How to grow your creator business with Pinterest formats and features

Every Pin you create is a chance to inspire. It’s also an opportunity to support your business goals, whether that’s building awareness, growing your audience or earning money. When your Pins have a purpose, you help encourage people to move from discovering new ideas to taking action. 

People on Pinterest are actively planning, exploring and deciding what to try or buy next.¹ ² When your content shows up in those moments, engaging with it can feel like a natural next step.

Choosing the right format for your goal

Every format and feature on Pinterest has its own strengths and can support different goals. Your potential on Pinterest starts with the audience you reach, so here are a few ways to help match them to your goals and connect with the audience you care about.

Build audience

Help your brand get discovered. This goal focuses on introducing your creative work to new audiences and building a memorable presence.

• Format: Pin

  • The lowdown: Pins can be a single, still image designed to make an immediate impact. It's perfect for showcasing a clear concept or final result with a powerful visual, like a finished recipe, a styled outfit or an inspiring quote.

  • Content ideas: Quick tip, infographic, product highlight.

  • Pro tip: Aim for a vertical 2:3 image with a clear focal point, straightforward prompt (like save) and a keyword‑rich title and description.

• Format: Collage

  • The lowdown: Collages allow you to digitally cut out and assemble multiple cutouts into one visual story so people can see how products, ideas or styles fit together at a glance. This format can encourage deeper engagement and is especially popular with Gen Z.³ ⁴

  • Content ideas: Mood boards, aesthetic roundups, outfit or room styling combos, "Remix my look/space/routine."

  • Pro tip: Consider enabling remixing on your collage (where available) and adding a clear callout so people know they can use it as a template for their own collages.

• Format: Board

  • The lowdown: Boards are curated collections of Pins that help make it easy for people to explore more of your content.

  • Content ideas: Your core themes, key product roundups, curated “go-to” boards that mix your Pins with high-quality saves from other creators to highlight your expertise.

  • Pro tip: Use simple, keyword-rich board names, add short descriptive summaries and keep each board focused so your brand story feels clear.

• Feature: Promote a Pin (currently limited US availability)

  • The lowdown: A simplified flow makes it easier to test and extend the reach of your content. Turn a high-performing organic Pin into an ad and see how it resonates with a broader audience.

  • Content ideas: Your top existing organic Pins, such as tutorials, bestselling products, latest ideas and more.

  • Pro tip: Use flexible budgets to experiment with your approach. You can track performance and make adjustments as results come in.

Grow engagement

This goal is about nurturing your audience into a dedicated community by creating content designed to spark conversation and build a real connection.

• Format: Video Pin

  • The lowdown: Video can help grab attention with movement, show a dynamic process and bring your storytelling to life. Bonus: In addition to starting with a video, you can also use up to 20 assets on mobile to create a video.

  • Content ideas: Quick demonstrations, “Watch me build/style/cook this” clips, behind-the-scenes moments, before/after reveals.

  • Pro tip: Try opening with the payoff—your reveal, result or key tip—and consider text overlay (if it helps clarify, inspire or invite action).

• Format: Collage

  • The lowdown: Collages allow you to combine inspiring photos and product cutouts into a single Pin. . This format encourages deeper exploration and engagement and is perfect for showcasing multiple products. In fact, when people tap on individual cutouts within a collage, they can discover more info about the cutout image, such as a website link for shopping details.

  • Content ideas: Capsule wardrobe collection, starter pack, road trip essentials.

  • Pro tip: A cohesive palette and a clear theme help create an inviting collage.

Drive sales and earn commission

Monetize your content. This goal is centered on creating opportunities to earn from your influence, whether it's through product sales or brand partnerships.

• Feature: Pin

  • The lowdown: It's the same inspiring Pinterest format, enhanced with product tag links. Pins that pair inspirational image or video content with shopping links can help you reach people as they browse ideas, compare options and plan purchases.

  • Content ideas: Style guides, before-and-after transformations, seasonal edits, room or outfit inspo, product tutorials.

  • Pro tip: Try showing the product in context so people can quickly imagine using it themselves.

• Feature: Affiliate link

  • The lowdown: Affiliate links are unique URLs that direct to a shop’s product detail page, which you can add to image and video Pins. When people tap through to shop, you have a chance to earn commission and, depending on your affiliate provider, can get insight into what your content drives—from clicks and traffic to sales.

  • Content ideas: “Shop my outfit” Pins, “Shop my kitchen must-haves” posts, “Shop my morning skincare” roundup. 

  • Pro tip: Always disclose affiliate and paid partnerships in your description or with Pinterest disclosure tools available to you (for example, the paid partnership tool).

• Feature: Product tag

  • The lowdown: Product tagging lets you add links directly to a merchant’s shop from your Pin, so people can tap directly on items to learn more or purchase on the merchant site. In the closeup view of your Pin, your product recommendation appears right below your tagged Pin.

  • Content ideas: Gift guides, product roundups, “get ready with me.”

  • Pro tip: Tag only relevant products and link each tag straight to a product detail page.

Drive traffic

Guide people to your site. Encourage your audience to take the next step by directing them from your Pins to your personal website, blog or online shop.

• Feature: Outbound link

  • The lowdown: Add an outbound link in the destination URL (link) field of your Pin so people can click through to a relevant page off Pinterest (for example, your website or blog).

  • Content ideas: Link contextually relevant Pins to email sign-up, workshop, service or “work with me” page.

  • Pro tip: Check that your link is working and that the Pin image and keywords clearly match the destination.

• Format: Rich Pin

  • The lowdown: These Pins pull additional details from your site (via rich meta tags) and display them directly on the Pin, helping provide more context—and they can automatically update when the information on your site changes. 

  • Content ideas: Blog posts, guides, recipes, step-by-step cooking content, product highlights.

  • Pro tip: Add rich meta tags to your to enhance Pins that link to your site, and make sure your landing page delivers what the Pin promises.

Create with purpose

Find what clicks for you by experimenting with different formats and features. Then watch how your audience responds and keep refining your strategy. For an inside edge, try the Trends tool to find relevant keywords for your titles and descriptions to help your ideas get discovered, and check Pinterest Analytics for insights on how your content is performing over time.