You already know Pinterest is great for recipes and decorating inspiration. But have you ever considered using Pinterest for launching? If you’ve been in my world for any length of time, you may know me as a Pinterest expert before my launch management days so I know a thing or two about Pinterest. Now combine Pinterest and launching and you get magical results!
3 Ways to Use Pinterest for Launching
One of my favorite things about Pinterest pins is that they are evergreen meaning they will live forever. In other words, if you pin something now, someone could easily see that pin two months from now, pin it, and it goes viral. Things live in the Pinterest universe forever unless, of course, they have dead links.
A dead link is one that has a URL that no longer leads to valid content. How does it happen? Maybe at one point, you pinned a Facebook live, blog post, lead magnet, or a sales page, and it’s since been deleted, moved, or changed. If the pins are still circulating (which they probably are) and the content isn’t available, those links are considered dead links. The pin will eventually die because people click on it and get that dreaded 404 Error, they’ll click away. You can always run a dead link checker tool on your site like this one just to make sure everything is working too.
When people click on a pin it shows Pinterest that there is interest in that pin. As a result, the Pinterest algorithm will show to more people. Knowing this, we can talking about how to use Pinterest for launching.
Grow Your Email List
Pinterest can be used organically or with paid ads for growing your email list. This is my favorite way to use this platform. Pinterest’s claim to fame, if you will, is that it pretty much runs on autopilot. If you use a scheduling tool, like Tailwind, you can schedule pins to send traffic to your lead magnets and other various content.
Wherever you’re driving traffic, make sure you have the call to action to sign up for your lead magnet. Using the blog post example, include a miniature advertisement to sign up for your related service or freebie. This could be done through a hyperlink, or through a form that’s embedded on the page through your email service provider (I use ConvertKit). If you’re sending pins to other content, like a YouTube video, a Facebook Live, or a podcast, make sure that that piece of content has a link that directs readers to sign up for your lead magnet.
You’re driving traffic and the end goal is to sign up for your lead magnet, which will grow your email list. In this way when you’re ready to launch, you have a larger audience of new people who are specifically interested in the offers you share.
A caveat here: You have to be consistent in using Pinterest and hang in there for the long haul, especially depending on your niche. I’ve been using Pinterest for the six years I’ve been in business and the platform has changed a lot. It used to be that you could instantly create a pin and it would drive traffic right away.
The algorithm has changed recently, as it does with a lot of different social media, and it’s now taking longer to gain traction, depending on your niche and how established your Pinterest account is. Give Pinterest six months minimum to start seeing results from consistent pinning, especially if your account is brand new. Growing your email list is something we should all be doing and Tailwind (my Pinterest scheduling tool of choice) makes it easy to schedule pins to post 365 days a year.

Pinterest Ads
Promoted Pins are a great way to generate traffic, leads, and sales. They are also a great strategy when using Pinterest for launching. Let me break it down for you.
Cold Traffic
If you’re trying to attract a new audience or “cold traffic,” it can take 30 to 45 days to optimize ads because you need to begin by testing different creative, and then narrow down who you want to target during the optimization phase. This optimization piece needs seven days of data from Pinterest. You might be thinking that 30 to 45 days typically is not a cart open timeframe. Rather, the cart open and close phase is closer to five to seven days at the longest.
If you are looking to attract cold leads through Pinterest ads, this process could take a while. For this reason, I recommend running ads to a lead magnet to grow your email list instead of a product you are launching.
Warm Traffic
The second way to use Pinterest for launching is by running ads to warm traffic. This method works best if you have a large email list, I would say at least a couple of thousand email subscribers. Pinterest promoted pins are similar to Facebook in that you’ll upload your email list to Pinterest and create a warm audience to retarget similar to Facebook. Also, if you upload a list of purchasers, you can then create an act-alike audience based on those who have purchased.
Retargeting ads to those people that are on your email list works better because Pinterest is already receiving data to work with. You’ll still need to run ads for at least seven days. You’ll still need to do some optimizing because you need to test the pin creative, so it could take you multiple launches to get that dialed in.
For example, if you have a seven-day launch, you can easily start running three to four pins and testing the ad creative. By the end of that seven days on cart close, you should have an idea of which pins performed better. Then, you’ll completely turn off the pins that were not attracting your audience and pause the ads that were working.
When the next launch period comes around, you’ll already have data from the ad creative figured out. If you’ve had more purchasers or more leads, you can also upload and refresh your audiences. If you launch quarterly, for example, that’s enough time and you have gathered a lot of leads. I would upload that again and refresh your lists before turning on those ads. I recommend an ad spend of at least $30 a day.
Remember to keep your URL active, even in between launches. Remember those pins continue to float around in the universe even in between your launches. I love this residual “afterburn” effect of Pinterest ads because your pin is still being placed in front of people, even when the ad spend has stopped. Remember at the beginning of the post when I spoke about “dead links”, when a pinner clicks through and gets a 404 error and clicks away leading to Pinterest essentially “killing” the pin? You want to avoid this. So keep the URL active and switch it to a waitlist letting people know they can be the first to know when your early bird announcement might come out.
Evergreen Funnel
I had a client who uses Pinterest promoted pins for fueling her evergreen sales funnel. Pins send people to the signup page for an on-demand webinar. Then they are directed to the webinar watch page where they can either purchase her course after they watched the webinar or she has an email sequence that goes out to further nurture leads. It works 365 days a year and she has grown her email list by THOUSANDS.
She also has an open and close cart period when she does live launches four or five times a year. Those bring extra excitement to that evergreen launch for a limited time. It’s during the live launches she offers bonuses such as an additional payment plan option, or other bonuses for signing up in that timeframe.
Summary of Pinterest for Launching
Those are the three ways that you can use Pinterest for launching. You should be using Pinterest to send leads to your lead magnet so that you’re growing your email list 365 days a year. You can use Pinterest promoted pins to attract cold and warm traffic, but ideally, I suggest using them with your warm audiences. This works better for established business owners with a larger list. If you’re just starting out. I would do either organic or Pinterest ads and build that email list. Besides retargeting your warm leads from your email list, you can also retarget people who have engaged with that particular URL, people who have engaged with other pins, or with your website. Lastly, the evergreen way of launching is by sending leads to your evergreen sales funnel.
If you need support in optimizing your Pinterest strategy, running Pinterest promoted pins, or with launch management, learn how we can work together.