How to use Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop

Yes, I love Pinterest. I deleted my Facebook app off my phone to concentrate on promoting my Etsy shop on Pinterest. When I’m on Pinterest, I am learning; I’m always finding things to try and read. Like a sweet shop, you can find something to satisfy every tooth. So it seemed natural to use this visual media platform to take my Etsy shop to the next level.

Some people call Pinterest a search engine; some say it’s a social media platform, but whichever way you wish to call it – it’s growing, simple, and enjoyable to use. So you can bet your buyer is loving it too.

In this post, I’ll show you how to get started using Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop and how to maintain constant traffic.

If you haven’t opened your Etsy shop yet and want to know how – I wrote a whole post on beginning on Etsy and how to start your website

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you purchase after clicking a link, I will earn a small commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more) Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Why use Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop?

Well, I have an aversion to Facebook; not only is it full of adverts, but frankly, I don’t want to know about someone’s last night’s drinks. I feel that only ten percent of it is of any real value to me or my business.

I unfollowed everyone anyway, so my feed is just business based. Well, that and my Mum.

I am in over 50 groups and only follow the ones I’m interested in at that time. This way, my phone switches the app off after 30 mins per day, and I’ve pretty much seen enough by then.

But Pinterest is where it’s at for me. I’m a visual person, and I just love beautiful pictures. I see amazing houses, lovely views, and holiday ideas, and I’m a shopper and buy more of the things I see on Pinterest than anywhere else.

Shoppers surfing Pinterest covert higher too. They are more likely to purchase after seeing the item on Pinterest.

That’s why we browse catalogs and not lists of items for sale.

Enter the dreaded Next catalog where you just have to buy something, right?

If you have opened an Etsy shop but want more views, check out this post on 60 Mistakes I made on Etsy

Not convinced? Here are a few more reasons why Pinterest is where it’s at, baby.

• Pinterest is free.
• 150 million people use Pinterest each month, and most of them are Women
• Research shows that buyers are more in the buying mode on Pinterest than on any other platform
• 83% of pinners follow their favorite brand rather than their favorite celebrity
• It’s simple to use, and you only need an email address to get started
• It works great on mobile – it’s increased by 140% in 5yrs
• Once you have built a following, your feed can translate to anything.
• Etsy doesn’t own Pinterest ( for now at least), so you are working within your own rules
• There is a vast amount of helpful information on there, so you can use it for personal things as well as for business
• It’s easy to watch the competition with Pinterest – you can spy on them too
• If your future is big, Etsy might not always be where it’s at for you, and you can start directing traffic in any direction from your Pinterest profile
• It requires little training, and you can start straight away
• They say a successful Etsy shop is 20% making and 80% promoting, so promote it where you think your customers are hanging out.

Ok – let us get started on using Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop.

Firstly you will need a business Pinterest account to connect your Etsy shop.

If you already have a substantial personal account with a good amount of following, but it is full of cats and dogs, which has nothing to do with your new Etsy shop selling little paper clips, then my advice is to begin again with a new account.

Besides, your favorite Cat follower is unlikely to be the same person you are targeting for your Etsy shop – and your feed might not resonate with your target audience.

If you would like to set up a second Pinterest account and keep your old one – log out of your Pinterest account and set up a new one using a new email address.

Then once you are logged in, use the menu to Add an Account. Once you have set up, you can switch between the two from the same platform, but if you clear cookies off your browser, you might need to add the account again.

Ok – I’m ready to set up a business account

How to create a Pinterest profile for my Etsy shop

Add your header on Pinterest.

• Add your business name to your Pinterest profile
• Add keywords to your Pinterest profile – say something both natural and informative. Later on, when you are ready, you can add a link to your freebie or something which your audience will give you their email address for, but let’s not worry about that for now.
• upload a photo of yourself, not your logo or your cat.

Create your Pinterest boards

Create 5-8 boards to which you can pin your pins to.

• Give your boards an excellent-sounding name, no gimmicks, so personalization, just a straightforward board title. Try to target these boards quite specifically. I have a board called White decor, but I should have made boards called White Bedroom Decor, and White Kitchen decor.
• Use the description of your boards to tell Pinterest what your board is about. Again, no fancy words, just straightforward information. Write naturally in sentences and include a few keywords.
• Give your boards a category

By doing both this and adding relevant content to these boards, you are telling Pinterest what that board is about and confirming it with the correct pins.

So I am painting in Watercolor and making art prints to sell online as digital images..

