Dazed Magazine drives traffic and saves by optimizing their RSS feed for Pinterest

Dazed Magazine (@dazedmagazine) has had a finger on the pulse of fashion, beauty and youth culture for over 30 years. Known for their arts and style coverage in print and online, the British publication had an eye on growing their Pinterest presence. They were already bringing their website content to Pinterest, and they knew that with a few simple changes, their Pins had the potential for greater impact.

The goal

Dazed had been using an RSS feed to bring their website content to Pinterest. While the connection helped them to post content frequently and consistently, they saw an opportunity to drive more results by implementing Pinterest best practices to their content. The publisher hoped that by optimizing their RSS feed, they could better repurpose their web content to increase engagement on Pinterest and traffic back to their website.

The strategy

Dazed knew that fully vertical images and videos get more engagement on Pinterest. However, their RSS feed was initially pulling in 16x9 "web header" style content from their site pages. (While Pinterest’s flexible sizing tool can easily crop brand-new or existing content to a variety of sizes, we recommend a 2:3 aspect ratio for images and a 9:16 aspect ratio for videos.)

In October 2024, Dazed's technical team built a custom RSS feed to optimize their content for Pinterest. The new feed prioritized site images that aligned with Pinterest best practice aspect ratios. The new RSS feed also filtered content that was most relevant to a Pinterest audience, with an emphasis on fashion and beauty. Plus, all Pins created from the feed included a link back to the referenced content on Dazed’s website.

The result

The small changes that Dazed made paid off in a big way. In the 60 days after optimizing their RSS feed, the publisher saw improvements in both engagement and traffic, with an 89% increase in saves, and a 51% increase in click through rate for their RSS created content.

"If your goal is to optimize your overall output and see quality results with minimal effort, Pinterest's RSS function is totally worth it," said Lamia Barakat, Social Media Editor at Dazed Media.

Tips to try

Get more out of your Pinterest content with these best practices.

Bulk upload your website images as Pins
You’re already putting effort into creating content for your website. An RSS feed can make it easy to get more out of that content and helps you bring it to Pinterest in a simple and streamlined way.

Optimize repurposed content…
Make repurposed content feel right at home on Pinterest by implementing Pinterest best practices—like ideal aspect ratios, relevant title, description and a link back to your site—and drive more results in the process!

…that your Pinterest audience will love
When repurposing content for Pinterest, think about both the who and the where. Consider how your Pinterest audience may differ from your audiences on other platforms. Then examine which of your existing content will best lean into Pinterest’s strengths as a visual search engine to help you reach your Pinterest audience (or the one you want to build).