How to target Pinterest ads: audiences, keywords and interests

Pinterest's targeting overview lists these options, which you can combine as narrowly or broadly as you like:

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Review and select targeting options, checked 15 October 2026

All four audience types start in the same place:

1. Log in to your business account, click the menu icon at the top left and, under Manage business, click Audiences.
2. Click Create audience and choose Site visitors, Customer list, Engagement or Actalike customers.
3. Enter an audience name and, if you like, a description.
4. Site visitors: pick your conversion source and how many past days to include. Customer list: upload your CSV. Engagement: choose Any engagement action or Optimized engagement actions, then a Pin, ad, campaign, objective or your claimed domain. Actalike: choose a source audience, a country and a range.
5. Click Create. The audience size updates within 24 hours, or 24 to 48 hours for a customer list.

• Site visitor audiences need the Pinterest tag on every page, with event codes on the pages you want to track
• An actalike excludes its source audience. If the source is also new, its size can take up to 72 hours to appear
• Persona audiences are built by Pinterest's sales team for some advertisers and only work with brand awareness, video views and consideration objectives

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Set up audience targeting, checked 15 October 2026

Pinterest is strict about the file. Upload a single-column CSV of either:

• Email addresses, as plain text or SHA256 or MD5 hashes. Each must include an @
• Mobile ad IDs (Android ad IDs), as plain text or SHA1, SHA256 or MD5 hashes, in lower case and the 8-4-4-4-12 format
• Leave out names, phone numbers, addresses, headers, titles and empty rows
• Don't upload lists based on activity from an iOS app or website, including IDFA data, or people who opted out of targeted advertising
• Lists don't update automatically unless connected to a CRM through a Pinterest partner. Use Edit to add people, remove people or replace the list

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Set up audience targeting, checked 15 October 2026

In Ads Manager:

1. Click the menu icon at the top left and, under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign.
2. Click Custom create campaign, then Get started.
3. Click New ad group, then Targeting in the left-hand navigation.
4. Pick a targeting strategy: Reconnect with users for site visitors, customer lists and engagement audiences, Find new customers for actalikes, or Choose your own.
5. Click Use existing list next to the audience type, select your list and click Add selected lists. For keywords, tick Enable keywords under Interests and keywords and click Add keywords.
6. Set your budget and schedule, optimisation and delivery, and ads, then review and click Publish.

• Click Save as template in Targeting details to reuse the same audiences, keywords, interests, demographics and placements later
• Pinterest reviews each campaign against its advertising and targeting guidelines, which can take up to 24 hours

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Set up audience targeting, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Review and select targeting options, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Set up keyword targeting, checked 15 October 2026

You can use up to 20,000 keywords per ad group, and Pinterest recommends at least 25. In Ads Manager, brackets and quotation marks set the match type:

• Interests work differently: pick topics, and Pinterest suggests testing broad ones such as living rooms alongside precise ones such as mid-century modern

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Set up keyword targeting, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Set up interest targeting, checked 15 October 2026

The common problems and fixes:

• Customer list status is red: it has fewer than 100 matches. Add more emails or ad IDs with Edit, then Add people
• CSV upload failed: remove headers, titles, extra columns, empty rows and tabs, and check the format rules
• Audience size shows nothing: wait 24 hours, 48 for customer lists and 72 for an actalike built on a new source
• No site visitors: check the Pinterest tag's base code is on every page and the event codes fire
• Ad approved but reaching few people: some categories carry targeting restrictions, such as age or location limits, that narrow delivery

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Set up audience targeting, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Review and select targeting options, checked 15 October 2026

Disclosure: this is our product. Zolyp doesn't run Pinterest ads or build audiences. It plans, writes and designs organic Pins styled to your Brand Brain and publishes them after you approve them; people who engage with them can later feed an engagement audience. There's a 3-day free trial, no card required.