How to Drive Traffic to your Shopify store with Pinterest

So you have been hearing all the rumors about the magical powers of Pinterest. And you have a Shopify account. You have a Pinterest account. They seem perfect for each other, but somehow, despite all of the rumors of their love for each other, you can’t seem to get it to work for you. Optimizing the relationship between your Pinterest account and Shopify is imperative if you want to grow your business and drive more sales. We all know that Pinterest is the key to huge swaths of website traffic, and your Shopify site is a lady-in-waiting – just sitting pretty WAITING for all those eager customers. So I am going to teach you how to drive traffic to your Shopify store with Pinterest.  Just follow these simple steps to get the magical passive traffic flowing into your Shopify store using smart Pinterest marketing strategies. 

This post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you should you click through and make a purchase. This helps fuel all the super awesome content on the blog, keeping you on top of your Pinterest marketing game! 

THE PINTEREST SALES CHANNEL FOR SHOPIFY

If you haven’t heard of the Pinterest sales channel, Christmas (or whatever winter holiday you celebrate) just came early. The Pinterest sales channel works with your Shopify online store, and converts all of your store’s product Pins into one-click, sales machines. These are called Buyable Pins, and they allow your customers to buy your products through the world’s most popular and effective visual search tool, Pinterest. And guess what? As a Shopify store, you are ahead above other e-commerce platforms as only Shopify stores are eligible for Buyable Pins. These magical pins make buying super easy for potential customers.

Now, when one of the billions of Pinterest users come across one of your Buyable Pins, they can purchase your product from within Pinterest. This quick, short-cut to the payment counter, makes it super easy for your customers to buy your products without hassle, and you don’t have to worry about losing them as they click through all the links to get to your Shopify online store. Yay!

How Do Buyable Pins Work on Pinterest?

Even though customers are purchasing from within the Pinterest app, you still maintain control over the sales process, with your own shipping and customer service. When a customer purchases your product through a Buyable Pin, it creates an order in your Shopify admin, and allows you to use the Pinterest Tag to track how customers interact with your store.

The Buyable Pins work across all channels, so web and mobile customers can buy your stuff whenever they want. You can promote your Buyable Pins, and make it a lot easier for Pinterest users to find your products. Best of all, despite the obvious value in an offer like this, Pinterest lets you keep your money – they don’t take a cut.

Okay, I’m out of breath from downloading all of this wonderful news to you. Now, that we both know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is a match made in heaven, let’s set this thing up and make Pinterest super easy for you.

READY? LET’S GET THIS TRAFFIC PARTY STARTED!

Okay, so first you’ll have to get yourself a Pinterest for Business account. It’s free and quick to set up. You’ll also have to be on the Shopify Basic plan or something higher and use the Online Store sales channel.

Next you’ll need to confirm that your store is eligible to add the Pinterest sales channel. (This is sounding more and more like a winning date all the time, isn’t it? Make sure your bachelor is eligible girls!) There are a few criteria that your Shopify online store will need to meet. You can find those here.

Once you’ve checked all the boxes on your eligibility, you can add the Pinterest sales channel in your Shopify admin. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to do that here. From there, you’ll connect your Pinterest for Business account, then you’re ready to go!

Once Pinterest approves your Shopify online store, and gives the go-ahead, Pins with links to your approved products will show up with Buyable buttons so your customers can buy them on Pinterest. Sales will show up under Orders in your Shopify admin like the rest of your sales, and you can differentiate by setting a filter. After setting all this up and coming up with your very own Pinterest strategy, you are going to want to track your traffic and product conversions to see how things are going.

HOW TO GET STARTED ON PINTEREST 

You have all these wonderful products to sell, and a whole world of Pinterest users to buy them, but how do you get them to look at your account? I’ve said it many times, Pinterest is a slow burn. No matter how many times I say this, I still need to say it again. Patience! Maybe you’ve been around a while now, and you’ve developed a great following, but what if you’re just getting started?

So now that you have covered all the basic steps to getting your business account set up and squared away with Pinterest and Shopify talking to each other, you are going to want to make your life so much easier and sign up for a Tailwind account. Here’s what you need to know – Tailwind is an Approved Partner of Pinterest (this is crucial), it has a SmartSchedule feature that makes sure that your content is being published at the best times and it is packed full of time-saving features (more about that later).

It’s tempting to just Pin all of your products at once, but you’ll have to put a pin in that idea. On Pinterest, your job is to curate a feed that will draw your customers in. Who do you want to be buying your products? Everyone, I know. But honestly, if you can think of the type of customer you’re hoping to attract, then think of your boards as a display of peacock feathers. If you want to tango, you have to mesmerize them first!

SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS ON PINTEREST

Our pals at Tailwind recommend “following the 80/20 rule as a rough guide. This rule encourages you to post 80% of Pins that interest your customers, leaving 20% of Pins promoting your brands and products.” That’s right. Saving Pins that will interest and help your customers will draw them to your boards, and get them to trust you and your tastes. That means that sometimes you save your Pins, sometimes you save your potential customer’s Pins, and sometimes, you save complementary Pins. If you think it will speak to your customer, you should Pin it.

Now, the Buyable Pins will bring you some immediate pay-offs. But your real reward will come in the long game. At first it might be one sale, then another then another (hopefully! Results obviously vary from seller to seller). But as users save your Pins and THEIR followers, and them with theirs, you’ll gain more views, followers, and customers, resulting in more saved Pins, and your next problem will be figuring out how to keep up with the demand. Pinterest is a drug. Once you figure it out, it is hard to put much time into other platforms.

Tailwind helps relieve the pressure of having to log into Pinterest every day and can save you hours by letting your plan out your content ahead of time. Not only can you schedule out your own content and complementary “other” content but as I mentioned previously, Tailwind’s SmartSchedule assesses YOUR data and will suggest the optimal times for your own content. These features free up your time to focus more ON your business and less IN the business. For me personally, this feature is one of the best selling points of Tailwind – I cannot be in all places at the right times so Tailwind takes care of that for me.

OPTIMIZING YOUR PINTEREST ACCOUNT 

If you are just beginning your Pinterest journey, or have an underperforming Pinterest account, you are not alone. For me, Pinterest IS my business, so I spend a lot of time using, learning, researching and innovating with Pinterest. For many business owners, however, maybe like yourself, Pinterest is not your main focus, and all of this can seem like a lot of work for something you are not sure how to use effectively.

It’s not. Pinterest drives 97% the blog traffic that my own DIY and Home Decor blog receives (and I hardly ever have time for that poor blog anymore!). Pinterest is definitely worth the investment.

GET PINTERESTING ALREADY

Once your account is looking amazing and positioned for growth, you have to turn your attention to how to sustain traffic long term. Again, this is where I send my clients to Tailwind to help with that. As busy, hustling and bustling online business owners, every minute counts. Let’s not make your life more complicated than it has to be. Tailwind has a bunch of great features that makes sharing your own content consistently and at a nicely timed interval pace easy, saves you time by allowing you to create board lists that group relevant boards together and lastly, getting your content in front of more eager pinners with Tailwind Communities.

Now, jump in! Get your toes wet and start sharing your amazing content on Pinterest. Start making beautiful pins and the rest is history! One HUGE reminder I always tell my clients, PIN LIKE A REGULAR USER! Or as Pinterest recommends, think like a pinner. What does typical Pinterest users want/search/research/need? And how can you fill that gap?

Happy pinning!