Pinterest for Etsy Sellers: A 30-Day Plan

On Etsy you get buyers when your listings rank. On Pinterest you get buyers for months from a pin you made once, because people keep finding it in search long after you publish it.

The catch is volume. A shop with 40 listings needs more than 40 pins, and making them one at a time is the point where most sellers quietly give up.

So here's a 30-day plan: what to do each week, which listings to start with, and what each pin needs to show.

The real problem isn't design. It's week three.

Ask sellers why Pinterest didn't work for them and you'll hear about the algorithm. It's almost never the algorithm. It's that they pinned like mad for ten days, got busy with orders, and stopped.

Pinterest rewards the shops that are still there in month three. A shop posting one decent pin a day for three months beats a shop that posted fifty in a fortnight and vanished, every time.

So the whole plan below is built around that, not around design:

• Batch, don't drip. Make pins in one sitting a week, not every day. Fifteen minutes on a Sunday beats a daily task you'll drop.
• Schedule what you batch. Queue the week's pins at once so your account keeps posting while you're packing orders.
• Aim low enough to keep going. One pin a day you can sustain is worth more than five a day for a fortnight.
• Make the busy weeks automatic. Your Q4 self will not be making pins. Queue those in October.

If you read nothing else here: pick a pace you can still manage in the middle of your busiest month, and protect it.

Do this now (15 minutes)

1. Pick your three best-selling listings.
2. Create three boards named the way buyers search, not after your shop: "Personalized Jewelry Gifts", "Handmade Home Decor", "Printable Planners".
3. Generate a Share & Save link for each of those listings in Shop Manager, so sales from your pins cut your Etsy fees.
4. Make one pin for each listing, pointing at that listing's link, never at your shop homepage.

Three things that are different for Etsy

• Pin with a Share & Save link and Etsy pays you back. Etsy's Share & Save program takes 4% of the order total off your Etsy bill when a sale comes from a link you shared yourself, with the buyer ordering within 30 days of the click. Pinterest traffic is exactly that. You generate the links in Shop Manager, they're per listing or per shop, and the program is open to all sellers at no cost. Read Etsy's current terms before you rely on the numbers, then use those links as the destination for every pin. Same pins, lower fees.
• You can't edit the metadata on your listings. Etsy controls that HTML, so Rich Pins aren't something you set up as a seller. Your pin's own title and description are what you control, so write them properly.
• The destination is the listing, not the shop. A pin that drops someone on your shop front makes them search all over again, and most won't. Link to the listing the pin shows.

Week 1: boards, then your bestsellers

Boards are how Pinterest works out what your shop is about, so name them after what buyers type:

• Good: "Gifts for Coffee Lovers", "Boho Wall Decor", "Wedding Invitation Ideas", "Printable Weekly Planners".
• Bad: "My Shop", "New Arrivals", "Products".

Write a sentence of description for each board using the same words. Then pin your three bestsellers, one pin a day, each to the board where it fits.

Week 2: one pin for every listing

Every listing deserves at least one pin, not just the bestsellers. A listing that sells twice a year on Etsy may be the one that gets found on Pinterest.

This is the part that takes an evening by hand. In Made to Spark you paste your shop link and the listings from your public Etsy shop come up in a picker, 24 at a time. Tick the ones you want, and each pin is built from that listing's own photos and title, linking back to the listing. You can also paste a single listing URL. Public listings need no Etsy connection, though you can connect your shop if you'd rather browse it that way.

What an Etsy pin should show

These four pins were made from Etsy listings with our Etsy Pinterest templates, using the kind of photos you already have in your listings:

Whatever the layout: 1000×1500 pixels, a title readable on a phone, and your shop name on the pin.

