How to create a Pinterest business account

Last updated on: June 21, 2022

As the third-largest social network in the United States, Pinterest is a great place for businesses of all kinds to reach new markets and grow. According to eMarketer, 47% of Pinterest users shop with the app. Facebook comes in a distant second place with 15% of users shopping in the app. 

It’s pretty amazing that half of Pinterest users are there to shop, so how do you get in on the action? The good news is that it’s very easy to create a Pinterest business account and start reaching new customers. We’ll cover exactly how to do that here, as well as a few tips on how to use Pinterest for business in 2021. 

Summary:

• Pinterest makes it easy to set up business accounts
• Businesses can claim websites and accounts on social media platforms to harmonize content on Pinterest
• Pinterest offers an array of ad types and campaigns to aid your marketing strategy

How to create a Pinterest business account step-by-step

Setting up an account is a breeze. You can do it in just a few minutes. Here’s what to do: 

1. To start a fresh business account without linking it to an existing Pinterest account, make sure your personal account is logged out of Pinterest.
2. Visit the Pinterest business account creation page. Or, select “Create a business account” from the standard Pinterest login page via web or mobile. 
3. Enter your email address, age, and create a password.
4. Click “Create account.” 
5. Enter your business name, website, country, and language on the next screen. 

6. After that, you’ll choose the focus of your business, its type, and whether or not you want to run ads at this time. 
7. The last menu gives you options to Create a Pin, Grow your target audience, or Showcase your brand. If you don’t want to do anything at the moment, you can click cancel to see your Pinterest business dashboard. 

If you want to switch your personal account to a business profile, you can do that in settings easily.

After your business Pinterest profile is set up, you should claim your website by either adding a meta tag or HTML file to your website. Pinterest provides directions in the “Claim” tab inside settings. 

You can also claim your business Instagram, Etsy, YouTube, and Shopify accounts. The result is that your name and profile picture will appear with any of your content uploaded to Pinterest boards, whether you were the one who uploaded it or not. Claiming a website also lets you enable rich pins, which provide more information to the user about your product/business. 

How to use Pinterest for business in 2021

So, now you have a business profile on Pinterest. The real challenge is to optimize Pinterest marketing to bring back the kind of ROI you’re looking for. Let’s go over a few commonly-asked questions about how to use Pinterest for business. 

How does a Pinterest business account work?

With Pinterest for business, you can promote your Pins, create ads, create story pins, and connect with the right prospects by using Pinterest’s audience targeting tools. 

Let’s look at Pinterest ads first. Here are main types of ads you can create: 

• Standard Pin ad: The most popular ad format is to promote a website with a Pin. The Pin ad has a label saying it’s promoted, but that disappears if someone saves the Pin ad to one of their boards. At that point, it gets circulated organically. One tap or click on a Pin ad leads directly to the target site. 
• Carousel ad: This option promotes 2 to 5 Pins in a swipeable carousel. Each one can have different text and a different target URL. 
• Video Pin ad: Video Pins work like Standard Pins but with video content. They can be more effective than static images, too. 
• Shopping Pin: These Pins promote products from your ecommerce catalog. A single Shopping Pin can have multiple dots that provide more information (and links). For example, a Shopping Pin of a model could link to each piece of clothing they are wearing.  
• App Install Pin: This ad type links directly to the App Store or Google Play. Users can download the advertised app directly from the Pinterest ad without having to leave Pinterest. 

You can target your audience based on their age, gender, location, device, and language. So how do you use these ads? Well, you can run three types of campaigns on Pinterest depending on your end goal: 

• Build awareness: If your goal is to build awareness for your product or brand, you want to reach as many people as possible with your content. Pinterest charges cost-per-mille (CPM), which means it charges a price per 1,000 impressions. An impression happens when someone sees your Pin but doesn’t necessarily do anything with it.
• Increase engagement: Driving engagement can help move people further along the awareness spectrum. Actions like repins and clicks count as engagement, and you’ll pay a cost-per-engagement (CPE) fee. 
• Drive traffic to your site/product: If your goal is to drive traffic to your site, you’ll pay a cost-per-click (CPC) fee. 

Is a Pinterest business account free? 

Yes, it’s completely free to have a Pinterest for business account. You just pay for your ad spend. When you open your account, you’ll have a low ad-spend threshold which means your account will be billed more often. As you continue to run ads and pay your account, the threshold will increase. 

According to WebFx, a small- or mid-sized business can expect to pay between $0.10 and $1.50 per click or engagement, or between $2 to $5 for every 1,000 impressions. 

Should you get a Pinterest business account? 

Whether or not you should use Pinterest for business depends not just on your budget but on how effective advertising through Pinterest can be for you. People go to Pinterest to consume visual content and to discover new things, so that’s something to take into consideration. Ads that appear to be interesting Pins work well, in other words. If your target market hangs out on Pinterest, go for it. 

How to change a Pinterest account from business to personal

If you don’t want to have a business Pinterest account anymore, it’s easy to change it back to a personal account. Simply navigate to account settings and click “Convert to personal account” to stop using business features. 

Protect your brand content

Pinterest is a visual platform, and eye-catching content attracts both customers and bad actors. Red Points’ brand protection software scans a wide range of websites and social media platforms, including Pinterest, looking for brand abuse like intellectual property theft and counterfeits. Check out our guide to brand protection on social media to learn more.