With a user base of nearly 498 million monthly visitors, Pinterest is an excellent choice for merchants looking to expand their marketing to different channels.
Pinterest hosts a formidable search engine that has a unique algorithm. Advertising on Pinterest can bring in revenue years after the ad campaign has run its course. This is especially beneficial for e-commerce users because Pinterest’s algorithm displays results based on relevancy, not recency.
Advertising on Pinterest begins with adding your product data to the Pinterest Business Hub. To add data, you need a Pinterest product feed, commonly called a Pinterest product catalog.
Considering how retailers that uploaded their product catalogs and tagged their products in Pins saw a 30% increase in attributed checkouts, Pinterest product catalogs are an essential tool for every merchant.
Creating a Pinterest catalog can be a daunting task. You must ensure your store meets the requirements to sell/advertise on Pinterest. You need to ensure that your feed file contains all the required data (as mandated by Pinterest). You even need to update your catalog each time you update your store.
To simplify this for you, we have created this blog to guide you on creating a Pinterest product feed.
Before we begin, it is essential to note that creating ads for business accounts is available only in selected countries. You can verify eligibility for your country here.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Pinterest Product Feeds
- Preparing Your Pinterest Product Feed
- What Should Be Added To A Product Catalog?
- How To Create A Pinterest Product Feed Manually?
- Uploading Your Product Feed to Pinterest
- How are retail catalogs used on Pinterest?
- Retail Catalog Alternatives
- Tips for Optimizing Your Pinterest Feed
- Conclusion
- FAQs
Understanding Pinterest Product Feeds
A Pinterest product feed contains all the data about your store’s products. Once the product feed has been uploaded to Pinterest, it is more commonly referred to as a Pinterest product catalog or a retail catalog.
Pinterest is a visual platform. It is a massive advantage for those selling handmade products and products with a great visual appeal. Using this retail catalog, Pinterest will automatically generate ads using your product data.
Since ads on Pinterest do not interfere with a user’s scrolling, users are more likely to click on your ad. Your ad will be integrated into the dashboard (for the relevant search query).
Preparing Your Pinterest Product Feed
In order to create a Pinterest product catalog, you must first meet all the mandatory prerequisites of Pinterest Business Hub:
Open a Pinterest Business Account:
A Pinterest Business Account can be set up for free on Pinterest itself. This account will give you access to business analytics. Having a business account means you can set up your Pinterest Business Hub and Pinterest Analytics to utilize all the features that Pinterest offers. Moreover, having a business account allows you to create idea ads, video ads, carousels, collections ads, product catalogs, etc.
You can either create a new business account, link a business account to your personal account, or switch your personal account to a business account. To learn more about creating business accounts, click here.
Install the Pinterest tag:
The Pinterest tag is a piece of code that is added to your website. This piece of code will allow Pinterest to track the visitors you get to your website. It can come in handy when you’re utilizing paid campaigns and wish to track analytics on the Pinterest Business Hub.
You can accurately track conversions and measure the efficiency of your campaigns. It is also a necessary component to become a verified merchant.
Claim Your Website:
Claiming your website involves verifying the ownership of your website. It will help users find more content about your store and build credibility.
To claim your website, you must be able to edit the code of your website and own the domain, subdomain, or subpath.
Consequently, you cannot claim websites for stores that are hosted on most social media platforms, such as Etsy, eBay, or Amazon.
You can claim your website by:
- Adding an HTML tag (Pinterest will provide you with a personalized tag that can be copy-pasted to the source code of your website)
- Adding an HTML file (You can download an HTML file from Pinterest and add it to your web server)
- Adding a TXT record (Copy and paste a unique TXT record from Pinterest and add it to your DNS server)
Understand Pinterest’s Merchant Guidelines:
Accurately understanding Pinterest’s Merchant Guidelines is essential. There are certain products that Pinterest has prohibited from being sold or advertised on their platform. There are a few prerequisites that all products must meet, such as:
- Products must follow community guidelines and policies.
- Accurate information and product status (such as pricing and in-stock status) should be updated on Pinterest once every 24 hours. This can be done via daily feed syncing (more on that later)
- The product pin must display a product (not just a service).
- The pin image and description must be fitting to the product.