Pin titles and descriptions that match how buyers search

Your Etsy listing title is packed with keywords for Etsy's search. A pin title is read by a person, so rewrite it. Ten formulas, filled in:

1. [Product] for [Person]: Personalized Leather Wallet for Him
2. [Adjective] [Product] for [Occasion]: Dainty Birthstone Earrings for Bridesmaids
3. [Number] [Product] Ideas: 8 Handmade Gift Ideas for Her
4. [Product] That [Benefit]: Canvas Totes That Actually Have Pockets
5. Personalized [Product] From Your [Input]: Custom Pet Portraits From Your Photo
6. [Style] [Product] for [Room]: Boho Macrame Wall Hanging for the Living Room
7. Printable [Product] You Can Use Today: Printable Weekly Planner Pages You Can Use Today
8. [Product] Under [Price point]: Handmade Gifts Under $30
9. [Occasion] [Product] Ideas: Nursery Name Sign Ideas
10. Gifts for [Person Who Likes X]: Gifts for Coffee Lovers Who Have Everything

Put the search phrase at the start of the title, since Pinterest says only the first 40 characters may show in feeds. In the description, write a sentence or two a buyer would actually read, with the search phrase near the start: materials, size, personalisation options and who it suits. Skip hashtag lists; Pinterest is a search engine, and the words in your title and description do far more.

To see the phrases shoppers really type, use the Pinterest keyword tool, which shows Pinterest's own search suggestions.

Week 3: several pins for your best listings

Your bestsellers earn more than one pin. Make three to five for each, using different photos and different angles: the product alone, the product in use, a detail shot, gift framing, and a "what you get" shot for a set or printable. Space them a week apart so they don't compete with each other.

Week 4: gift guides and the season ahead

Gift guide pins reach searches no single product pin does: "gifts for teachers", "stocking stuffers under $25", "hostess gifts". Put four to eight of your own listings in one pin, and link it to the matching section of your shop, or to the best listing in it.

Then pin ahead. Pinterest users plan early, so pin Christmas from September, Valentine's from December, Mother's Day from February and summer weddings from March. Give a seasonal pin 60 to 90 days before the buying window.

The 30-day plan

That's roughly 40 to 50 pins in a month for a shop of 20 to 30 listings, at two or three a day. If that sounds like a lot, halve it. A slower plan you finish is worth more than this one abandoned on day twelve.

Whatever pace you pick, don't publish in bursts. Make the pins in one sitting, then hand them to a Pinterest scheduler and let them go out while you get on with orders. Batching is the only version of this that survives a busy week.

How to tell whether any of this is working

Two screens, once a week, five minutes:

• Etsy: Shop Manager → Stats → "How shoppers found you" → Social media. That's where Pinterest visits appear, and you can open it to see which listings those visitors looked at. Note that Etsy counts Offsite Ads traffic from Pinterest in the same place, so if you run those, don't read every visit as coming from your own pins.
• Pinterest: sort your pins by outbound clicks, not impressions or saves. Impressions flatter, clicks are people who reached your listing.

Judge it after a month, not a week. Pins keep getting found for months, so a pin published today can still be bringing in visits next spring.

If your shop has fewer than 10 listings

The plan above assumes 20 to 30 listings. With 8, don't stretch it thin. Instead:

• Give every listing four or five pins, each with a different photo and angle, rather than one each.
• Lean on gift guides and themed pins that combine your listings: "5 handmade gifts under $30", "my whole shop in one pin".
• Pin the process: a work-in-progress shot, a materials flat lay or a finished piece in a room. These reach browsing searches your product pins don't.
• Aim for one pin a day rather than three. Consistency matters more than volume for a small shop.

What to do in month two

• Check Pinterest analytics for pins with outbound clicks, not just saves. Clicks are buyers.
• Make more pins in the style of whatever got clicks.
• Pin every new listing the week you publish it.
• Give your best listings a fresh pin design every couple of months.

Your first month, in one list

• Boards named the way buyers search, each with a description.
• Every listing has at least one pin; bestsellers have three to five.
• Every pin links to its own listing, using a Share & Save link.
• Pinterest visits checked in Etsy Shop Stats once a week.
• The search phrase within the first 40 characters of the title, written for a person, not for Etsy's search box.
• Descriptions with the search phrase near the start, no hashtag lists.
• Gift guide pins for the seasons you sell into.
• Seasonal pins published 60 to 90 days ahead.
• Two or three pins a day, scheduled rather than posted in one go.