect with the right people. Don’t forget to regularly analyze your campaign performance and tweak your audience segments as needed. By tapping into Pinterest's first-party data and privacy-safe signals, you can keep your campaigns both efficient and impactful.
How can I refresh Pinterest ad creatives to prevent ad fatigue and keep engagement high?
To keep your Pinterest ads fresh and engaging, it's a good idea to update your ad creatives every 2–4 weeks. This might mean changing up your visuals, trying out different headlines, or playing around with new calls-to-action. Even small adjustments can go a long way in keeping your audience interested.
Keep a close eye on performance metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and conversions. If you notice a dip in engagement, it’s a clear sign that your ads might need a refresh. By staying on top of these updates, you can ensure your ads remain appealing and relevant to your audience.
What’s the best way to scale Pinterest ads while keeping a strong ROAS?
To grow your Pinterest ad campaigns while keeping your return on ad spend (ROAS) intact, take a gradual approach to increasing your budget. Once your campaign has moved past the learning phase and is delivering steady results, aim to boost your daily ad spend by 20-30% at a time. Jumping to large budget increases too quickly can throw off campaign optimization and negatively impact performance.
For campaigns that are already delivering good results, a daily budget of $100–$200 is a solid target for scaling while still maintaining your ROAS. Keep a close eye on performance metrics as you scale, and make small tweaks to your targeting, creative assets, or bidding strategies as needed. Scaling successfully requires patience and a steady, methodical approach.