Moreover, you must thoroughly go through the Merchant Guidelines to set up a shop on Pinterest.
To know more about this in detail, you can visit Pinterest’s help center.
What Should Be Added To A Product Catalog?
Pinterest processes a product file daily to create or update your product pins.
Before we begin, your product catalog must include specific mandatory fields for each product listed. These are:
Title:
The title (name) of your product must reflect the product’s name as it is displayed on your store’s landing page. It must include details about variations in the product, such as color and size. It can contain a maximum of 500 characters.
Description:
An apt description of your product. Ensure you do not use the HTML formatting for optimal display. You can include up to 10,000 characters in the description.
| 💡Tip: Ensure you add keywords related to your industry and based on what your audience searches for the most in your product description. |
ID:
A unique identifier for every individual product. It can contain a maximum of 127 characters.
Link:
The link added to a product must lead directly to the product’s landing page on your website. It must begin with ‘http://’
Image_link:
The direct URL to the main product image. Do ensure that images are at least 75×75 pixels and accessible by the user agent. Pinterest also recommends not submitting placeholder images or templates to avoid any further issues.
Price:
It should reflect the actual cost. Ensure that you include the currency in ISO-4217 format if your currency is not US dollars.
Availability:
Since your product feed is updated daily, it is necessary to specify the availability of your product. Pinterest accepts only three values for this: in stock, out of stock, or preorder.
Item group ID:
This is only necessary for products that have multiple variants. You can include 127 characters in the field.
How To Create A Pinterest Product Feed Manually?
Manually creating the Pinterest product feed is the simplest but the most effort-inducing way to create a product feed. You are required to create, frequently update, format, and upload the product feed to Pinterest every time you make any changes to the product data in your store.
You must begin with a blank ‘.txt’ file or use a fresh Google Sheet.
Based on the requirements mentioned above (Product ID, title, description, etc) simply create the columns and begin filling the columns with the data from your store.
This can suffice for stores with smaller inventories.
| 💡 If you’re a Shopify Merchant, you can utilize Pinterest’s official sales channel to directly synchronize your product data. Another option is to use a data feed management app (which can generate data feed URLs) that can be fed into Pinterest Business Hub. |
Already have a product feed? Here’s how you can upload Product feeds using data feed management apps.
Best Practices For Formatting Your Retail Catalogs
Once you have a detailed collection of all the product data handy, you can begin adequately formatting your retail catalog to ensure no discrepancies occur during feed ingestion.
- The file/data source must be encoded in UTF-8 format (with the exception of GOOGLE_TSV_EXCEL files, which must be encoded in ISO_8859_1 format)
| 💡 To create a UTF-8 Format file, you can follow these steps: In Microsoft Excel, open your file. On the top left corner, click on ‘File’ and scroll down to ‘Save As.’ Next, open the dropdown menu and select CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (. csv). Finally, click save. |
- Wrap your values in double quotes (“”) to steer clear of any possible parsing(discrepancies within the code) issues.
- Avoid using ‘floating delimiters’ (like commas and tabs), which can result in the item or file not processing correctly.
- Ensure that you have the same number of delimiters in each row and column.
- Use standard American English to fill in the data for the required and set values in your feed.
Following these practices will ensure that your product feeds are accepted by Pintrerest.
Uploading Your Product Feed to Pinterest
Once you have successfully created your product feed, it is ready to move on to the next step, which is to become a Pinterest retail catalog. One of the most vital things you need to know about this transition is that Pinterest officially ingests your product feed daily (once every 24 hours).
This means that you need to keep your feed updated every day. It can become quite a bit of a task for merchants that are sole handlers of all advertising campaigns; thus, there are three efficient ways to do this:
Automatic Feed Ingestion:
Acting as a boon for Shopify or WooCommerce merchants, Pinterest has officially simplified the process of data syncing across either platform by offering easy integration options. Doing this will ensure that your product pins are updated daily to correspond to the changes that occur on your website.
For Shopify users:
You can directly integrate with Pinterest using the Pinterest Sales Channel App on the Shopify App Store. Once it has been installed, your product data will automatically be synced onto Pinterest Business Hub.
Make sure that you have a Pinterest Business account before you begin this integration.