What sort of boards should I make?

• Printable Wall art by Onceuponpaperco
• Gallery wall inspiration
• Bohemium decor
• Printables
• Home office
• Watercolor artwork

Remember your audience might also be interested in other topics, so add these too

• DIY prints
• Home decor prints
• Printable Decor
• Artwork
• Etsy digitals
• DIY home crafts
• Home DIY ideas

These are mostly around selling Digital downloads on Etsy – but here, I’m using the example for selling your artwork online.

Once you have these boards set up – you should now make a list of them so you can ensure you pin to them regularly.

Why do you need lots of different boards covering several categories?

Well, you want to spread your pins across several appropriate boards without annoying your followers. Not all of your pins are suitable for every board.

I don’t just pin my pins to these boards; I pin other pins, repins, and things I find on Etsy, and yes, I also pin my direct competition. This way, I feel my pins just filter through, and it looks beautiful and refreshing.

Of course, I still have boards that I think my customers might be looking for – such as DIY crafts, seasonal home ideas, flowers, plants, decor etc.

If you don’t do this, you will eventually go mad just looking at your own stuff, and you want to be able to mirror what your customer is doing as well.

Ok – So what else do I need to do to promote my Etsy shop on Pinterest?

Well. – the best way to drive traffic to your Etsy shop is to get your own website.

How to claim your Etsy shop on Pinterest?

How do you do this?

Once you have a business account – go into your Pinterest settings and click Claim in the dropdown. Here you will see Etsy under Claim other accounts.

Follow the instructions to claim your Etsy shop account.

If you need further help – you can view Claim your account on Pinterest

Note – when I did this, it didn’t work; I had to remove the ‘block pop-ups’ on my Chrome browser before it would allow me to do it.

Why is it a good thing to claim your Etsy shop on Pinterest?

Those pins which are pinned from your Etsy shop have more stats associated with them so you can see how many times it has been viewed, repined, and clicked. In essence, if you were to get a viral pin in the future, you can see where it is coming from.

If you want to use Pinterest to promote our Etsy shops, we need a way of checking if it is working.

• You will see better stats for your pin
• Your Pinterest account will get credit for that pin
• You can promote your pins
• Your pins will be rich pins, attributed to your Etsy shop

You can see on my Pins where those stats come into view.

Pinterest will also show your profile at the bottom of the pin. Your face, your business name, which is a good thing.

And lastly – a big fat red follow button on all of your pins. Which is great of course. You can’t see it on my image above as I’m already logged in as me.

If you have not claimed your Etsy shop – it only shows the link to Etsy and no more.

You can also un-claim your Etsy shop or website at any time.

Are there any downsides to promoting your Etsy shop on Pinterest?

Of course –

• Like any form of exposure to your customer, you are also showing your stuff to your competition, who might deduce from your fantastic account which of your items are doing well in your Etsy shop and which are resonating with your audience. Que copycats.
• It can be tedious pinning and repining your stuff. But it is just another job you must do to promote your Etsy shop. So get on with it.
• Things change quickly on Pinterest. They work hard to clear stolen pins, but folks can still steal your image.
• As with most social media followings, you could have your account closed and lose everything. Worth a thought if you don’t have any other form of traffic

Is this a fail-safe way to use Pinterest for promoting my Etsy shop?

Well, there are some things you might not be able to control.

• Your pins may never be seen by the right audience. Some of my pins do well, others I’ve spent days perfecting don’t do anything – that’s social media for you
• You may never see lots of repins or worse – any clicks. This can be worked on, but mostly it’s a lot of trial and error. I’ve had rubbish pins repined thousands of times and others not pinned once.
• You may get many clicks to your shop from Pinterest but no sales. Hmmm. This can at least tell you that you are not converting well, so you will need to work on your copy, prices or target market.
• Pinterest does change, of course; that’s why it’s worth an estimated 11 billion. So you must be prepared to adjust, amend and increase your strategy for pinning.

How do you make a pin to promote your Etsy shop on Pinterest?

How to make a Pinterest pin?

I use a mix of tools such as Illustrator and Photoshop. Both are part of the adobe creative suite and payable monthly.

Don’t want to spend anything extra at this stage?

Open a FREE account with Canva.com.

Once you have done that, making your own first pin is very easy.

