What Are Impressions on Pinterest & Do They Matter?

Ever found yourself asking, “What are Pinterest impressions?” or wondered if they really matter? You’re not alone. Pinterest metrics can be a bit confusing at first, but understanding them is key to building a successful Pinterest marketing strategy that drives traffic to your website, blog or shop.

Below, I’m doing a deep dive into everything you need to know about Pinterest impressions. 

We’ll cover:

• What Pinterest impressions are
• How people find your content (and why this links to impressions)
• Where to find impressions stats for your Pinterest account
• The big question – do impressions even matter?
• How to increase impressions
• What factors affect impressions

Whether you’re new to Pinterest marketing or looking to optimize your strategy, this guide will help you make sense of impressions and how they fit into your overall traffic driving goals.

Let’s get into it!

What are Impressions on Pinterest?

As defined by Pinterest, Impressions are “the number of times your Pins or ads were on screen”.

This is different from the ‘total audience’ number which is the total number of pinners who have either seen or engaged (liked, saved, commented, etc) with one of your pins.

How Do People Find Your Content?

This is an important question as finding your content equals an impression. So, the more people who can find and access your content the more your impressions will rise. Woo!

Pinterest users will come across your content in a few ways…

Pinterest Search

This is the way that users access the content they’re looking for because Pinterest is a search engine – not a social media platform.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I started typing ‘best ways to…’ into the search bar – and you’ll see that Pinterest then auto-populates the rest of the search results with the most popular phrases people are searching for right now.

(I’ll come back to why this is important below), but for now, just note that this is the top way people are finding the pins they interact with.

Users Home Feed

Pinterest users are also finding your content in their home feed. When someone follows you your pin content will show up in their home feed – especially if they have recently saved one of your pins.

You see – when they save a pin of yours, this is a signal to the Pinterest algorithm that they like this specific content and want more. So Pinterest will serve up more similar pins from you in their home feed.

Users can also find pins under any other pin when it’s opened in the ‘more to explore’ section.

Where Can You Find Impression Metrics on Pinterest?

There are a number of places you can access impression numbers on Pinterest – whether it’s on your entire account or on specific boards or pins.

To access these analytics you’ll have to set up a Pinterest business account if you haven’t done so already. Here are some instructions on how to set up your business account.

Once you have a business account set up you’ll have access to Pinterest metrics for impressions and other key stats.

Here are the places to find Pinterest Impressions for your account and individual pins:

1. Pinterest Analytics (Overall Performance)

To access Pinterest Analytics go to the top left-hand corner of Pinterest (when you are logged in). Click the toggl menu and under ‘Analyze Performance’ you’ll select ‘Analytics Overview’.

Once you click on ‘overview’, you’ll see all of the important metrics highlighted at the top for the past 30 days. This is where you’ll find impressions.

Note: You can select the date range from the drop-down menu (shown below). It can be interesting to look at the past year to see seasonal ups and downs but also where you are this year compared to last. (To run this report, select ‘custom’).

2. Pinterest Analytics (Top Pins)

This is my absolute favorite section. You can access all of the key metrics here for your individual pins – engagements, pin clicks, outbound clicks, saves… and yes – your impressions.

To see the impressions number: Simply click on the dropdown beside ‘sort by’ and select impressions. 

You can also select ‘pins created in the last 30 days as well’ if you want to specifically look at the analytics for more recent pins.

You can see line by line your top-performing pins by impressions, with the total impression number to the right.

You can also click on each pin from here where you can then look at more individual pin stats.

3. Individual Pins

As just mentioned above, you can access individual pin stats by selecting a pin in your analytics or selecting one of you pins anywhere you might see it – in group boards or in the ‘created’ section of your profile, for example.

Once you click a pin you want to see metrics for you’ll see this section at the top of the pin.

Note – if you don’t see this you’ll need a business account.

You’ll see the total impressions on that pin for the last 30 days. You can also click on ‘see more stats’ to see more in depth info…

For example, you can change the date range to see how the impressions have changed over a longer period of time, i.e. 60, 90, 180 days or a custom date range.

4. Pinterest Analytics (Top Boards)

It’s good to know how your boards are performing overall as this will help you decide which boards to pin to.

It’s always better to pin to a board that is getting consistently higher impressions as this means more people are seeing your content.

So – the more people that see your content, the better chance you have of people engaging with that content (saves, outbound link clicks, comments, etc).

To find this data, scroll to the very bottom of your Pinterest Analytics dashboard to find the ‘top boards’ section. Here you’ll see the individual impressions for each board.

These impressions are essentially the total pin impressions for each pin that lives in the board.

5. Your Pinterest Profile (Monthly Views)

Just under your Pinterest followers number (on your profile page) you’ll see ‘monthly views’. This number directly correlates with your total impressions, in the past 30 days. They are essentially the same thing.

This monthly views number includes three types of pins:

1. Your pins that you’ve pinned which link to your website
2. Your pins that others have saved to Pinterest from your website
3. Pins you’ve saved from other Pinterest accounts

So, this number is everything added up – and really it’s only the first 2 examples above that relate to your content.

