01What goes in a Pinterest marketing plan
A Pinterest marketing plan is one page with seven boxes: goal, audience, searches, content pillars, boards, rhythm and review. Fill it in once, follow the 90-day calendar below, and spend 30 minutes each month deciding what to make more of.
A plan is the seven-step strategy written down with dates and numbers. If a box is empty, that part of the strategy has not been decided yet.
| Box | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| 1. Goal | What one result are we after this quarter, and which number proves it? |
| 2. Audience | Who are we pinning for, and what are they planning? |
| 3. Searches | Which phrases do they type, and which of our pages answers each one? |
| 4. Content pillars | Which three to five topics will we publish about, in which format? |
| 5. Profile and boards | Is the account set up, and do the boards mirror our searches? |
| 6. Rhythm | How many fresh pins a week, when do we batch them, and when does seasonal content start? |
| 7. Review | What do we check every month, and what decision comes out of it? |
02The one-page template
Copy this into a document, or download the plain-text version and the keyword map spreadsheet that goes with box 3.
- Pinterest marketing plan template (TXT, one page)
- Keyword map template (CSV, opens in any spreadsheet app)
- Content calendar (CSV) for the rhythm box
- Board planner (CSV) for the profile and boards box
- Monthly KPI report (CSV) for the review box
| Box | Fill in | Where the answer comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Goal, metric, today's value, 90-day target | Pinterest Analytics (last 30 days) and your web analytics |
| Audience | What they plan, how far ahead, their words, what stops them, what they need on the page | Your customer emails, reviews, site search, and Pinterest's own search suggestions |
| Searches | 20 to 50 phrases, each with a destination page and a season | Pinterest search suggestions and Pinterest Trends |
| Pillars | 3 to 5 topics, a main format and a share of pins for each | The themes in your keyword map |
| Profile and boards | Business account, claimed website, Rich Pins, board list in priority order | Claim your website, Rich Pins |
| Rhythm | Fresh pins per week, batch day, seasonal start dates | Your capacity, and Trends for the seasonal dates |
| Review | Top pins, pins to remake, pages to add pins to, one decision | Pinterest Analytics and your web analytics |
A plan you can read in two minutes gets reviewed. A 20-page document gets filed. If a box needs more space, link out to the keyword map or a calendar instead of growing the page.
03A filled-in example: a small online candle shop
This is a made-up shop, so the targets are illustrations, not results. What matters is how specific each answer is.
| Box | Example answer |
|---|---|
| Goal | Sales. Metric: outbound clicks to product pages, then checkouts from Pinterest visitors. Baseline taken from the last 30 days; target set as a clear increase over that baseline. |
| Audience | People decorating for autumn and buying gifts. They start planning weeks before the season, search phrases like "fall candle scents" and "cozy home decor", stop for photos of candles in a styled room, and need scent notes, burn time and shipping dates on the page. |
| Searches | 32 phrases in four themes: seasonal scents, gift ideas, cozy home styling, candle care. Three phrases had no page, so the shop wrote a candle care guide first. |
| Pillars | Seasonal scents (product pins, 40%), gift guides (standard pins, 25%), styled rooms (multi-image pins, 25%), candle care (standard pins, 10%). |
| Boards | Fall Candle Scents, Candle Gift Ideas, Cozy Living Room Decor, Candle Care Tips, Holiday Candles, Soy Candle Collection. |
| Rhythm | Two batches a week, five fresh pins each, scheduled a week ahead. Holiday pins start when "holiday candles" begins to climb in Trends. |
| Review | First Monday of each month, 30 minutes. Output: one decision, written at the bottom of the plan. |
Notice that the boards are simply the main searches from the map, and that the pillars carry a share of pins. That share is what you adjust each month as the review shows which pillar sends the clicks.
