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Lesson Info

How to Create Your Ad

Let's talk about creating your ad. How are you gonna create this ad and make it really effective? A couple of things to note. Just in general this is about promoted pins but also this is just about pins overall. You wanna make sure that your pins are 600 by 900 pixels, you wanna make sure they've vertical. You can do square but vertical is gonna take up more space in the feed. You want to take up that real estate to make sure that it's gonna make that impact. Put money behind a pin that you already know is working for you. As you're sharing your content, consider the pins that are already working and then that's a good way of testing saying, oh this pin is doing really, really well and I just wanna drive more traffic to my site. I'm gonna put some money behind this 'cause I would really like to promote my newsletter list or whatever your objective is. Communicate value. This ad that I created for FabFitFun is says discover products for a life well-lived. The fact that you're gonna get ...

a better life by clicking on this pin is ultimately what that's saying. Try to communicate that. You could do a really clear call to action of, click this pin for a better life but, I would probably temper that and say discover products or try this. Be a wordsmith about it and really think through that creative experience. What would you like to see? Do you like when someone to tells you to click and demands that or would you like to kind of nudge them and say discover? Add robust pin descriptions. This is so important because even though you're spending money behind your ad as people are saving this and it's gaining momentum beyond your spend, you wanna make sure it's packed with keywords that are helpful that people are gonna search. Taking this pin for example, summer beach essentials, a water bottle, a passport, luggage, a scarf. Just think about what is in the pin, describe what's in the pin and then describe how they can implement those products in their life and where they would be good. Make sure that you're including a trackable URL or including a tracking tag. UTM codes, tack that on to the end of your URL so that you can see what's happening after they come to your website. I wanna talk to you about some ads that I've created and kind of give you context and the thought process behind my creation. This is one partner that I worked with, Calvin Klein. May have heard of him. Calvin Klein as we know is a very minimalist brand. It's modern but their whole goal with this campaign is they wanted to rank in white bedding search. They came to me and said hey, we have this new bedding line. We want to run a campaign. It was a search based on searching in the browser, not in the browser but in Pinterest in the search bar. Every time someone typed in white bedding, they wanted these pins to surface. They wanted to showcase the lifestyle of Calvin Klein and they didn't want a product-focused thing. It's hard to show white sheets on a background so they knew that it needed to be in lifestyle setting to fit within Pinterest. Of course these pins are vertical. We know that color works really well on Pinterest but that's not Calvin Klein's brand at all. To keep consistent with their style we went with more of a gray scale. We took the opportunity to showcase these sheets in just a bedroom setting and then we also put femininity into it with a person and showcased the sheets as almost clothing wrapped around a person. Ultimately showing that this is an elegant brand, an elegant product that if you are someone that wants to elevate your bedroom experience that you should buy these white sheets from Calvin Klein. That's kind of ultimately when you're thinking about creating your ad, you wanna think about that lifestyle and that feeling. You want it aspirational like man, I really gotta have that. Give them either a lux experience if you're a luxury brand and that's ultimately what I tried to create here. Maybe you're Dyson and Dyson came to me and said hey, we don't just make vacuums, we made this really awesome hairdryer and we think it's gonna work really well on Pinterest 'cause beauty is a top category. They knew that beauty was strong on Pinterest. They also were trying to push this product around the holidays but at the same time, they didn't wanna spend all this money with me say, we just want you to create holiday content. They were looking for this evergreen idea. Also, Dyson has a lot of restrictions around their product as far as we really want that pink circle to always be seen. They gave me this long list of only show the product like this, which is totally okay if you have certain product guidelines of how you want your product displayed. That's totally fine but, they just wanted this pink circle always to be in view. They're very minimalist. They asked me for this product shot and I thought, okay I'll try to make it as lifestyle as possible but I think product in use as we learned through statistics usually performs better but, we took the opportunity to shoot both 'cause you just don't know. Try both. If you're spending time on