With the new Analytics tool for Pinterest, you no longer have to wonder about the effectiveness of your business’s Pinterest account. Before this launch, there weren’t many significant differences between a personal Pinterest account and one for business – it seemed like an arbitrary distinction. Pinterest Analytics is the feature that will finally distinguish the two, and it’s free!

Today, we will look at how to use the Analytics tool to make Pinterest a quantifiable part of your marketing plan!

I Have a Business Account – But I Can’t Find the Analytics Tool!

First, you’ll need to make sure that your account is verified. This is denoted by a little red checkmark by your username. Pinterest needs this verification to know which website is associated with your account and track your traffic properly. You can find the verification html file here.

Website owners can upload the file into their servers. For the Tumblr and basic WordPress users out there, you can also use a meta tag to verify.

Once you’re verified, you’ll need to switch to Pinterest’s “New Look”. This can be found at the bottom of your username menu or at the top of your main feed. Analytics isn’t available in the old look, so don’t go looking for it (trying the URL on the “old look” gave me a 404). Once you’ve switched over, Analytics will be available under your username’s menu.

Now that you’re in the Analytics tool, it’s time to see what all these stats mean.

How Do I Use Pinterest Analytics?

There are four major components to Pinterest Analytics:

  • 1. Site Metrics
  • 2. Most Recent
  • 3. Most Repinned
  • 4. Most Clicked

All of the sections can have their date ranges changed and can be exported to a spreadsheet. Pictures are not exported, so this would be a good time to make sure your URLs and file names are cleaned up if you intend to use the export tool.

Below is a breakdown of each section:

  • Site Metrics
  • The most data-heavy of the sections, this will likely be where you’re spending most of your time. Here are the metrics available:

    • Pins: Number of pins from your website
    • Pinners: Number of pinners that pinned from your website
    • Repins: Number of repins of content from your website
    • Repinners: Number of people who repinned those pins
    • Impressions: Number of times your pins appeared in the main feed or search results
    • Reach: Number of people who saw your pins
    • Clicks: Number of people who clicked through to your website from Pinterest
    • Visitors: Number of people who visited your website from Pinterest

    Site Metrics is the most important section for your business because it shows not only how traffic is being driven to your website from Pinterest, but how Pinterest is spreading the content from your website. It will be easier to tell if traffic is being generated from your own website visitors, or if most of your traffic is coming from a repin of a user with a large amount of followers.

  • Most Recent
  • This will show the most recent pins of yours, or any community boards that you’re a part of. This makes it easier to see how frequently you’re posting (although you still have to click on the pin to see when you posted it, it will place your pins in chronological order.)

  • Most Repinned
  • Which pins are getting the most attention and love? See them in a condensed format, which is much easier than checking all of your boards to see which ones are repinned the most.

  • Most Clicked
  • This is a simpler way to see specifically which pins are driving traffic to your website. They may not line up with the number of repins that a pin receives, so this can be an extremely useful report.

What’s Next for Pinterest Analytics?

While Pinterest Analytics is a very useful tool for businesses, it’s still quite simple compared to the third-party analytics tools that can be purchased. As Pinterest becomes a more important part of the social networking marketing plan, higher demand could lead to more robust reports coming directly from Pinterest.

It’s unknown whether Pinterest will rely on a Twitter-like promotion scheme, where those who pay for promoted pins will receive better Analytics tools, or if it will remain a free benefit of having a business account.

Either way, the new Analytics tool further acknowledges how significant businesses are on Pinterest, and it’s a great way to make your Pinterest marketing plan easier to track and quantify.