Exploring the New and Lesser Known Pinterest Features

Today we are going to dive into Pinterest features that are either newer or ones that many people don't seem to know about.  We'd love to hear in our Facebook Mastermind group www.growwithusmastermind.com what's been working for you and what hasn't on Pinterest. There has been lots of chatter recently about some of these features. If you haven’t already, join our group to find the support and accountability you need to grow your TpT business. 

But, before we jump into out talk on Pinterest we have some exciting news to share—we're going to presenting at the TpT conference this summer in Austin, Texas! We will be offering a workshop at two different times on the final day of the conference where we will be doing a 30-day blogging challenge. We are going to focus on helping you get organized and ready to go with your blog. So, look for us in July! Now on to Pinterest...
Pinterest features for your TpT business
Today, we're getting into a lot of Pinterest features that are either fairly new or ones that just don't get a lot of attention.

DISCLAIMER: We haven't personally used every single one of these options. We have tested some, but there's always more testing that could be done. We're giving you our opinions, but it's important that you do testing for your TpT business to see what works best for you. 
Promoted pins
Last year we did a podcast episode on the One-Tap Ads when they first came out. During that conversation, we shared our initial thoughts along with some tips about making sure your pin showed all the details. Now, six months later, we have some updates.

We've found that the things they were telling us in the beginning, weren't necessarily true. When we did exactly what our Pinterest advisor shared we found that either no one was seeing our ads or the wrong people were seeing them. Either way, it's not what you want.

Here are two things we've found that haven't worked for us:

Limiting our keywords too much - On the advice that we heard about keywords last year, we tried cutting down on the number that we used. I tried keeping it closer to 15 and it was still running on my maximum budget. This wasn't effective. When we boosted our keywords back up to 20-30 per pin we started to see more traction again.
Allowing Pinterest to Expand our keywords - There is an option to allow Pinterest to expand on your keywords for you. Angie shared some eye-opening information with me on this one. When she allowed Pinterest to expand her words they included things that weren't really the best fit. So, she was paying to show up in places where people weren't really looking for what she had to offer. She was better off doing the research herself and not allowing Pinterest to add keywords for her.

One tip that Angie shares when it comes to keywords is that you should be going back and revieiwing which keywords are performing well for you. If you have keywords that aren't converting than delete them to get the biggest bang for your buck.
Long pins
We've been warned that Pinterest wants pins to use a 2:3 ratio. In our tests, we've found that our long pins are still performing very well, even better than the new pins we created at the specified ratio for the same products.

Now, we can't be 100% sure that these long pins aren't performing better becaue they have already been run and had activity on them, or if it's the longer size that draws more attention. But, I did notice that on mobile feed my long pins are getting cut off at the bottom. It appears they are still longer than the 2:3 ratio, but it's cutting off some of the important infor