a photo shoot and creating this ad, shoot as much as you can and then take those image assets and then test them. You can see here it says it's very branded so you know the brand. This is Dyson supersonic. You'll see on each of these pins there's different messages here. Ultimately what Dyson is wanting to sell a hairdryer, but ultimately compared to all hairdryers, what is Dyson selling? They're selling the fact that it's fast. Ultimately the gift is more time. We came up with this idea of give the gift of time. You'll see on one side, on the far side, that this is more of an evergreen pin that says give the gift of time. In the center is a pin that's focused on holiday. We took that opportunity to do a holiday-focused one. On the other side is shake up your beauty routine. Spend more time on things that matter. It's communicating that this product is going to help you do the things that you love the most and not have to spend a lot of time drying your hair. It's helpful content. Can you see that ad is really helpful and it's giving them an idea of why they should buy the product? It's not in your face. Does anyone feel like this is ugly? It's okay if you do. You feel like this is ugly. I'd never pin this. That's fine. I feel like it's that balance of knowing who the product is and staying true to their brand and offering helpful content at the same time. Who doesn't love Target? They had this goal of they knew moms and parents were on Pinterest so again, they knew their audience was there. They knew that moms were probably preparing for their kids to go to college. They thought it'd be really cool to create a board, their own board. They already have this following. Target has a big following on Pinterest. It's a shocker. (class laughs) They decided that they wanted to create this board that gave moms ideas on how to help their college student move into their dorm room and create a home away from home, which I thought was so clever. In the pin, they showcased their products and exactly how to create these DIYs so they knew their audience was also DIY focused. Then when you clicked on the pin, what it would do is it took you to a page not just one product 'cause we're offering many products in these pins, but like a splash page that had the DIY and then all the products for sale on target.com. They really went the extra mile to create the full experience of, you wanna make this DIY in your life? Let us help you do that. Here's a one-stop shopping, come to our site, buy all these products in one swoop, oh and here's probably some other products you want to buy too. They're geniuses. We created some clever ideas that we knew would perform well on Pinterest. Dorm sweet dorm doormat, it's totally DIY and fun, it's on a bright color which it fits with Target's branding. We also created the DIY headboard with the idea that you could just get some shower clips and a bar and some command strips and create a cool look for your room 'cause you can't use nails in dorms usually. Thought about this cool post-it pinata which is the idea of a care package but instead of food it would be using post-it notes that you can write love notes on and it was in a paper bag which is really cheap and easy to mail. Inside could be gift cards or nail polish or fruit snacks or money, really what college students want. This was very creative and really fun to work on. Ultimately driving awareness that Target has a lot of products that can help moms and college students create a good college experience. It was awareness-focused. We also have video pins. I don't have a video example for you. I have not dabbled in video yet. It's something I'm really excited to do, but if you have video, if you already have a ton of video you shot, you can repurpose it and put pay behind it. It's the only time that you can use video on Pinterest is through a promoted video pin. It's exciting and I love this idea because in a sea of static images, this is a great way to stand out and get eyeballs. This only runs on mobile but to note, most users of Pinterest are on mobile devices. You won't see video on desktop, only when you're using an iPad or iPhone. 2GB maximum size, still the 600 by 900 ratio, 25 frames per second, you wanna make sure you still include that strong pin description 'cause it looks just like a pin but it's video, and lead with a clear hook. What are they gonna get out of this video, what's this video about? Right away I wanna know what this video is. Don't rely on audio because who likes when things just all of a sudden play loud and you're in a quiet place? Nobody. Shh, I'm at work! Shh! Don't lead a video with sound. Ultimately at auction, video pins are awareness so you're doing the CPM model and what they'll count for CPV or cost per view, they will measure that for you but that starts at the two second time. Two seconds is counted as a view and that's when the pin is 50% in view. When you're scrolling through your feed, once the pin is 50% visible, that's when the video starts auto playing. Here is a story, I can't name the brand. This is from Pinterest. They let us use this today, thank you Pinterest, about a popular home cleaning brand