Pinterest Tag

The Pinterest tag has two components:

• The base code that you place once on every page of your site
• The event code that you place on selected pages in addition to the base code. The event code records events for conversion reporting and allows you to build granular audiences.

This step walks you through the process of setting up the base code:

1. To access your Pinterest tag base code, go to the Ads dropdown at the top of your account and select Conversion tracking from the dropdown. 
2. Select Create tag
3. Name your tag. You can change the name of this tag later without having to modify your website's code.
4. Click Generate code
5. Insert the code on your website between the tags in HTML on every page you want to track. We recommend you add the Pinterest tag once on every page on your site. You’ll want to loop in your web developer as this step is technical. 

After you add your Pinterest tag to your website, check back in the Pinterest tag dashboard after to make sure the events are firing. Usually the status updates within 3 hours, but occasionally there may be a longer delay. You’ll see the status under the column Verification Status as either Verified or Unverified. 

Keep in mind you only need to generate one Pinterest tag to use across your website, you do not need multiple base codes. 

In order to track conversion events, you must now add event code to your website. See the technical implementation guide and read on to learn how.   

Add event code to get conversion reporting, and for more effective audience targeting. You can track the following events through the Pinterest tag: 

1. PageVisit: Record views of primary pages, such as product pages and article pages 
2. ViewCategory: Record views of category pages
3. Search: Record searches on your website 
4. AddToCart: Record when items are added to shopping carts
5. Checkout: Record completed transactions
6. WatchVideo: Record video views
7. Signup: Record sign ups for your products or services
8. Lead: Record interest in product or service
9. Custom: Record custom events. Use this event name to track a special event that you want to include in your conversion reporting.

See this implementation guide on how to set up specific events in your Pinterest Tag. 

Export conversion metrics from the Conversion Manager at https://ads.pinterest.com/conversion_tags, you can get here from the Ads dropdown, select Conversion tags.  Click Export data in the upper right and select which campaign types, conversion types and attribution windows you want to view over a specific date range. Keep in mind conversion reporting is updated every 24 hours. 

If you want to export conversion metrics from the old Pinterest tag, be sure to check the box “Include Conversion tag (old) data” at the bottom. 

To check out your conversion data, go to the Pinterest Ads Manager and click on the Spend tab. This is where you’ll find aggregated conversion data at various levels: campaign, Promoted Pin and keyword targeting. Keep in mind this data is aggregated across all conversion types and both the new and old version of the Pinterest tag. 

You can export conversion data at the campaign or Promoted Pin level by finding the campaign or Promoted Pin and clicking Export in the top right corner.

A few things to keep in mind as you look at your data:

• Cross-device tracking: In your  advertiser-level CSV report, you’ll see rows or columns with items like, “Mobile action -> Desktop conversion.” This shows which device the action on Pinterest occurred on (before the ->) and which device the conversion happened (after the ->). With this information, you can see how people move between their devices to convert. For example, people may see your ad on mobile, but wait until they’re back at their computer to buy your product.
• Attribution: Conversion data is based on when the action on Pinterest happened, not when the conversion happened. For example, if someone looked at a Promoted Pin on February 1st and bought the shoes on February 20th, then this conversion will be attributed to the event on the 1st, not the 20th. This means that your conversions for a given date might grow over time. 
• Earned conversions: When a conversion occurs from a saved Pin that originated from your Promoted Pin, this is earned traffic. Pinterest conversion tracking shows conversions you got directly from your paid Promoted Pins combined with any of these extra “earned” conversions.   

Use the Pinterest Tag to create advanced visitor audiences based on people who visited certain pages or took specific actions on your site.

See the table below for the nine defined events that can be used for both audience creation and reporting. In addition to the nine defined events, you can use any string you’d like as a ‘partner defined event’ to create even more audiences.

Check out more info on visitor audiences here.   

My data doesn’t match what I’m seeing in other reports

Make sure your Pinterest tag is on the right page. For example, if you’re trying to track purchases, make sure your Checkout event is on your order confirmation page, not the product page.    Keep in mind Pinterest’s conversion data is based on when the action on Pinterest happened. If your third party reports are based on the date the conversion happened, then you won’t see the matching conversion metrics in your reports. If your third party reports track last-click conversions, they won’t count the following events: 

• Conversions that come from views, such as people who view your ads but don’t click on them
• Conversions from ads that people engage earlier in the purchase funnel
• Cross-device conversions

My tag’s verified, but I’m not seeing conversions

Even if your Pinterest tag is verified, you may not see any conversions if there aren’t any conversion events in the attribution window you selected in your reports. There may also be no conversions if your Pinterest tag base code was installed correctly, but your event code was not installed correctly. Be sure your base code fires before your event code. Also ensure your JavaScript tags are lower case, JavaScript is case sensitive. See the technical implementation instructions for more info.   

My tag’s unverified

Check in with your web developers to see if everything’s set up correctly and wait 24 hours to check back in the dashboard.    

If you already had the original Pinterest conversion tag set up on your site, we will continue to support and report on this tag until early 2017. We recommend you create the new Pinterest tag in the meantime. 

If you’re currently using visitor retargeting…. If you’re currently using visitor retargeting, we recommend you add the new Pinterest tag and keep the old tag. If you have multiple conversion tags on one page, multiple conversions will be counted.

If you’re not using visitor retargeting…. If you’re not using visitor retargeting we recommend you add the Pinterest Tag and remove the old conversion tag. If you’d like, you may use the old conversion tag on some pages of your website, and the new Pinterest Tag on other pages of your website at the same time. In other words, you do not have to transition all pages of your website to the Pinterest Tag all at once—you can do it page-by-page. 

Note, the old conversion tag code should be considered completely separate from the Pinterest Tag code. Specifically, you should not put a tag ID of an old conversion tag inside the Pinterest Tag code.  

I’m a Shopify merchant with Buyable Pins and I want a conversion tag. I’m not an advertiser.

If you want the ability to track sales from people who clicked through a Buyable Pin and purchased on your site in the future, just opt in to use the Pinterest Tag in your Pinterest channel settings on Shopify. Shopify will then place this tag on your checkout confirmation page. We won’t be able to provide metrics on off-Pinterest sales through Buyable Pins just yet.

I’m a Shopify merchant with Buyable Pins and I want a conversion tag. I’m an advertiser.

If you’re using Promoted Pins, you can track conversions by opting in to use the Pinterest Tag in your Pinterest channel settings on Shopify. The Shopify Pinterest Tag is based on an attribution window of 30 day click, 30 day engagement, and 1 day view.

You can also customize and implement the Pinterest Tag yourself by following the implementation instructions here. Make sure you put the code in the "Checkout" page of your "Settings" under "Additional Scripts”.

Keep in mind that you will need to disclose your use of conversion tracking to your site visitors as described in our Buyable Pin Standards.