There are several steps involved in this process.
- Creating a Pinterest business account
- Adding the Pinterest tag to your website
- Installing the app on your Shopify store
- Connecting the two accounts
You can learn more about how to sell on Pinterest with Shopify.
For WooCommerce users:
WooCommerce and Pinterest have an official sales channel that merchants can use to directly sync data between the two platforms. All you need to do is:
- Download, install, and properly activate the Pinterest plug-in.
- Look for ‘Pinterest’ in the ‘Marketing’ tab. Click on ‘’Get started.
- Ensure you have installed the Pinterest tag on your store.
- Link your Pinterest business account, and your product data will be synced to Pinterest automatically.
Here is an article by Pinterest that explains how to link your WooCommerce and Pinterest accounts.
One of the biggest perks of automating the feed ingestion process is that it requires a one-time setup by merchants. It can continually and automatically make changes to your Pinterest business Hub account based on the changes you make within the store.
It is easy to set up and efficient and will save a lot of time and effort. However, one of the downsides to this method is that it is only available in certain countries such as the USA, UK, etc. You can check the availability of the official Pinterest sales channel for Shopify here.
For WooCommerce, you can check the availability here.
| Pinterest is the hub for fashion inspiration, and what better way to sell your clothes if not here? Well, if you’re new & planning on creating an online store for clothes, learn how you can begin selling clothes online & create an established business. |
Uploading Product Catalogs using data feed management apps:
An effective way to ensure that you get more than just data syncing options is to look for feed management solutions that can enhance your marketing strategies with specialized features.
Merchants use data feed management apps across the world for extensive inventories, expansive networks of sales channels, and in an overall attempt to reduce the effort required to sell on multiple platforms.
We’ve compiled a list of three such solutions that can provide you with augmented features to help you scale your sales on Pinterest:
A top feed management app that is available for Shopify merchants with cutting-edge features.
It provides instant Shopify sync and bulk editing and boasts AI capabilities for feed creation and enhancement. AdNabu provides users with customizable data feed URLs. In just a few clicks, these high-performing feeds can be fed to multiple marketplaces (including Pinterest) without worrying about the corresponding guidelines for data feeds. AdNabu ensures that all data follows the guidelines required by Pinterest.
Simply go to the ‘Marketplaces’ tab and select ‘Pinterest’. Here, you can get a fresh data feed URL that can be directly copied and pasted to Pinterest Business Hub.
Moreover, the app holds the ‘Built for Shopify’ tag, a testament to its speed, security, and efficiency.
AdNabu has clients worldwide–with nearly 550 five⭐ reviews (out of a total of 588 reviews) on Shopify and pricing plans that begin at $0/month. AdNabu is known for its quick and efficient customer support. They even offer a 14-day trial period.
- GoDataFeed
GoDataFeed offers feed management solutions for Shopify, WooCommerce, and other platforms (Magento, etc). They offer a 14-day free trial, and their plans begin at just 19/month; however, merchants are required to subscribe to the $199/month plan in order to access the marketplace feature (that allows users to create data feed URLs that can be fed into respective platforms).
Other features include templates for different feeds and priority support.
- CedCommerce
Lastly, CedCommerce is another option for merchants who wish to expand to different marketplaces. It is a noted platform for Magento(Adobe Commerce) users. Merchants can use their multiple apps to sell on various marketplaces. The price for the Pinterest plug-in is $499 for Magento users. They do not offer a free trial.
Manual Feed Ingestion:
If you’re not using Shopify or WooCommerce (for the official Pinterest sales channel), or if you’re using a data feed management app to generate data feed URLs, you can manually upload a CSV file of your product catalog to Pinterest.
If you have created a data feed manually, you will be required to update this file whenever there are changes to product details on your website.
💡Do note that manual feed ingestion is quite different from manually creating a product feed
Here are the steps you need to follow to manually upload your product feed to Pinterest Business Hub.
If you have manually created a Pinterest data feed, the first step is to save your data feed in the .csv format.
Next, you need to upload this file onto your drive in a separate folder and ensure that anyone with the link to this file can access it (i.e., ensure that it is not restricted).
