01What makes a good Pinterest KPI
Pick one KPI per goal: outbound clicks for traffic, revenue or checkouts for sales, sign-ups for leads, engaged audience for reach. Take a baseline from the last 30 days, set a target against it, and review it once a month. Everything else in Pinterest Analytics is there to explain why the KPI moved.
Pinterest Analytics shows a dozen numbers. A metric is any of them. A KPI is the one you agree to be judged on, and a good one passes four tests:
- It is tied to the business goal, not to activity. Saves are a fine signal, but a shop is not paid in saves.
- It comes from a source you trust, and you always read it from the same place with the same filters.
- It has a baseline, so you can say whether it went up, not just what it is.
- It changes a decision. If a number moving would not change what you publish next month, it is not your KPI.
If you have not chosen a goal yet, start there. Step 1 of our seven-step strategy walks through picking one and taking that first baseline.
02Pinterest KPIs for each goal
One goal, one KPI. The supporting numbers explain why it moved, and the warning sign tells you where to look when it does not.
| Goal | KPI | Where to read it | Supporting numbers | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website traffic | Outbound clicks per month | Analytics overview, organic content | Outbound click rate; visits from Pinterest in your web analytics | Impressions rise, outbound clicks do not |
| Sales | Revenue or checkouts from Pinterest | Conversion insights (needs the Pinterest tag), or tagged visits in your web analytics | Add-to-carts, average order value, outbound clicks to product pages | Clicks to product pages but no add-to-carts |
| Email sign-ups and leads | Sign-ups from Pinterest visitors | Your email tool or web analytics, using UTM-tagged pin links | Outbound clicks to sign-up pages, sign-up rate | Clicks arrive but the sign-up rate is far below other channels |
| Reach and awareness | Engaged audience per month | Analytics overview (not available in real time) | Impressions, total audience, saves, save rate | Impressions grow while saves stay flat |
| Video | 10-second plays | Analytics overview with the video filter | Video views, played to 95% | Plenty of 2-second views, few 10-second plays |
| Ads | Cost per result: cost per click, lead or checkout, or return on ad spend | Ads Manager reporting | Spend, outbound click rate, conversions | Cheap clicks that never become leads or sales |
Paid campaigns deserve their own KPIs so they do not blur the organic picture. Our guide to Pinterest ads covers which result each campaign objective should be judged on.
03Setting targets without benchmarks
Pinterest does not publish industry benchmarks for click or save rates, and averages from other businesses say little about yours. Build targets from your own numbers instead. This is the method we suggest:
- Take the baseline from the last 30 days, or the monthly average of the last 90 if your numbers jump around.
- Set a 90-day target against it that your publishing plan can plausibly move, and write down which pins and pages should produce it.
- Compare like with like. Pinterest says engagement shifts with seasons, holidays and trends (Pinterest help), so once you have a year of data, compare a month with the same month last year as well as with the month before.
- Use rates to compare pins. A pin with more impressions will usually have more clicks; outbound click rate and save rate show which pin is actually better at its job.
If your baseline is zero, make the first 90-day target about effort, such as fresh pins published and pages covered, and set the first outcome target at the end of that quarter, once you have numbers to compare against.
04Where the numbers come from
Everything below needs a business account. Pinterest splits its reporting into four places:
| Report | What it shows | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics overview | Performance over time, top pins and top boards, with filters | Menu, Analytics, Overview |
| Pin stats | Every interaction with a single pin, including the boards it was saved to | Your profile, Created, then a pin |
| Audience insights | Who sees and engages with your pins over the last 30 days: interests (affinities) and demographics | Menu, Analytics, Audience insights |
| Conversion insights | Visits, add-to-carts, checkouts and revenue influenced by pins and ads | Menu, Analytics, Conversion insights (desktop) |
The overview opens on the last 30 days, which matches a monthly report. On the app, the same reports sit behind the chart icon on your profile. Audience insights also shows which interests your audience has a stronger affinity for than Pinterest users overall, a useful shortlist of content ideas.
05The metrics behind the KPIs
The definitions below follow Pinterest's help center. The third column is our reading of what each number is good for when you explain a KPI.
| Metric | Pinterest's definition | What it explains |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | The number of times your pins or ads were on screen | Whether you are being shown, and for how many searches and feeds |
| Saves and save rate | Times people saved your pin to a board; saves divided by times on screen | Interest: people want to come back to it |
| Pin clicks | Clicks that open your pin in close-up | Curiosity: the image made someone look closer |
| Outbound clicks and rate | Actions that lead to a destination off Pinterest, counted from the date the link was added; divided by times on screen for the rate | Traffic, and how well a pin turns views into visits |
| Engagements and rate | Saves, pin clicks, outbound clicks, carousel swipes and collections clicks; the rate uses saves, pin clicks and outbound clicks | All activity in one figure: good for trends, vague for decisions |
| Video views, 10-second plays, played to 95% | Views of at least 2 seconds with half the video in view; views of 10 seconds or more; views that reach 95% | Whether a video stops the scroll and holds attention |
| Total and engaged audience | People who have seen or engaged with your pins; people who have engaged | Reach in people rather than views |
Pin stats add profile visits, follows, reactions, comments and product tag figures for single pins (Pinterest). Pinterest's Pin stats page words a pin click slightly more broadly, as a tap that leads somewhere on or off Pinterest, so the two reports will not always agree.
