How to Use Pinterest for Etsy and Get More Sales in 2024

Are you an Etsy shop owner looking for new creative ways to boost your store’s performance? You may be just a few Pins away from it.

Pinterest used to be seen as merely an infinite collection of pretty pictures and a source of inspiration for different creators. Chances are you too have scrolled through the platform to get gift ideas, learn DIY hacks, decide how to decorate your house, or maybe create a digital recipe book.

However, over the years, Pinterest has evolved into an important marketing channel for businesses of various sizes and market niches. It’s now a powerful visual search engine and a highly engaging social media platform that’s great for building brand awareness and driving traffic to the store.

So, if you’re intrigued to discover how to use Pinterest for Etsy, let’s not wait any longer and see how you can make your pinning efforts count. This guide will help you create stunning Pinterest boards that speak to your potential customers and promote your Etsy shop in no time.

Why use Pinterest for Etsy?

Pinterest is the 15th largest social media platform, which generated over $3 billion in revenue and had close to 500 million active monthly users in 2023. However, these stats alone don’t tell the whole story of why Pinterest could be a good addition to your Etsy store’s marketing strategy. The platform boasts several other benefits.

High organic traffic potential across age groups. Pinterest’s user base is highly diverse, with an almost equal number of active pinners from ages 25 to 45+. This offers a vast and varied audience for your products.

Gen Z is Pinterest’s largest user group. They mainly follow brands rather than celebrities, indicating that users come to Pinterest to discover new products and shop.

A good proportion of Pinterest users are high-income shoppers who are more likely to opt for unique, custom-made, and creative products—everything that Etsy is about.

Pinterest Pins have a longer lifespan than the majority of other social media posts, generating traffic to your Etsy store for several weeks, months, or even years after being posted.

Pinterest makes it easy to add a clickable link to each Pin, driving more referral traffic than other social media platforms.

Google favors Pinterest Pins for different commercial investigation search queries (e.g., t-shirt design ideas or cool fall outfits), which increases your chances of getting your Etsy listings rank higher.

Pro tip: If you’re only getting started with Etsy, read our guide on How to sell on Etsy to get your shop successfully off the ground

How to use Pinterest for Etsy: 8 tips for success

Now that you see how Pinterest can propel your Etsy store’s visibility, reach, and profit, it’s time to get to the practical steps and start exploiting the platform’s full potential.

As with any platform, setting up an effective Pinterest marketing strategy takes time and practice, yet the following tips will get you off to a good start.

1. Create a Pinterest business account

With a personal Pinterest account, you can find and save Pins to your boards and share images linking to your Etsy store. However, you’ll need a Pinterest business account to gather analytics on your Etsy shop Pins and run ads.

To do that, you can either convert your existing personal account to a business account or create a new business account that’s not associated with an email address already in use. Note that your personal account will be immediately switched to public (in case it was private before) as you convert it for business purposes.

Pinterest offers a complete guide on how to create a business account regardless of which scenario you choose to follow. Having a business account will also allow you to connect your Etsy shop and any other social media accounts on Pinterest (Settings > Claim > Claim other accounts > Etsy). This way, your account will be listed as the owner whenever somebody pins content from those channels.

2. Optimize your profile

Once you’ve got your business account up and rolling, it’s important to complete your profile following the best practices of Pinterest SEO. Use high-quality photos for the logo (your image will seem more authentic) and header, choose a name similar to your Etsy shop’s name, and write a compelling bio that includes relevant keywords.

You don’t need a special integration with Etsy to connect your store. Just add the link to your Etsy shop in the profile settings—it’ll appear right before the bio on your profile page.

Source: Etsy on Pinterest

3. Use keywords strategically

You have your profile polished. Now, you’re ready to create Pins and build your following. As you do that, make sure you include all the relevant keywords in Pin titles and descriptions, as well as your boards, to increase your chances of organically appearing in users’ feeds and search queries.

If you’re unsure about what keywords to use, picture yourself in the shoes of your potential buyer and think about what their search intent might be and what product attributes might be important to them. For example, if you sell embroidered hats with floral designs, you may want to use “vintage,” “hand embroidery,” or “gift for women,” among other terms throughout your Pin descriptions.

Source: Pinterest

You can also do keyword research using the Pinterest search bar—the system will automatically show related terms at the top—or check what kind of keywords competitors use for similar Etsy products and top-performing Pins in your niche. Don’t try to replicate exactly what you see, but use your findings as inspiration and guidance to create your unique titles and descriptions.

4. Enable rich Pins

Have you noticed that some Pinterest Pins include the price or rating? Those are called rich Pins, which show additional information about the Pin taken from your website and get updated automatically.

Currently, three types of rich Pins are available: recipe Pins (show ingredients, cook time, serving size, and ratings), product Pins (show real-time pricing, availability, and product information), and article Pins (show the author, title, and description of the blog post or article).