#1 To begin adding the link of your data source to Pinterest Business Hub, you need to go to your Pinterest Business Hub account, click on ‘Ads’ and select ‘Catalogs.’
#2 On the top right corner, click on ‘Add new data source’ and you will be taken to this page:
#3 Give your catalog a name, change the default availability, and fill in the necessary details according to your convenience. Your next step is to copy and paste this link into the ‘Product feed URL’ box:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=
#4 After this, all you need to do is copy and paste the link of your .csv file from Google Spreadsheet into this box. Ensure that you change access to “Anyone with the link’
#5 When you paste the drive link you copied in the box, you need to erase anything that is before ‘/d/’. You must also delete anything that shows up after the last letter of the link. It will essentially look like ‘/view?usp=sharing’.
Here is what it will look like before you edit the link, you must delete the highlighted part as shown in the image below:
Your final link should look like this:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=aklsdkdjjw1jdskOO9
(Note: the letters used above are randomized. If the link connects to a Google Drive folder, it is purely coincidental. Reach out to us if you face an issue regarding this!)
How are retail catalogs used on Pinterest?
Now that you know how to create a retail catalog, it is equally important to understand how the catalogs you upload will be used on Pinterest. One of the primary uses of your retail catalog on Pinterest is to advertise your products.
Using retail catalogs to sync data allows Pinterest to automatically create Pins for you that are advertised on its platform. Advertising on Pinterest has its perks–it is a formidable search engine and has several features that can help merchants scale up their campaigns with minimal effort:
Shop from Search:
Pinterest’s search engine is quite powerful. Users who log on to the platform with a clear intent to buy will use Pinterest to specifically look for products they want to buy. Catalogs use information about your product and display product pins (pins with products linked directly to your website).
Shopping Spotlights and Style Guides:
‘Shopping Spotlight,’ as the name states, throws a spotlight on popular products from your store. Style guides, on the other hand, offer insights into how different products can be combined to achieve a ‘look.’ The data from retail catalogs is used here, too.
Specifically, these features can ensure maximum visibility on how your products can be enhanced. You can also leverage user-generated content techniques here.
Shop from Pins:
When Pinterest creates a Shoppable Pin for you, your target audience can click on the ‘Pin’ or a particular image within the pin. Doing this will redirect the users to the product landing page on your website.
Retail Catalog Alternatives
As mentioned above, many regions do not have the option to use the official sales channel for Pinterest. For that or any other reason, merchants can use these retail catalog alternatives to advertise on Pinterest.
Pinterest API
Pinterest API allows developers to create apps or experiences for advertisers, merchants, or creators. This requires extensive technical knowledge, and it is recommended that you pick experienced developers to avoid any potential fatalities.
This works as an excellent replacement for retail catalogs as a specially curated app/experience will be customized according to individual requirements.
Product Rich Pins
Rich pins are pins that contain metadata about your products. This data can be added manually to individual pins and will be updated according to the changes on your website.
There are three types of rich pins: Recipe rich pins, article rich pins, and product rich pins.
Product rich pins contain metadata about your product–the current price, availability, title, and description. This data is synced directly from your website (mind you, you still have to ensure that your product meets the merchant and product guidelines set by Pinterest).
However, you do need to install the rich meta tag onto your site in order for the data to be synced.
Individual Ads
Lastly, creating individual ads is also an option that can replace the core functions of a retail catalog. Personal ads can be made via the Ads Manager after you have created an ads campaign. Pinterest offers a comprehensive guide on how you can create an ad campaign on Pinterest Business Hub itself.
Tips for Optimizing Your Pinterest Feed
Here are some tips that will help you create better performing product feeds. Curate each tip to suit the needs of your store.
Keep Your Retail Catalog Updated:
Pinterest processes your feed once every 24 hours. Update your data source with accurate information frequently (mainly availability) and ensure that your data source is updated when any change is made to your store.
Irregularities in your data source and your inventory or your product data may cause Pinterest to reject your catalog and stop syncing your data. This can cause an issue with tracking your sales, hamper your advertising campaigns, and create distrust among your customers.
Optimize Metadata:
Metadata is the additional data that is added to your Pins to enhance the user experience. If you provide explicit, concise, and detailed metadata for all of your products, it can significantly boost the performance of your ads on Pinterest. Ensure that you use optimized titles and descriptions and add accurate keywords to each product.