that you know very well. They were the first in their category to do video. This is insane. This video was just a repurposed commercial spot so they already had the video and they just decided hey, why don't we try running this on Pinterest? It blew their industry standards out of the water. It was a two cent cost per view. Two cents, which is so cheap, and people watched. It had a 3.9% lift in offline sales. We know that video works really well. I know that we don't have, how much money did they spend and all of those questions, I know but, we know that video's really effective on Pinterest and mostly because the point of everything else is a static image and this is really dynamic and people are gonna watch it. Any questions about the ads that I created or my thought process behind it? In that last example, the image that was shown clearly from a commercial. It's a nice image. With the idea that Pinterest is curated and very visual, would you say that any video needs to be pretty high quality as well? Can you choose the thumbnail or does it show up right at the beginning of the vide? I actually don't know that answer, but I will find out for you and I will go back and comment. To be determined. I don't know. Okay cool. Thanks. I would assume you can. I know that it auto plays though once you see it so it starts from the beginning. I would assume when you see it, it starts from the beginning. It is auto play though? Gotcha. Cool, thanks. Someone was also asking is the video vertical? If the video is vertical also? You can do vertical or a square. I guess it would be 600 by 600, or 600 by 900. Hey there. What are your thoughts on stock images for ads? I know you've been showing a lot of beautiful, custom photo shoots. What do you think about stock images then with your own text added onto that? If you're purchasing copyright for a stock image for your use, you own that image and that's there for your marketing use. I would say there's nothing wrong with it because you own that. I will say there is value in creating image assets that represent who you are 'cause that's gonna communicate your style and personality. If you find a stock image that's like man, that's so me to the tee then great but, I found that a lot of the images that I see out there don't really portray exactly what I want. I do think that it's worth while as you establish a brand and establish your business to invest in that so that people can get to know who you are. I mean, I think a lot of us can tell when it's a stock image. Given that, that means that maybe there's not as much personality there and you seem like a person that has a lot of personality or cares about that personal touch. I know economically it's a great solution and I've definitely purchased stock images at the beginning of my business but, something to consider as you grow your brand and what you want that to look like. Other thing too is you're creating content. I work with photographers all the time and that's my industry. A lot of people just don't utilize their time on their photo shoot very well. I bet you could find someone to collaborate with to create a ton of image assets if you planned your photo shoot right knowing I know I need good pins, I know I need good Instagram content, I know I need it to be evergreen, or I need it there's seasonality to it. I would just encourage you to think maybe how much I spend in stock images I could actually just bang all that out in half a day with a photographer and have a ton of content for six months 'cause that's what I do. I meet with a photographer once a month and we create a ton of content and then I don't have to hire them again until another month. I generate a lot of content. I don't know, just a thought. That's helpful. Thank you. This is about rich pins and the promoted ads. If you're heavy with recipes on your boards and the recipes feature a product, do you want a recipe rich pin or product rich pin? Once you choose your rich pin type, you really just wanna stick with that 'cause then you have to go back to Pinterest and say, hey Pinterest I wanna switch to product. You can but ultimately if you know the majority of your content that you're sharing is recipe, I would just stick with that. Then you could call out the product in your pin description. That's would I would do too. It hasn't started yet. That's just one of the click. Do you predominately do recipes or sell products? A friend of mine is the vanilla queen, literally. She's amazing. She's an expert niche vanilla person and she sells eco-friendly vanilla. She has a million recipes that uses the product. That's why I'm wondering what's the best approach. Also what's her ultimate goal? Is it to sell more of her product? A lot of it is education awareness about vanilla. Then I would do more recipe focused if it's more awareness and education focused and then hey, by the way, buy this product. We're gonna keep moving on just so you stick with time and I think we'll have time at the end to take more questions. Let's talk about how in the world do you execute this? You have killer artwork and you know what type of campaign you wanna run. Let's make this happen.