How to create Pinterest shopping ads

Once your catalogue is on Pinterest, you can create four types:

• Standard shopping ads: a single static image promoting a product
• Video shopping ads: a video clip promoting a product. If an item has both an image and a video, Pinterest promotes the video
• Personalised collections ads: one large lifestyle image or video with three supporting product images
• Carousel shopping ads: several images and videos, for showing product features, several products or a story in chapters

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026

There are three things to do before your first shopping ad:

1. Get a free Pinterest business account, which you need to run ads and see analytics.
2. Upload your product catalogue with the Catalogs tool, which turns products into product Pins.
3. Create product groups that sort the products you want to promote.

• Shopify stores can do the catalogue step with the Pinterest for Shopify app, which syncs collections as product groups

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Troubleshoot the Pinterest for Shopify app, checked 15 October 2026

In Ads Manager:

1. Click the menu icon at the top left and, under Manage campaigns, click Create campaign.
2. Select Sales below Choose a campaign objective.
3. Enter the rest of your campaign details, then click Continue.
4. Enter an ad group name and select your product groups. For video, you'll see how many videos each product group has and a preview.
5. Finish the targeting details, budget and schedule, and optimisation and delivery settings.
6. Review your information and click Publish.

• For video shopping ads, include the video_link field in your data source, and add video to the product group name so it's easy to find

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026

Collections ads pair a hero image or video with products from your catalogue:

1. Start a Sales campaign as above, enter your details and click Continue.
2. Enter an ad group name and choose the product groups to feature.
3. Under Choose a format, select Collections ad.
4. Click the plus-circle icon to pick an image or video Pin as the hero creative, then click Done.
5. Enter the hero destination URL and an optional tracking URL.
6. Finish targeting, budget and delivery, review and click Publish.

• If a product group is already running as a shopping ad in an existing ad group, create a separate ad group for the collections format

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026

Yes, with bulk editor. Under Manage campaigns, click Bulk editor and download the sample shopping sheet. Then:

1. Leave the Campaign Objective column as SALES, which is set automatically.
2. Fill in Product Group Reference ID from the catalogue's product group page, and Product Group ID once ad groups are created.
3. Optionally add a Product Group Name, and set Product Group Status to Active or Paused.
4. Complete the remaining columns, click Upload template, then Upload.

• For a collections ad in bulk editor, enter COLLECTIONS under Ad format and add the hero Pin's ID and URL

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026

Pinterest's own recommendations and the usual snags:

• Start simple: launch one campaign with the default All Products product group, then split into more campaigns or ad groups after launch
• Try Performance+ bidding, which aims to spend your whole budget at the lowest cost per result
• Delivery delayed: updating images for your whole catalogue can hold up shopping ads by a day or two
• You can't choose the exact surfaces where shopping ads appear, though placement targeting is available
• One campaign can reach several countries with localised content in each market's language and currency
• To reach people who've already visited your site or left items in their basket, set up dynamic retargeting
• With the Pinterest for Shopify app, products in an active campaign are still promoted when they go out of stock, so update the campaign if you want them to stop

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Create shopping ads, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Troubleshoot the Pinterest for Shopify app, checked 15 October 2026

Disclosure: this is our product. Zolyp doesn't upload catalogues or run shopping ads. It creates the regular image and video Pins around your products, with search-friendly titles and descriptions, and publishes them to your board once you approve them. There's a 3-day free trial, no card required.