Pinterest took the internet by storm when it launched in March 2010. Some would say it was the beginning of the end for predominately text-based content, as many other image-centric platforms have since rose to popularity. Just two years after it hit the scene, it was considered the third most popular social network in the United States, behind only Facebook and Twitter – an amazing accomplishment for such a relatively unknown company.
Since then, we’ve seen Pinterest transform into quite the marketing powerhouse – introducing a slew of new features including profile pages, enhanced search, promoted pins, and rich pins. Now that we’re into its 7th year, the platform has 150 million users, 70 million of which are from the United States.
It’s an important marketing vehicle since 72% of users turn to Pinterest to help them decide what to purchase offline, and nearly two million product rich pins are pinned every day. But using it just because you think it’s vital to your content marketing strategy isn’t enough. To get the highest possible ROI from time spent creating and curating content to share on the network, you must have access to analytics data to help drive your decisions about what to do next.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the tools currently on the market to help you decide which one you should use to help grow your audience and hopefully drive more sales.
Overview
Pinterest’s Native Analytics Tool
The built-in analytics platform on Pinterest itself is available to anyone with a business account who has taken the steps to register their website with Pinterest. This is necessary so Pinterest can track the traffic that comes to your website from the pins on their site.
Within the native platform, you’ll find a variety of metrics, including: average daily impressions, average daily viewers, audience location, audience gender, audience location, number of repins, number of clicks, and total likes. You’ll be able to see the pin activity, information about your audience, and which pins are driving traffic to your website.
This tool offers enough basic information for you get an idea of what’s going on with your account and how your audience is responding. It’s good for getting a start on the platform and building your audience. It’s better than nothing, of course, but if you really want to dig deep and see what’s going on, you’ll have to move to something outside of what’s built-in.
Tailwind – More than Vanity Metrics
Tailwind is an extensive Pinterest Analytics tool, allowing you to:
- Track followers and engagement trends – looking at repins, likes, and comments at multiple levels, including the profile, board, and even on individual pins.
- Look at fan engagement and virality over time so you can be sure your audience is responding positively to your pins.
- Integrate data with Google Analytics and Omniture so you can get more information about your ROI. This way, you can see which pins are driving visits, transactions, and revenue.
- Gauge progress overtime with reports and archive your historical data.
- Run social promotions and get content recommendations based on audience response
Tailwind will send performance summaries directly to your email box so you can stay on top of things without having to login to the platform every day. With it, you’ll be able to use filtering and sorting to get insights based on the board, category, keywords, hashtags, source URL, date range, and more. You’ll also get interest heat maps which allow you to verify that the content you’re pinning is right for your audience. You’ll learn when to pin based on your specific audience activity, rather than using generic advice about the best times to post.
For bloggers and small businesses, plans start at $15/month ($9.99/month when billed annually) per Pinterest account. The plans include the ability to schedule up to 400 posts per month, and a seven-day history archive. Professional plans include more analytics data with a one-year history archive and the ability to bring in up to five collaborators, but cost $799/month billed annually.
If you’re not ready to commit to paying for a more robust Pinterest analytics solution, there’s a free account where you can schedule up to 100 pins on Pinterest, as well as up to 30 posts on Instagram before choosing a paid plan.
ViralTag – Not Just for Pinterest
If you don’t like the idea of using a separate platform for each social media network you’re working with in your strategy, then ViralTag could be the answer. It works with Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. You can schedule posts for any and all of those sites, and also has a browser extension to allow for easy image selection. This platform focuses solely on the visual social media platforms.
Plans start at $29/month ($24/month for annual plans) for a single user with up to 10 social profiles. It includes unlimited posts and RSS feeds, with a marketing calendar and post recycling. You’ll also get link shortening and a 30-day history of social analytics. The Small Business plan is $79/month and includes three users with 25 social profiles, the same features as the individual plan with the addition of team workflows and Google Analytics ad UTM tracking. All plans come with a 14-day free trial, and no credit card is required.
Viralwoot – More than Analytics
With Viralwoot, you get more than Pinterest analytics. You’ll be able to schedule your pins in bulk and promote pins from within the platform. Scheduling will not only help you make the most of the time you have available to work on your social media management, but will ensure you’re able to have pins go live at the best times to reach the people in your audience. Pricing starts at $10/month and goes to $149+/month for enterprise level plans, but all plans must be paid annually. If your business also uses Instagram, you can use the platform to schedule posts there, too.
There is a limited free account option, allowing you to try the platform before committing to paying for it. There’s no limit on the length of time you use the free account, and no credit card is required.
The free account allows you to earn credits by following pinners and boards. You can automatically earn up to 150 credits a day by consenting to automating your participation. Simply choose the categories you want to engage with. Those free credits allow you to create promotions to drive traffic to your pins without spending a dime – making it a good option for startups and solopreneurs who are on a tight budget, but still need help with growing their audience.
PinPinterest
PinPinterest is a tool that allows you to pin, follow, schedule, or unfollow. All you have to do is choose the related tags on your dashboard, and click the start button. From there, everything runs on autopilot – you can even close your browser, and the platform will take care of everything for you. You can schedule pins in advance and pin content directly from your website.
The pricing model for this service is a bit different than others, since you are not locked into a monthly payment. You can make a one-time payment for 30 days, 90 days, or 180 days of access, ranging from $25 to $89.99 respectively. There’s no subscription involved, but all payments are for a single Pinterest account. That means if you need to manage more than one account you’d be paying at least $50 every 30 days, unless you opted for the longer term plan.
Olapic
Originally Olapic was just a tool for allowing your brand to find user generated content to replace your stock photos. Since they acquired Piquora’s technology, they’ve expanded to include scheduling and analytics features. This allows you to track ROI, influencer engagement and interactions. With the tracking information, you can get insights into the users who provide the content that drives the highest ROI.
Pricing information is not publicly posted, meaning you must request a demo to get more information about the features and pricing.
Which One Should You Choose?
Ultimately, I can’t give you that answer. I wish it were that simple, but without knowing your unique needs and more about what’s going on with your Pinterest strategy, there’s no way to know which, if any, of these analytics tools are the best fit for you.
I recommend signing up for free trials or accounts of the ones you are most interested in, and then using them for a pre-determined amount of time (or until the trial is up). Then, evaluate what you liked and what you didn’t like about each of them. What was easy? What was difficult? What information, if any, were you hoping to find, that you couldn’t? Was there any useful information you weren’t expecting to find? What are your goals? What’s your budget? Only when you can answer these questions will you know which platform to choose for your business.
Which one(s) of these have you used? Share your thoughts below to help other readers make the choice for themselves.
