Growing online businesses is easy if only you know what to do and what not to do. One of the most important elements of growing an online business is analytics.
Pinterest analytics
Pinterest is an image sharing and social media platform that has slowly transitioned into a searching engine. It also works as a marketing platform for businesses. The analytics tool by Pinterest helps you track the performance of your business on the Pinterest platform.
Why Pinterest Analytics Should Play a Key Role in Your Pinterest Strategy
Analytics is the key to growing any successful business. The data that is derived from the analytics helps to remove the guesswork from making better and confident decisions regarding your business. The tool also enables you to focus on what is working. This means you do not have to make drastic changes in such areas. You can, however, simply fine-tune what is working to allow for better results. Through the tool, you can also tell if the changes you make are worthwhile or if they are simply a step in the wrong direction.
With this tool, you can measure pin performance, how much your followers are growing on the platform, traffic referrals, and also make sure that you reach your social media targets. The information you get from the analytics will also help you understand your audience well, come up with stronger content, and establish the best Pinterest strategy.
Most business owners tend to shy away from analytics. The reason is that they mostly involve numbers and technology. For this reason, regardless of the benefits that analytics provides, most business owners do not utilize them to the best extent or at all. This is especially the case for people who are not good with numbers and technology.
How Pinterest Analytics Works
To access this tool, you have to create a Pinterest business account first. The account needs to have a verified tag. With this, you can sign in and clock on the analytics tab. You should find the tab on the left corner of your account’s homepage. From here, you should see a drop menu of four areas in your Analytics account. The areas are;
Overview- this segment provides you with information on where Pinterest is getting data from. It is split into sections like profile, people you reach, and your website activity. Each segment is further divided into time-dependent data, which is compared to other data points. This tab also shows the top-performing pins from your website.
Profile- this segment shows data like your daily impressions, pins, search results, and the average viewers of your pins, among others.
People you reach- here, you can compare your average monthly viewers against the average monthly engaged. In simpler terms, it refers to the average number of people that took action on your pins.
Website- the website data shows average daily impressions of pins from your website against the average regular viewers.
If you find the numbers on the dashboard intimidating, you can always look at the actionable tips that are provided on the panel. This content is included in each section of the dashboard. They help to explain a bit about what the information in each section is about. By doing so, will help you make informed action based on the data that is provided.
The Pinterest Insights Dashboard
First, you have to purchase the insights dashboard. After making the purchase, you will receive an email that will provide you with the login information. You will also get access to a short video. The video will help you understand how the dashboard works, its contents, and how to interpret the material. The footage is usually less than 10 minutes long. From there, you have to make a copy of the dashboard in the same way that you would copy any Google doc. After doing so, you can proceed to sign in to your Google Analytics account. The account will pull all your data into the dashboard.
Contents of the Pinterest Insights Dashboard
The analytics dashboard is split into the following content sections:
Impression- The term refers to the number of times that your pin appears in the home and category feeds as well as the search results. A pin is an image post that a business makes on the platform. The analytics tool presents this data in the form of numbers. This means that one impression is equal to one view. The data represents how much reach your content has. The pins with the most impressions are a representation of the material that is most popular on the platform. The impressions are also used to find out the top pins.
Closeups- This refers to the number of people that have tapped on a pin. Tapping on a pin allows for the person to take a closer look at the pin. The closeups data lets you know which visuals have the most impact and which ones need to be worked on.
Repins- a repin is when a user saves your pin on their boards. This data helps you know the pins that users find shareable and interesting.
Clicks- this is the number of people that get to your website through the pins on the platform. Impressive click rates mean that people are looking to learn more about your content. Call to actions come in handy here.
Top boards- this refers to the boards that have the most view and pins. It also refers to the boards that pinners are pinning your posts to and from which they are clicking your pins.
All-time stats- This refers to a long-view of data from the time that your account was created to the best and power pins as well as the most repined pins. Note that a power pin is that with the most pins from your account.
Average monthly viewers and engaged- this refers to the average number of people that see your pins and the average number of people that act on your pins, respectively.
Audience analytics- this data is found at the top of the analytics dashboard. On this part of the panel, you will find data on the demographics of your audience. For instance, language, gender, and nationality. Other information includes the audience affinities. This will help you know what your audience is into, what are the most popular categories, top boards on which content is pinned, and other accounts followed by your audience.
Website analytics- if you share your website contents with Pinterest, the analytics tools will help you know how it performs on the platform. You, however, first need to claim your website so that you can have access to the metrics. Some of the parameters include the impressions, pins, saves, top, and original pins. Original pins are those unique pins that are created from your website by using the save button, manual pin uploads, and the Pinterest browser extension.
To claim your website, you have to add a meta tag or upload an HTML file to your website’s HTML code. It is as easy as logging into your account from a web browser, selecting settings, and clicking claims. Note that you can only claim one website on your Pinterest profile. Also, a website can only be claimed once by a Pinterest account. This means that even if you had two Pinterest accounts, you could not use them to claim one website.
How to Use the Content on the Analyst Dashboard for Pinterest Strategy?
Impressions- the data will help you come up with a strategy to use the success of the pins with the most impressions to come up with a plan for future pins.
Closeups- this data will help you come up with a strategy on how to improve your visuals and create more impact.
Repins- this data will help you discover what the pins with the most repins have in common and how to use this data to come up with a strategy to help amplify the success of future pins.
Clicks- knowledge on the top clicks will help you come up with a strategy to use the success of these pins for other pins in the future.
Top boards- Having information on how pinners are sorting and discovering your content significantly assists in coming up with your content strategy.
All-time stats- Knowledge of your best performing content will help you determine what is working and how to keep your account excelling. It will also help you know which pins rank well in your search results and how to use the data to optimize exposure from there.
Audience analytics- data from the audience analytics will help you understand your audience better and know what interests them and what content they best engage with. This section will work as an inspirational cheat sheet and mood board for future strategies like Pinterest marketing.
Website insight- the website insights will help you come up with a knowledgeable plan that will help you boost the performance of your website.
Interpreting the contents of the analytics tool
Understanding the numbers can be easy if you know what you are looking for. The first step is to focus on the right information. Looking at too much information can be overwhelming and confusing. The trick is to consume the information in measurable junks. For instance, you can start by determining what your business needs most. With that information, you will know which area you need to address first. If you find that what your business needs most is a larger audience, you can go straight to the audience tab on the dashboard.
Look at content like the demographics. This will help you know the kind of people that are attracted to your content. You can then use this information to optimize your content and profile to suit the audience demographics better. However, if you find that your content is attracting the wrong audience, you may want to transform your profile to suit your target audience entirely.
In the analytics tool, data can be stored by period and by the device. This element makes it easy to compare the data, especially when it comes to tracking how many people are on mobile compared to those on a desktop. For instance, if you find that a larger percentage of your website impressions are from users with smart gadgets, you can use that information to optimize your website for mobile.
Most people tend to set up their Pinterest marketing strategy and forget about it. However, specialists recommend that the analytics should be checked at least once per week. Note that it is also not wise to overdo it. If that happens, you will not have time to test your strategies. It is only through checking the strategy for a while that you will discover what is working and what isn’t. Also, if you spend enough time on the analytics dashboard, you should grow accustomed to all its features in no time.