The price and the category of the product also need to be managed for efficiency. Using impactful keywords in the right places will significantly improve the visibility of your products and improve customer targeting, too.
Organize Products Categorically:
Categorizing your products is an effective practice not just for your Pinterest feeds but also for your store. Correct categorization of your products will lead the customers to precisely what they’re looking for. This improves the user experience significantly and can add to their relevance across the web.
It is recommended that you categorize your products based on similar characteristics such as the price range, intended use, etc.
We even suggest grouping your products with similar ingredients. For instance, if you sell skincare products, you could create a category for all lavender-scented products.
Conclusion
Creating a Pinterest product feed for your e-commerce store is an essential part of advertising on Pinterest. It is one of the top marketplaces that has begun to take over many other platforms. A huge chunk of the younger generation rely on Pinterest’s powerful algorithm to simplify their search for inspiration.
Following the aforementioned guidelines, keeping your product feed updated, and regularly staying in tune with the latest trends in your niche can create monumental effects that boost your sales. Use Pinterest to drive more traffic to your website and watch conversions grow!
FAQs
What is a product feed on Pinterest?
A product feed is a file that contains product data from your website. Various marketing platforms use product feeds to create ads. Each product feed contains data such as the title, image, description, availability, pricing, etc for your products. Different platforms have different requirements. Thus, every product feed varies for each platform.
Are there any specific fields required for my products to be eligible for Pinterest Product Pins?
Yes, when syncing, uploading, or creating your data source(product feed) that contains all product details, you need to ensure that the product titles, descriptions, images, prices, product types, and availability are accurately filled out and updated. Outdated, inaccurate, or missing information in these fields will lead to rejection from Pinterest.
Can I promote my products on Pinterest?
Yes, promoting your products on Pinterest is quite simple. You need to have a Pinterest business account, claim your website, install the Pinterest tag, and go through the merchant guidelines to begin advertising on Pinterest.
You need to add your product data to Pinterest via direct sync or via a data feed URL, which can be generated using a third-party app like AdNabu. Pinterest will automatically create product pins for you and advertise them to relevant search queries.
How do I show my product on Pinterest?
To display your products on Pinterest, you need to add your product data to Pinterest Business Hub and create a retail catalog. This catalog will automatically be updated every 24 hours using your data source.
Pinterest will use the data from retail catalogs to display your products in response to relevant search queries.
How do I create a product catalog?
A product catalog (also known as a retail catalog) is created by Pinterest when you upload your product data to the Pinterest Business Hub. You can either sync your store using the official Pinterest sales channel or use a third-party app like AdNabu to get a data feed URL, which can be fed into Pinterest Business Hub. A data feed is a file that contains all your product information, which will be used by Pinterest (or any other marketplace) to create product ads.
How do I upload a product feed to Pinterest?
Uploading a product feed to Pinterest can either be done manually, or you can use a data feed management app like AdNabu to generate a data feed URL (a file that contains all your product information) and feed it into Pinterest Business Hub.
To manually upload a product feed to Pinterest, you can log on to your Pinterest Business account and click on the ‘Add new data source’ button on the top right corner of your ‘Catalogs’ page. You can follow the prompts and add your data feed manually.
How do I start selling on Pinterest with my Shopify store?
Selling on Pinterest with your Shopify store can be done in two ways. You can either select the official Pinterest Sales Channel and directly sync your product data to your Pinterest Business Hub account, or you can use a data feed management app like AdNabu to generate a data feed URL and add it to your Pinterest Business account.
Do note that you are required to have a Pinterest Business account, install the Pinterest tag on your website, claim your website on Pinterest, and thoroughly go through the merchant guidelines before you begin the Pinterest Shopify integration process.
In which regions are product catalogs on Pinterest supported?
Pinterest product catalogs are supported in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.
How do you configure a product feed for Pinterest?
To manually create a product feed, you need to combine all of your product data onto a spreadsheet that is in an acceptable format for Pinterest. You must include the product title, description, link, image link, product ID, availability, and price in the product feed.
This feed can be added to Pinterest Business Hub under the ‘Catalogs’ section.
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