How to advertise on Pinterest, step by step

You need a Pinterest business account, and ads aren't available in every country. A business account can have up to 50 ad accounts, but Pinterest notes that fewer are easier to manage. To set one up:

1. Log in to your business account and click the menu icon at the top left.
2. Under Manage business, select Business Manager.
3. Click Ad accounts on the left, then Create ad account.
4. Enter an ad account name, select your country and click Create.
5. Click Assign people to add colleagues, or Maybe later.

• Choose the billing currency carefully: to change it later you have to create a new ad account
• To track sales or target your site visitors, each ad account needs its own Pinterest tag and audiences

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create an advertiser account, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

Pinterest ads have three levels: a campaign (your goal), ad groups (budget, schedule, targeting and bids) and ads (the Pins). You build them in one flow:

1. Click the menu icon, and under Manage campaigns click Create campaign.
2. Select Custom create campaign.
3. Under Choose a campaign objective, select a goal and enter your campaign details.
4. Choose a Daily budget (the most to spend each day) or Lifetime budget (the total for the campaign), and the schedule. The budget type can't be changed once the ad group is created.
5. Click Continue, enter an ad group name and select your targeting. Click Switch to manual setup if you want to choose it yourself.
6. Under Optimization and delivery, choose Pinterest Performance+ bidding to let Pinterest get the most clicks for your budget, or Custom where available to set your own bid.
7. Select your ads, review everything and click Publish.

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit an ad group, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

Some ad formats only work with certain objectives. This is Pinterest's list:

• Consideration campaigns can optimise for Pin clicks (engagement on Pinterest) or outbound clicks (visits to your site), not both in the same campaign
• Optimising for outbound clicks requires Performance+ bidding. Either way, you're billed on Pin clicks
• With the consideration objective you can also set the budget at campaign level

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create an ad, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit an ad group, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

Inside the campaign flow, the Ads step is where you pick Pins or create new ones:

1. Click Ads in the left-hand navigation.
2. Click All Pins to see all your Pins, or Boards to pick from a board. Use the search bar or the filter icon to narrow the list.
3. To make a new Pin, click All Pins, then the plus-circle icon to open the Pin builder, and click Publish.
4. Click Review selected Pins. Check the ad name, the destination URL and any tracking parameters.
5. If it applies, mark whether the ad is AI-modified or contains an AI-generated person.
6. Click Publish. Your Pins then go through Pinterest's ad review against its advertising guidelines.

• Pins on secret (private) boards can't be promoted
• A Pin from a group board must be saved to one of your own boards first
• You can add up to 10 ad groups to a campaign at a time

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create an ad, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit an ad group, checked 15 October 2026

If you already have a Pin that does well organically, promoting it from your profile is the quickest route:

1. Click your profile picture at the top right.
2. Hover over the Pin and click Promote at its top right.
3. On the Create Campaign page, which opens on an automated campaign, complete the details, or switch to a custom campaign from the dropdown at the top right.

• No Promote button: the Pin isn't eligible for an ad campaign
• Errors in red on the left: click each highlighted section to fix missing information
• Lost work: if you close the window before clicking Continue, Save edits or Create campaigns, what you entered is lost
• Can't remove an ad group: every campaign needs at least one, so you can't delete the last ad group
• To change a live campaign, open Campaign manager under Manage campaigns, tick it and click Edit

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create an ad from your profile, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit a campaign, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Create and edit an ad group, checked 15 October 2026

Disclosure: this is our product. Zolyp doesn't run Pinterest ads. It keeps the organic side going, creating image and video Pins with search-friendly titles and descriptions and publishing them after you approve, so you have proven Pins to promote. There's a 3-day free trial, no card required.