• Select Pinterest Graphic from Social media choices. This ensures you don’t have to worry about correct sizing or resolution. Believe me, if Pinterest suddenly suggests round pins, Canva will be on it.
• Now you can use one of their many free templates and adjust it to your liking. But I prefer to start from scratch.
• I use a mix of ideas, some with stock photos, some with my Etsy previews.

Here is one I just made with a Bridal shower invite – and others I’ve made for my printables shop.

The image at the top is a stock photo I purchased. The zigzag background is free from Canva.com. And the image at the bottom is just an iPhone image of me holding the invite in the garden.

Remember to include your logo or shop URL so anyone can find it later.

Simple yes –

Just try new ideas and see what you like. I try to make pins that reflect my shop – so they see a pin and clearly see that my shop is botanical.

These are from my Botanical print shop on Etsy

Note – ensure you have your shop name on the pin or at least a small logo, just in case things get broken, and anyone can find your shop.

Once you have made your first pin in Canva.com promoting your Etsy shop and exported it as a jpg to your desktop – RENAME IT – you need to name your Pinterest pin with keywords. Eg. Photo345 is not going to work.

Rename your Pinterest image – for example – Botanical Wall art decor

So you have now seen how easy it is to create many pins in Canva.com

If you only managed to do 3 in an hour, don’t worry; it does get easier. You can also copy your pin and adjust the images, which means you can easily create 30 or more pins in the same document. Ensure they are slightly different each time.

Why can’t I pin straight from my Etsy shop using the pin it button?

You can; I do a mix of both.

But Etsy wants the first listing image to be horizontal –

I know it shocked me at first – so I checked it out on the listing photos article on Etsy

And Pinterest wants your images to be vertical – or taller

You can read our post on How to make your Etsy listings images

There is a way around this, though –

I make new 2:3 ratio pins and upload them to Etsy as a preview image. This means I can pin straight from Etsy, not from my Etsy shop, but from the media tools on Etsy, so I can choose the image I want.

I ensure the main idea in the image is in the center – so that when it is auto-populated by Etsy, the features can be seen.

Note – I think this means you are less likely to be featured on Etsy – because Etsy uses a lot of images from the listing photos in their promotions, and they tend to be all horizontal images.

So Pinterest wants primarily vertical images- square ones can also be pinned, but they don’t do as well for now.

Can I pin directly from my Etsy shop to Pinterest?

Yes – this is still ok to do, but

• Pinterest will grab the description from your Etsy shop and post it onto your pin. Not a problem in itself, but you need to use this pin description space slightly more wisely. I’ll come to that later.
• Pinterest wants new content, which it won’t get if you just pin from your Etsy shop to Pinterest.

So let’s feed it what it wants from the outset. Tall pins, new pins, regular pins, good descriptions, great images, pins with writing, pins that go to your Etsy item, pins that are product pins, and lifestyle pins.

So now you have made a pin – what should you do with it?

Yes, you guessed it – upload it directly to Pinterest.

• use the Plus sign and add a pin
• drag your newly created pin onto it
• Give your pin a title using keywords
• now write an excellent keyword-rich description
• Add a link to either your item or shop categories
• Choose a board
• Either publish immediately or at a later date

Note: Pin your first pin for any product to the most suitable Pinterest board.
Not the board that says ‘Best of the shop’ – or My shop Name.

I make many new pins and upload them directly to Pinterest from Canva.com

The reason I do this is to ensure I create repinnable pins which look more authentic than the preview images I use in my Etsy shop. This is for my shop, and your shop may target different audiences.

If you do anything, just ensure that your pins are 2×3 in ratio, are not all the same, and have great descriptions, including keywords.

So for more clarity –

• Pins that you pin directly from your Etsy shop – either using the pin button in the listing or from the media drop menu – create a post option – These pins are attributed to you and your account and your Etsy shop
• Pins that you upload manually through the Pinterest Plus add pin button do not contain the same stats and are not attributed to your account, even if you include the link to your item in the Pin description

Perhaps later this will happen – but for now, it’s worth mentioning. So if you want pins with stats and your Profile image to be attributed to you – only pin from your Etsy shop account.

If you are interested in opening an Etsy shop- click the image below to gain access to the free eBook on how to start selling printables on Etsy

Where do I find keywords for my Pinterest pins?

Answer – right inside the Pinterest platform, of course.

Let’s say you are selling candles.

Go into Pinterest and type Candles. You will now see several boxes with the most searched for as you scroll down.

So now you can keep drilling down using those tabs closest to your product description, and you should have your target keywords all done for you.

