Pinterest introduced analytics back in March, but for small businesses looking to expand their social horizons, we want to give you an easy guide to what it is and how to use it.
Accessing Pinterest analytics will help you to:
- Understand your audience
- Improve your strategy
- Measure results
This blog will talk you through a three step process:
Step 1 – Verify your website
Step 2 – Making your way to Pinterest Analytics
Step 3 – Understanding Pinterest Analytics
First of all, make sure you have set up a business account on Pinterest. Head to Pinterest.com and look to the bottom right and there you will spot the option to set up a business Pinterest account.
Click on Businesses and you’ll be escorted to business.pinterest.com.
Just hit ‘Join as a business’ and you’ve made the first step! Don’t panic if you have already set up an ordinary account, you can convert it by clicking the hyperlink underneath.
If you have already created a page prior to the beginning of 2013, then you may need to update your account to get the new look. You can do this in the dropdown menu when clicking your name on the top right of the page. This is a must!
Once you have filled in all the details, you’ll be at your brand spanking new business page! Lovely. Now the following steps will mean you are on your way to accessing Pinterest analytics.
Step 1 – Verify Your Website
In order to have access to Pinterest analytics you must first verify your website.- Select on the drop down menu on your brand name (top right) and click on ‘Your boards’:
Here you will see all of your boards and above this is your profile which consists of a profile image and bio.
This is what your profile image and bio will look like before you have verified your website.
- Select the ‘Edit’ tool
Once selected, a pop-up form called ‘Edit Profile’ will appear. If you haven’t already, go ahead and fill out all the empty boxes.
Once this is done you will notice the last section under ‘Website’ asks you to ‘Verify your Website’. You must verify your website. This will then let you display your full website URL on your profile and grant you access to Pinterest analytics.
- Once you have selected ‘Verify Website’ another form will appear:
You have two options. You can either:
Select ‘Download Verification File’
- Once the file has loaded, drop it into FTP:
Or
Select ‘Verify with a meta tag:
- Copy the meta tag:
- Paste the meta tag into the <head> of your index.html file or equivalent:
- Click on ‘Complete Verification’ and you’re away!
You’ll know you have done this successfully when a little tick appears on your profile:
Step 2 – Making your way to Pinterest Analytics
If you can’t see ‘Analytics’ in the drop down menu your website has not been verified!
However, if you have been successful, it will appear just under ‘Your Likes’
If you see either of the below messages, don’t panic!
Analytics can take some time to get going. Please note that data will only go as far back as the day your website was verified.
However, if you have given it the time it needs and you log on to find it working, this is what you can expect to find
Step 3 – Understanding Pinterest Analytics
Above all the graphs you will see the Analytics panel, made up of a Calendar, Site Metrics, Most Repinned and Most Clicked. All data can be exported on a CSV document which is super handy! Just select ‘Export’, which is located on the far right of the Analytics panel.
The Calendar is straightforward and allows you the ability to ‘Quick Select’ the previous 7 days, 14 days or 30 days.
Site Metrics provides 4 graphs made up of:
- Pins & Pinners
Pins – The daily average number of pins from your website
Pinners – The daily average number of people who pinned from your website
- Repins & Repinners
Repins – The daily average number of times pins from your website were repined on Pinterest
Repinners – Are the daily average number of people who repined your pins
- Impressions & Reach
Impressions – Are the daily average number of times your pins appeared on Pinterest in the main feed in search results, or on boards
Reach – Are the daily average number of people who saw your pins on Pinterest
- Clicks & Visitors
Clicks – Are the daily average number of clicks to your website that came from Pinterest
Visitors – Are the daily average number of people who visited your website from Pinterest
They grey data is the percentage change in the metric compared to the previous date range.
By clicking the 
, Pinterest will explain the graph and provide you with Tips on how to use this data.
When viewing a graph you can choose what you want to see. In the top right hand corner of every graph you can see the metrics. You can click on one metric to hide it.
Here you can view both metrics
Here we have clicked on ‘Repins’ to hide that data so that we can only view ‘Repinners’
Here we have chosen only to view ‘Repins’ by clicking on ‘Repinners’ to hide that data
You can hover over the data points and see specific data for that day.
Most Recent is the next option along the Analytics panel. Here you will find data from anything prior 2 days. Here you will see who has pinned what from your website. You can also view what boards they have pinned the image onto.
Most Repinned is made up of all the unique pins that have been repinned the most. Here you can see what pinners like the most. You can see who has pinned what and what else they have pinned. You can see this data on any given day, 7 days or 14 days. So if you ever see a spike in repins on the site metrics tab then come here, select that date range and see why this may have been. Cool stuff!
Most Clicked is most clicked unique pins that people have clicked to get back to your website. If you click on any specific pin here, you will see what board the pin was pinned to. Alike ‘Most Repinned’ you can select a date range of any given day, 7 day or 14 day time period.
If you scroll down on any selected pin you can also view what that person has also pinned. This is a great opportunity for you to find out more about your audience!
Once you have completed the three steps I have outlined you are on your way to becoming a Pinterest Professional! Now you can enjoy all the benefits of understanding your audience, improving your strategy and measuring your results! We wish you luck!