06Settings that quietly change your numbers
A KPI is only comparable if you read it the same way every month. Check these filters before you note a number (Pinterest help):
- Date range. Custom ranges go back about a year and a half. A toggle adds real-time estimates for the last 48 hours; Pinterest warns these are subject to change and may decrease, so leave it off for reporting.
- Content type. Organic, paid and earned, or all. "Earned" is activity on pins people saved from your past ads. Report organic and paid separately.
- Include saved pins. By default the overview shows pins you published; this box adds pins you saved that are not linked to your claimed sites.
- Claimed accounts. Shows what people save from your claimed website, including pins other people created from your pages.
- Pin stats combine duplicates. Pinterest aggregates all pins that share an image and, where there is one, a URL, which is why a pin can show saves from boards you have never seen.
Any view can be exported to a CSV from the top-right of the page. Export the same view each month and the history stays consistent even beyond the year and a half Pinterest keeps.
07Measuring sales and leads
For shops and lead generation, outbound clicks are not the finish line. Conversion insights (still marked beta) shows page visits, add-to-carts, checkouts, revenue and average order value influenced by organic pins and ads. It needs a working Pinterest tag, with the base code on every page of your site, and only has data from the day the tag started working.
- Organic, paid assisted, paid unassisted. Conversions are split by whether people saw only organic pins, organic pins and ads, or only ads.
- Conversion window. If you have not set one in Ads Manager, Pinterest uses one day after a view and 30 days after a click. Products people take longer to decide on deserve a longer window.
- Last touch. Credit goes to the last pin someone engaged with before buying.
- It takes a few days. Pinterest builds the report with a delay, so check back the next day if it is empty.
For sign-ups, the simplest reliable KPI comes from your own tools: tag every pin link with UTM parameters and count sign-ups from visits labeled as Pinterest.
08When Pinterest and your web analytics disagree
They almost always will, and that is not a sign either is broken. Pinterest explains that its conversion figures will not match tools such as Google Analytics, because those tools cannot see what people view and save on Pinterest, and they usually give all the credit to the last click.
- Clicks are not sessions. An outbound click is counted when someone taps; a session only if your page loads and your analytics runs.
- The app can hide the source. Visits from the Pinterest app may arrive without a referrer and be filed as "direct". UTM tags such as utm_source=pinterest fix most of this.
- Views count on Pinterest's side. Someone who sees a pin and buys a week later through a search engine is credited by Pinterest's view window and by the search engine's last click.
Pick one source per KPI and stick to it: Pinterest's numbers to decide which pins and pages to make more of, your own analytics to judge what those visitors are worth.
09A monthly KPI report in 30 minutes
Use the same day each month, the same filters and the same template. Download the monthly KPI report template (CSV); it opens in any spreadsheet app and has one row per month.
- Note the KPI for last month next to the previous month and the baseline.
- Sort top pins by the KPI. Which pages and pin styles keep appearing?
- List pins with impressions but few outbound clicks. The search matched; the image or headline did not convince. Make a new pin for each of those pages.
- List pages with clicks but few pins. Give each two or three fresh pins aimed at related searches.
- Check what visitors did in your web analytics or Conversion insights. Clicks that leave at once point to a pin that promises something the page does not deliver.
- Write one decision for next month in the last column.
For a blog, outbound clicks per post is the KPI that matters most, and the Pinterest for bloggers guide shows how to turn the report into more pins for the posts that earn them.
10Questions people ask
What are the most important Pinterest KPIs?
The one that matches your goal. Outbound clicks for website traffic, revenue or checkouts for sales, sign-ups from Pinterest visitors for leads, and engaged audience with saves for reach. Impressions, saves and click rates are supporting numbers that explain why the main KPI moved.
What is a good engagement rate on Pinterest?
Pinterest does not publish a benchmark, and rates vary a lot by niche and format. Compare your pins with each other and with your own numbers from previous months; that tells you far more than an industry average would.
How do I measure the ROI of Pinterest marketing?
Compare what Pinterest visitors are worth with what the work costs. Value is the sales, sign-ups or ad revenue from visits labeled as Pinterest in your web analytics; cost is your hours times what an hour is worth, plus tools and any ad spend. Our guide to whether Pinterest marketing is worth it works through an example of that calculation.
How often should I report on Pinterest KPIs?
Monthly, on the same day each month. Daily numbers swing too much, and Pinterest says its real-time figures are estimates that can still change. Review the goal itself once a quarter.
Why do Pinterest outbound clicks not match Google Analytics?
They count different things. Pinterest counts clicks on its side; your web analytics counts sessions that arrive and load. Some visits from the app also arrive without a referrer and get filed as direct. Tag pin links with UTM parameters and compare trends rather than exact totals.
Can I track Pinterest KPIs without a business account?
No. Pinterest Analytics, Audience insights and Conversion insights all need a business account, which is free. Pinterest also notes that analytics may only be available to account owners above a certain age.
11Sources
Every figure on this page comes from Pinterest's own pages or filings. We checked each link on November 4, 2026.