Contest promotion on Pinterest: pins and ads for visual entries

Which contest entries suit Pinterest, and which should skip it?

Entries that look good as a single image suit Pinterest: photography, interior and graphic design, crafts, baking and food styling, fashion, weddings, illustration and handmade products. Entries that depend on sound, speech or a long story rarely do.

A pin is an image that links out to a page. That makes the platform a good bridge between a picture and a vote, and a poor one for contests that are judged on a performance.

Choose Pinterest when

• The entry can be understood from the image in a second or two.
• The contest accepts votes from the public, and the voting page is easy to reach from a link.
• You have several good images of the same entry, which gives the pins room to differ.
• Your deadline leaves room for pins to be found, or you are willing to put budget into ads.

Look elsewhere when

• The entry is a song or a dance routine, which belongs on TikTok or YouTube.
• The vote needs a long form, a phone code or a login that the supporter will not enjoy. The guide to contests with phone or SMS verification shows what that does to a campaign.

Our page on photo, video and music contests puts Pinterest next to the other channels, so you can see where the visual entries fit.

What makes a pin worth clicking on the way to a vote?

A pin earns a click when the image shows the entry clearly and the words tell the viewer what happens next. It is a poster with a destination.

The four parts of a contest pin

• The image. A clear, well-lit picture of the entry itself, in a tall format that fills the screen on a phone. Text laid over the image is short and readable.
• The title. What the entry is, in words a person would search or say. The contest is not the title.
• The description. Two or three plain sentences: who made it, the contest it is in, and what voting involves.
• The link. It leads to the entry or to a short page that explains the voting steps, with a tracking tag so we can see where visitors came from.

Variety instead of repetition

We prepare several pins for one entry, each using a different image or a different angle: the finished piece, a detail, the process, the setting. Pins that look identical add nothing. Different pins reach different tastes.

What we avoid

Images that misrepresent the entry, text that promises a prize or a result, and any picture that includes a person who has not agreed to appear. If a contest requires that entries be shown in a certain way, the pin follows the contest's rule. Writing and design for the pins is covered by creative and copy, and you approve each pin before it goes live.

Organic pins or Pinterest ads: how do we choose for your deadline?

Use the time left as the deciding factor. Organic pins cost no ad budget but their timing is not something anyone controls, while ads let you choose the dates and the audience.

How the ads are set up

We choose the audience from the options in the ad system, such as interests that match the entry's subject and the countries where voting is open. Two or three pin versions run against each other for the first days, and we keep the ones that lead to completed votes, not only clicks.

The ad account belongs to you, and ad spend is paid directly to Pinterest as a separate line from our fee. For the wider method see paid promotion of contest entries, and for ways to budget a campaign, the budget planner with its thirty-minute strategy call.

What images and permissions do you need to provide?

Send original, high-quality images that you own or have permission to use, along with the contest rules. That is the whole list, but each item matters, because a pin is a public copy of your picture.

Before design starts

• Original image files, not screenshots, in the best quality you have.
• Confirmation that you own the images, or that the photographer or designer agrees to their use in promotion.
• Written consent from anyone identifiable in the pictures. For children, a parent or guardian must agree, and we explain that on the page for beauty, kids, pets and school contests.
• The contest link, the entry link, the rules and the deadline with a time zone.
• Any wording the organizer insists on, such as a hashtag or a required credit.

What we do with them

We crop and adapt the images for pins without changing what they show. We do not retouch an entry in a way that would make it differ from the version the organizer sees. If the contest forbids promotion with altered images, we use the originals.

If you are unsure whether the rules allow any of this, the contest rules and risk check is free and answers it before design time is spent.

How do we report on a Pinterest campaign, and where does it stop?

You get a daily note drawn from Pinterest's own analytics: ad spend, reach, clicks to your link and the saves each pin received. Where the voting page lets us tie visits to completed votes, we do. Where it does not, we say so, and we use the clicks and the entry counter you can see yourself.

What no report can promise is how many people will vote after they click, since that depends on the voting steps and on the other entries. We plan for it by explaining the steps on the pin and the landing page, and by keeping the ask simple.

The next step is the free contest analysis. Send the contest link, the rules, your entry images and the deadline, and we reply with what the rules allow, whether Pinterest belongs in the plan alongside Instagram, and a written quote you may accept or decline.

How it works

1. Free analysis of the contestYou send the contest link, rules, entry images and deadline. We tell you whether Pinterest suits the entry.
2. Rights and consent checkWe confirm that you own the images and that anyone shown has agreed, then agree the plan and the quote.
3. Pin and ad designWe prepare several pins with different images and wording, plus tracking links. You approve every one.
4. Launch and daily readingPins and ads go live, we read the analytics each day and shift budget toward the pins that lead to votes.
5. Deadline reminders and wrap-upWe run the final reminder pins and send a wrap-up report with the creative files and audience notes.