Romantic, Wedding Centerpiece Candles.

or Wedding Centerpiece Rustic candles.

These are your keywords.

Ensure that you include one or more of these keywords in your Pinterest process

• Name your images for Pinterest with keywords you are targeting on Pinterest. So mine all have something like botanical print, wall art, or similar in them.
• Your pin title when you upload it to Pinterest using the Plus sign should have your keyword in
• Your pin descriptions should contain 2-3 keywords naturally
• Include 2 hashtags to help get your pin seen.

What should you write in your pin descriptions for promoting your Etsy shop?

Your pin description should be reader-friendly and sound like a natural conversation. It should contain some keywords and have a call to action at the end – e.g., click through to find out more. Don’t forget those hashtags

I find the hardest part of this is writing the pin descriptions – Try to say something conversational and natural about your product. Have a call to action at the end.

While researching this article, the Pinterest stats said that pins description, which contained the price, also converted better.

How do you manage all these descriptions?

I write all my pin descriptions on a spreadsheet and reuse them, but I vary them a lot just by tweaking a few words. This way, I can just copy and paste the descriptions over. I adjust a couple of words each time to tie in with the pin image.

Go to your Pinterest profile and make sure our bio contains the keywords you are targeting and that you have a lovely profile image.

But why not just pin your own pins and no one else’s?

Well, I want to spread out my pins across several boards that are appropriate without annoying my 10,000 followers. Not all of my pins are suitable for every board.

I don’t just pin my pins to these boards; I pin other pins, repins, things I find on Etsy and yes, I do pin my direct competition also. This way, I feel my pins just filter through, and it looks beautiful and interesting.

Of course, I still have boards that I think my customers might be looking for – such as DIY crafts, seasonal home ideas, flowers, plants, decor, etc.

If you don’t do this, you will eventually go mad just by looking at your own stuff, and you want to use Pinterest the way it was intended. If everyone just pinned their individual pins, it would be follower based, and it isn’t – it’s about quality. And someone with very few followers could have a pin that does really well.

Pinterest rewards you for being frequently active on the platform.

They like you to pin to all of your boards regularly.

Build your authority by claiming all of your accounts. If you have an Instagram or youtube, then claim these also.

This builds your monthly unique viewers on your Pinterest profile.

What other pins should I create to promote my Etsy shop on Pinterest?

Ok – so it’s all very well and nice to have thousands of pins floating around Pinterest with your lovely items on.

But here’s the thing –

For those pins to be attributed to your account and, in turn, for your Pinterest reach to increase – those pins need to be repined from your Etsy shop, not uploaded manually to Pinterest.

What do you mean by manual pinning?

Manual Pinning is now recognized as an excellent way to promote anything. To get started with manual pinning, create your pins as you did above – but instead of pinning them to your boards, pin to a secret board on Pinterest. Then you can log on and repin from this board to your other boards over Pinterest.

You can reuse these pins, but don’t just repin the same 5 pins. You must make several pins and use them over a long period.

Scheduled pinning

I invested in Tailwind pinning app a long time ago. I paid for the year to make it slightly cheaper. This app allows you to schedule days and days of Pinterest pins in one go.

I usually plan out all my own pins using boards lists and once those are all scheduled for the week or month – I usually go through my boards and find several pins to repin or new pins not already on Pinterest. Then I shuffle the queue.

Tailwind also has a very convenient way of directing you to your next task. I’ve only seen this recently and haven’t yet been through it all. But it looks fun and definitely worth a look when you sign up.

I do this in the hope that my feed is varied across all of my boards and looks exciting and on-brand.

I know this was quite a long post – Using Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop. Here is what we covered

• creating your business Pinterest profile
• how to create your pins in canva.com
• How to claim your Etsy shop on Pinterest
• What boards you should create, and how to pin to them.

For related Etsy Selling articles,

How to move from Flodesk to Convertkit

20 Reasons you should sell on Etsy

10 things to do BEFORE you open an Etsy shop

How to decide on an Etsy shop name

Listen to this podcast on why it only takes one pin to make a difference

Final thoughts on How to use Pinterest to promote your Etsy shop

This simple way to gain potential traffic to your Etsy shop for free. It is not difficult to create multiple pins for your shop and in time, gain repeated traffic using those keywords.

Remember Etsy is not a quick-win idea – shops that do well often put in endless amounts of free time – but that’s ok; you have time.

It only takes one pin to make a lot of difference in your business.