How to Create Shoppable Pins for Pinterest
It doesn’t matter where your shop is based in the world, one thing is for certain: Pinterest means big business for ecommerce owners and with Shoppable Pins, the platform is driving more sales than ever before. On average, Pinterest users spend more money per order than users on any other social media platform, with a whopping two million people pinning product Pins each day. As Neil Patel points out, that’s 20 times more than the number of daily shoppers at the Mall of America!
If you’re a business with an online shop, this is a huge opportunity you don’t want to miss out on, but here’s the tricky part: you need to create Pinterest graphics that entice users to click through. Thankfully, BeFunky’s Designer has a new collection of Pinterest Graphics that make it easier than ever to create Shoppable Pins - all with a few drag-and-drops!
How Do Shoppable Pins Work?
Shoppable Pins are still fairly new to the platform, so it’s easy to confuse them with Pinterest’s other well-known feature: Promoted Pins. Promoted Pins allow businesses to guarantee their pins will show in other user’s feeds, therefore giving them additional views. Shoppable Pins, on the other hand, allow users to directly buy a product from a pin. Within a click, they can be directed through to the product’s purchase page.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the different components of a Shoppable Pin:
Tagged products: These appear as white dots over the image, which call out the products featured.
Shop the look: Users can simply tap the dots to “shop the look”. They will then see a preview showcase of four tagged items and can click through to the retailer’s website to see more. Alternatively, if they want to buy one of the products featured, they can click right through to its product page.
Products like this: Underneath the Shoppable Pin is a showcase of other pins featuring similar products to those above. This is a great way to discover not only similar products from the same seller, but also from other sellers.
Shopping search: The platform has given Shoppable Pins priority when a user searches for a related keyword or item. In-stock Product Pins will appear at the top of the search bar, providing the user with options based on their intent. They can simply click “See All” and see more related, in-stock products.
How to Become Eligible for Shoppable Pins
When it comes to Shoppable Pins, one of the first questions you might have is: “can every business use this feature?”. To promote your products using this feature on Pinterest, you first must become eligible. Don’t fret – it’s not as hard as it sounds! We walk you through how you can become eligible for Shoppable Pins below.
Use a Supported E-Commerce Platform: If you already use an e-commerce platform such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Demandware, and Salesforce, then you’re in luck. Only a few choice merchants support Shoppable Pins, so if you already use a different e-commerce platform to sell your products, you’ll want to sign up to one of those listed above too. Once that’s sorted, you’ll then need to apply for Shoppable Pins with that specific e-commerce platform.
Set Up a Pinterest Business Page: Next, you’ll need to make sure you have a Pinterest Business Page set up, as opposed to a Personal Page. If you’ve been using a Personal Page for your business, just convert it to a Business Page instead. There are a number of special features you can optimize on your Business Page, which you can learn all about here.
Get Approval From Pinterest: Once you’ve optimized your Pinterest Business Page, the final step is to apply for approval from Pinterest. Once you’ve been approved, you can start using Shoppable Pins for your products right away. Hooray!
How To Create Shoppable Pinterest Graphics
Once you’re ready to create your own Shoppable Pinterest Graphic, head to BeFunky’s Graphic Designer. In the Templates tab, click the Search Templates button.
Clicking the Search Templates button will open up the Template Library and allow you to search hundreds of beautiful, customizable design templates. To find the perfect graphic for your shoppable Pinterest Pin, click on the Pinterest Graphics category in the menu on the left. Selecting any of the template thumbnails will give you a zoomed in view, and when you find the one you want, click the Select Template button.
Now that you’ve got your fresh new Pinterest template in front of you, you’ll first want to swap out the existing image for one featuring your own brand or product. You do this by clicking on the image and then selecting Replace from the Image Properties toolbar which appears. Alternatively, you can navigate to Image Manager from the main menu on the left (the first option) and upload your desired image from your Computer, Facebook, or BeFunky. Once it's uploaded, simply drag-and-drop it's thumbnail to replace the existing image on the template.
To resize your image, click on it. You'll see a blue dashed line appear around the image, and you can use your mouse to drag its corners in (to make it smaller) or out (to make it larger). You can also reposition the image on your template by dragging it with your mouse.
Once your desired image(s) are in place, it’s time to edit the existing text to reflect your own message. To do this, click on the text box twice and type anything you want. When you select text, a Text Properties toolbar appears, where you can also adjust things such as the Font, Size, Color, Spacing, and more.
You can change the background color of your text box in the Text Properties toolbar by clicking on the color tile next to Background. Choose a color from the Color Chart, type in the hue’s specific Color HEX Code, or use the Eyedropper Tool to select a color directly from your design for a cohesive look.
Lastly, if you feel as though your Shoppable Pinterest Graphic requires some extra pizzazz, you can also add Design Elements such as lines, shapes, arrows, and other graphics to it. To locate these, click on Design Elements in the main menu (the heart icon). Once there, you can add any customizable Basic Shape, upload graphics from your Computer, or click the Search Graphics button to access BeFunky’s own extensive library.
We've chosen to add a few outlined stars from BeFunky's Graphic Library. To alter your graphic once you've added it to your design template, select it with your mouse and a Graphic Properties toolbar appears. From here, you can edit the Color Overlay and Tint.
Once your Shoppable Pinterest Graphic is finished, you’ll want to save it so it’s ready to share with the world. Click Save at the top of the page to save your work to your Computer or straight to Pinterest!
If you want to come back to your project at a later date (i.e. to use your design for another Pin), then we also recommend the Save as Project option (which lets you save it as an editable BeFunky Project file to your BeFunky account or Computer).
Final Results
With your awesome new Shoppable Pin on-hand, all that’s left for you to do is to head to your Pinterest Ad Manager and follow the steps to uploading. By using an eye-catching and customized template from our Graphic Designer, you’re giving yourself the best chance at skyrocketing sales. Here’s to the power of Shoppable Pins!
Ready to put your products or services in front of millions? Get started below.