04The 90-day calendar, week by week
| Weeks | Focus | Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations | Switch to a business account, claim your website, note the baseline for your goal metric, write the audience box. |
| 2 | Searches and boards | Build the keyword map (20 to 50 phrases), give every phrase a page, create boards from the themes with a short description each. |
| 3 to 4 | First pins | One fresh pin for each of your ten most important pages. Schedule a week at a time; Pinterest's scheduler holds up to 10 pins, up to 30 days ahead. |
| 5 to 6 | Second angle | A second pin for the same pages, aimed at a related search from the map, with a different image and headline. Add seasonal pins for anything rising in Trends. |
| 7 to 8 | First review | Monthly review. Remake pins with impressions but no clicks; give pages with clicks another pin. |
| 9 to 10 | Widen | Pins for the next ten pages. Fill one content gap from the keyword map with a new page. |
| 11 to 12 | Second review | Monthly review. Shift the pillar shares toward what brings your goal metric. |
| 13 | Quarter review | Compare the goal metric with the baseline, keep or change the goal, rewrite the plan for the next 90 days. |
If you publish from a blog, the RSS route can cover new posts automatically: with a claimed website, Pinterest auto-publishes pins from your feed, up to 200 a day, usually within 24 hours. Those pins reuse whatever image and text your feed carries, so keep making designed pins for your most important pages by hand or with a tool.
05Time and budget
Pinterest's own tools cost nothing: the business account, Trends, Analytics and the scheduler are free. The real cost is time. These are our working estimates for a small business making pins by hand.
| Phase | Time |
|---|---|
| Setup and keyword map (weeks 1 and 2) | About 4 to 6 hours in total |
| Making and scheduling fresh pins | About 10 to 20 minutes per pin by hand |
| Monthly review | 30 minutes |
| Quarter review and new plan | 1 to 2 hours |
At ten fresh pins a week, making pins is the biggest cost by far, and it is the part software can take over once the plan is clear. Tailwind schedules pins and helps draft them ($17.99 a month billed yearly), and SiteToSocial creates pins from the pages of your website and posts them daily ($10 per website a month), on their own pricing pages on November 4, 2026. Either way the plan stays yours. Our breakdown of what Pinterest marketing costs puts the options side by side.
06The monthly review that keeps the plan alive
Put a recurring 30-minute slot in the calendar for the first working day of the month and answer the same five questions every time.
- How did the goal metric move against last month and against the baseline?
- Which five pins did the most for the goal, and what do they have in common: topic, format, image style, search phrase?
- Which pins got impressions but almost no clicks? The search matched; the pin did not convince. Remake them with a clearer promise.
- Which pages get clicks but have only one or two pins? Add pins aimed at related searches.
- What is the one decision for next month? Write it at the bottom of the plan.
Pinterest Analytics shows impressions, saves, pin clicks and outbound clicks; its overview defaults to the last 30 days, which matches a monthly review. The guide to picking your Pinterest KPI explains which of those numbers to report and has a monthly template. Our content strategy guide covers what to change when a pillar underperforms, and the board strategy guide covers when to merge or archive boards.
07Questions people ask
What should a Pinterest marketing plan include?
Seven things: one goal with the number that proves it, a description of who you pin for, a keyword map that ties searches to pages, three to five content pillars, your boards, a publishing rhythm with seasonal dates, and a monthly review. Each is one box on the template above.
How long should a Pinterest marketing plan cover?
Ninety days. It is long enough for pins to start finding their audience and short enough to change course. Review it monthly and rewrite it each quarter.
Is there a free Pinterest marketing plan template?
Yes, the one on this page. Download the one-page plan and the keyword map spreadsheet; both open in any text editor or spreadsheet app.
How many hours a week does a Pinterest plan need?
Expect a few hours for setup and keyword research in the first two weeks, then roughly two to four hours a week to make and schedule fresh pins by hand. Automation can take most of the weekly production off your plate once the plan is set.
What is a realistic first goal for a Pinterest plan?
Set a goal you can measure from a baseline: for example, growing outbound clicks from your current 30-day number, or getting a set number of email sign-ups from tagged Pinterest links. Avoid follower goals; followers matter far less on Pinterest than searches and saves.
08Sources
Figures about Pinterest come from Pinterest's own pages and filings; tool prices come from each vendor's own pricing page. We checked each link on November 4, 2026.