Rich Pins improve user experience and encourage people to visit your Etsy shop to complete the order. To activate product-rich Pins, you normally need to integrate specific rich meta tags to your website for each page on which you want to feature product Pins. However, for Etsy, you simply need to go to the Marketing tab in your admin panel, find Pinterest, and enable rich Pins from there.

5. Create boards relevant to your audience

As soon as your Pinterest profile is optimized, start creating Pins and organize them into themed boards. Creating multiple Pinterest boards that cover various categories and content types is essential to building an engaged following and eventually driving traffic to your Etsy shop.

Ideally, you should have as many boards as the number of different products you have. For example, if you sell wall art, you may want to create separate boards for botanical prints and retro wall art or differentiate them by spaces where the artwork would be placed (living room, kitchen, bedroom, etc.).

Source: Grace Digital Art Co

Make sure you create boards that are relevant and interesting to your audience. You can find that out by checking the Pinterest boards your followers or potential customers have made themselves.

Don’t use fancy descriptions or complicated titles for your boards—give a straightforward name that includes the same keywords you use for your Etsy products. That’ll help in content discovery and improve user experience. Finally, think about how your boards look together and whether they collectively tell a cohesive and complete story of your Etsy shop.

6. Post regularly

Consistency is key to being successful on Pinterest. Aim to pin daily (the Pinterest algorithm likes that), mixing your products with helpful and appealing content from other sources. Always keep your potential customers in mind and fill your boards with different types of Pins, such as infographics, links to useful articles, or mood boards.

Again, go to your followers to see what they’re interested in or what content is lacking. You can also use your competitors as a source of inspiration, and don’t be afraid to pin their posts (even if they link to their Etsy shops) to give your boards a more natural and balanced look. You don’t want your profile to appear as a catalog but rather organically invite users to your Etsy shop.

Source: ILOVEOLIVIA

Remember that Pinterest is a highly visual platform, so always favor quality over quantity in your pinning efforts. Make sure all your Pins are related to your Etsy shop. Anything else should go to your personal account. And don’t forget to engage with other Pinterest users by following them, liking, pinning, and commenting on their Pinterest boards to increase the visibility of your posts.

7. Always link Pins to your listings

Generally, you can add Pins to your account in two ways: you either save them directly from Etsy using the Pinterest extension or add them manually using your image. The second option usually works better as you’re in more control of the text and visuals.

Remember that whenever you manually add a Pin corresponding to your Etsy listings, you should also add a link to the particular product. That’ll ensure you don’t just post pretty pictures and create inspirational boards but actually drive traffic to your store.

Source: Urban Outfitters

8. Use Pinterest ads

Pinterest can significantly improve the performance of your Etsy shop even with purely organic efforts. However, Pinterest ads can up your game and increase your reach by promoting your Pins to a broader audience.

The platform claims you can achieve an even seven-time increase in return on ad spend when you use Pinterest ads, and you have eight ad types to choose from.

Standard Pins: Boost an existing Pin in the home feed labeled “Promoted by.”

Video Pins: Similar to standard Pins, but they use video instead of images and are therefore more eye-catching.

Idea ads: Compile multiple images and videos to create a story.

Carousel Pins: A collection of 2–5 images where you can either reveal one item from different angles, several complementing items, or a step-by-step process.

Shopping Pins: Boost product Pins to a targeted audience.

Collections: Promote multiple products at once—a great way to combine videos with product and lifestyle images (up to 24 supporting images allowed). Pinterest also offers to create collections automatically.

Quiz Pins: Engage your audience with a quiz (up to 3 questions) and provide a personalized Pin based on their answers.

Showcase Pins: Show several images or videos each linking to a different page of your store—a great opportunity to display various product categories.

Each of these ads has different format requirements so be sure to review ad specifications before designing visuals. Also, keep in mind that some of the ads are strictly mobile-only, so you should know which device is favored by your target audience.

Finally, if you’re worried about the costs, note that Pinterest ads work auction-style. How much you’ll pay depends on the size of your audience, targeted location, keyword competitiveness, your desired outcome, and other factors. An average Pinterest ad campaign would cost $0.10 per click, up to $2.00 per conversion, and up to $1.50 per 1000 impressions.

Pro tip: Learn about other ways to make your Etsy shop profitable in our guide, How to make money on Etsy

Conclusion: Can Pinterest take your Etsy shop to new heights?

Pinterest has come a long way from being a purely inspirational platform to becoming the last stop people take before making a purchase. It has a highly engaged audience, soon exceeding 500 million people, and therefore presents massive potential for your Etsy shop to reach a new level of visibility and traffic.

Research your target audience, tailor your Pinterest content to their interests, and engage with them to make the most of your presence on the platform and eventually increase your Etsy sales.

But if you’re just about to start your Etsy business, consider partnering with a print-on-demand and dropshipping company like Printful to reduce the hassle of managing an online custom product business and fully immerse yourself in the creative process.

Pro tip: For a detailed overview of how to develop a print-on-demand business on Etsy, read our guide, How to sell print-on-demand on Etsy.