Note: Don’t get too hung up on this monthly views number as the most important metric to still focus on is your outbound clicks (direct clicks to your website from a pin).

The Big Question: Do Pinterest Impressions Matter?

Yes and no.

Well, that’s confusing! But, hear me out.

Firstly, you’ve probably heard some people say that impressions do not matter – however I disagree. Let me explain…

Even though the most important metric is outbound clicks, because this is what’s driving traffic to your website, impressions matter.

For example, if you have low impressions on a pin – this means less people are seeing your pins, which therefore means less opportunities for them to engage with your pin.

This equals lower outbound clicks.

So, yes they matter – as impressions can indirectly impact the traffic you are receiving, but also no – as this is not the most important metric.

How To Increase Pinterest Impressions

As a reminder, impressions are the total number of times your pins are shown on screen – over a period of time (the default is 30 days).

So, to increase impressions means to increase the number of times people are seeing your pins. There are two key ways to do this:

1. Do keyword research and add relevant keywords to your pin title and pin description plus across your profile and boards. Learn more the latest Pinterest SEO tips HERE
2. Create content that is trending or seasonal
   1. For seasonal content start pinning to your account about 2 to 3 months before the season or even before that for big holidays like Christmas.
   2. You can check out current trends on Pinterest by going to the Analytics overview menu in the top left corner and then selecting ‘Pinterest Trends’ under Analytics. You can search for specific keywords or scroll down and see popular trends over time.

What Impacts Impressions?

The main things that impact impressions in your Pinterest account are:

Time of Year

There are always ebbs and flows when it comes to traffic on Pinterest. When traffic is lower to the overall site, your impressions will naturally go down.

Here are some times when traffic is always lower on Pinterest:

• Summertime (when the weather is warm and people are enjoying time outside, they are not scroll on Pinterest as much)
• Christmas day – again people are busy with family so not on Pinterest
• Weekends

Now, some of this may change depending on your niche – if you are a food blogger and are getting great traffic to your site for Christmas side dishes you’ll find that impressions and traffic will go up for you during this time.

Niche

More popular niches will automatically have more people seeking out content, for example recipes. However, this doesn’t mean there isn’t opportunity for so many other niches.

Niche also plays into the time of year.

So if you have a gardening site for example, obviously impressions will greatly decrease in the winter months.

Or if you write about goals, you’re going to see a big increase in impressions in the new year when people are making resolutions or setting goals.

Think about your blog niche and when your target audience are typically searching for content and this will be closely tied to the impressions you’re seeing in your Pinterest account.

Type of Pin

Certain types of pins can get more impressions than others. Specifically I’ve seen the following pin types get the best number of impressions:

• Quotes pins
• Infographics
• Inspiration pins – home decor for examples
• Gift guides
• Lists

The Strength of Your Keyword Research & Implementation

This is the most important factor when it comes to impressions. 

Remember – Pinterest is a search engine and to help Pinterest users find your content you need to set up keywords in the right way on your pins, boards and account to tell the algorithm what your pins are about.

The better you have implemented SEO, the better your pin performance will be.

Publishing More New Pins

The more pins you publish, the higher your impressions will be (as long as you’re sticking with the above tips on keyword research.

Other Important Pinterest Metrics

In this article we’ve obviously talked a lot about impressions, but we also touched on outbound clicks. 

Below is the definition of outbound clicks plus other important Pinterest metrics:

• Outbound clicks: Total number of clicks back to your website, from a Pinterest pin. 
• Saves: Any time someone saves your pin to one of their boards or profile
• Pin Clicks: When someone clicks on your pin to make it larger
• Engagements: Includes any type of engagement – saves, comments, hearts.

There are still other metrics you’ll find however these are the most important if your goal is increasing traffic to your site.

👉 Get more information on these important metrics in this post: Pinterest Analytics: 4 Important Metrics To Track Every Month 

Note: This also includes ways to access Pinterest data in Google Analytics.

Final Thoughts & Takeaway

I hope this helped you understand Pinterest impressions in more depth and why they can be important for your overall Pinterest strategy. 

Sure, they aren’t technically the most important metric, but are directly tied to the performance of traffic getting to your website from outboaund clicks.

As a reminder: to boost your overall Pinterest impressions, focus on:

• Pinterest SEO by incorporating relevant keywords into your pins, boards, and profile.
• Leverage seasonal trends and create visually appealing, shareable content like infographics, quotes, and gift guides. 
• Your niche and when your audience is most active.

Impressions alone won’t guarantee traffic growth, however, they lay the foundation for improved reach and engagement for your content.

Have thoughts or more questions on Pinterest Impressions?

Let me know in the comments section below. 

Related Pinterest Resources:

• 4 Important Pinterest Metrics to Track
• Pinterest SEO Tips to Find the Best Keywords
• How To Create High Performing Pins
• Free Pinterest Pin Templates – Easy to Edit in Canva

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