Pinterest Ads & Looker Studio: setup guide

Pinterest is a powerful social media platform. If you run an e-commerce website, you must post photos of your product and video of your business life. It's a great way to keep people hooked. You can also use Pinterest Ads to reach even more people easily. As you can even sell your product on the Pinterest app, this is an excellent way to raise your sales.

An excellent way to keep track of all your performance is to use a dashboarding tool, and that's where Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) comes into place!

You can check for your ads performance, product sales, post-interaction... Create a beautiful personalized dashboard for you and your team, and find out what's best for your business and what to avoid!

We'll see in this tutorial how to connect your Pinterest Ads data to Looker Studio and how to start creating a report with your data. You'll also find a template for Pinterest Ads at the end of the article.

How to create your Pinterest Ads Looker Studio data sources?

The first thing to create in Looker Studio is a data source. You can then use this data source in a report to bring your data into charts.

To do so:

Click here to go to our Pinterest Ads connector for Looker Studio.

Click Authorize 3 times.

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Select your account, configure your data source, and click Connect

There are four options for this connector:

• View Window Day: 1, 7, 30, or 60 days.
• Engagement Window Day: 1, 7, 30, or 60 days.
• Click Window Day: 1, 7, 30, or 60 days.
• Conversion report time: On Add Action or On Conversion

The left column lets you choose the configuration for all the reports. The right column lets you set these options for every chart in your report.

Uncheck the Use report template for new report to start with a new blank report. You'll find a link and a tutorial to use a template at the end of this article.

Click Connect and Allow.

You just created your Pinterest Ads data sources using Catchr's connector!

You land on your data source configuration page. This is where all your available fields are. You can check for their default type and change it. For example, you can choose the currency sign for your currency metrics (be careful, Looker Studio only manages the sign, it won't transform one currency to another).

You can also rename existing or create new fields using fields and Google functions.

You can learn more information about this page in this detailed article.

How to use this data source in a report?

You can see a Create Report button on your data source page at the top right. Click on it to create a new report with your data source.

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You'll land on a new page. This is the report creation interface. There is a complete explanation of this page in this article. You will learn the great section and how to use it quickly.

Ok, now we are ready to create a report, we need to choose which metrics (KPIs) and dimensions (Breakdown) I will use.

I want to learn how all my ads perform and check a breakdown by campaign and ads group.

So here are the metrics I will use:

• Spend: what is my investment in Pinterest Ads
• Impressions: How many times one of my ads was shown on screen.
• Pin Clicks: How many clicks an ad receives after being shown.
• CTR: Percent of people clicking an ad after seeing it.
• CPC: Cost per click on ads.
• Conversions: How many purchases do my ads generate.
• Total Conversion Value: How much money did my Ads generate.
• CPA: Cost per acquisition, how much money did one purchase cost.
• ROAS: Return on ads spend, how many times my ads generate my investments.

And my the dimensions to breakdown the metrics:

• Campaign name: the list of all my campaigns
• Ads name: the list of all my ads.
• Date: breakdown by date to have a vision month over month or week over week.

Our academy has a complete list of dimensions and metrics available in the Pinterest Ads connector.

We selected all the fields needed; now, let's create our report!

How to add charts to your report?

How to add a date range selector:

The first thing to add to a report is a date range selector. It will let you choose the period for the data of the entire data set.

To add a control field on period, proceed like this:

• Click Add a Control in the shortcut bar.
• Select Date Range Control.
• Place the component in the report.

You can set a default date range, so your report always loads with the selected period. Check the only options in the configuration panel once the date range selector is clicked.

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How to add scorecards:

We can start adding scorecards to display our general results.

• Click on Add a chart.
• Select Scorecard
• Place it in the report.
• In the right panel: Select Spend under Metrics.

Add the comparison features :

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This display the total spend for your Pinterest Ads during the selected period.

You can add a style to this scorecard. Select the scorecard then:

• Click on Style in the header of the right panel.
• Change the font size to a bigger size.
• Center the title and value.
• Add border and radius.

Now that we have one scorecard styled, copy and paste it for every metric wanted. Then only change the metric used.

How to add tables?

Now let's break down our metrics by campaign and ad groups.

• Click on Add a Chart, then Table.
• Place it in the report.
• In the configuration panel, under Dimensions, choose Campaign name.
• Under Metrics, add all the metrics you want to break down by Campaign.

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We just configured the table, now check the Style menu to add some styles you like, then copy and paste the table and change the dimensions to the Ads name.

Tips: Right-click on the table and look for Resize column, then select the best options!

How to add a time series?

Time series are great for visualizing data over time; we will use the Date dimensions.

• Click Add a Chart, then Time series.
• Place it in the report.

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• In the right panel, under Dimensions, choose Date. In the Metrics, choose Spend.

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You now have the amount spent by day. You can add more metrics in this table, like the Total conversion value, to quickly check what you spend and earn.

How to add a dynamic filter?

You can add a dynamic filter to let viewers play with the data. You almost already know how to date if you set the date filter, as advised at the start of this tutorial.

To do so:

• Click Add a control. Select the Dropdown list. Place it in the report.
• Use the Campaign name in the dimension.

You can now dynamically filter your data in view mode! Try it by clicking the View button at the top right.