What are impressions on Pinterest?
Why is everyone freaking out about them?
Should I track them?
Why are they going down?
If you’re new to Pinterest, or struggling with low impressions on your account, you probably have a hundred questions about this metric in Pinterest analytics.
There is so much misinformation online from self proclaimed experts, Pinterest gurus and random bloggers with very little experience on the Pinterest platform.
In this article, I will cover everything you need to know about Impressions on Pinterest, and add my insights from using and growing traffic to blogs with Pinterest from the last 10 years.
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What are Impressions on Pinterest?
‘The number of times your Pins or ads were on screen.’ (source)
This is the official definition from Pinterest help pages, and has three important elements:
1. Single Load
This is where the impressions count comes from.
The impression counts a single full load on the screen as one impression. That means if you’re ranking for the same keyword with multiple pins, you’re automatically increasing your impressions.
I will explain what a single full load means further down the article.
2. Your + Other Pins
This is a little funny thing they don’t tend to mention – by your pins, Pinterest means the pins you pin to your account.
That means pins to your own website, but also third party repins leading to your website.
You should always use the filters to only check your own pin metrics, since you have no control of thrid party pins.
3. Not The Same As Views
Notice the lack of the word ‘seen’?
That’s right!
Impressions don’t actually mean that a real human has seen your pin.
It only means that the pin image was loaded on the screen, and that means even partially loaded somewhere at the bottom of the screen, completely out of sight.
Keep in mind that there are far more pins displayed on a desktop than on a mobile device, potentially offering more impressions without any user having to see the pin.
Here are examples of what would count as an impression, even though the graphic is not fully loaded on the screen:


What Are Impressions on Pinterest: The Full Picture
If you want to understand Pinterest impressions better, you need to dive deeper into the support and advertising documentation, which uncovers this full definition;
‘Pinterest counts an impression if at least one pixel of the Pin container appears on screen for at least one continuous second…..’
‘When one pixel of a Pin container becomes visible in the user’s device we record an impression and set a start time. Once one pixel of the Pin container is no longer visible, the end time is set for the impression. The start and end times are used to determine if the impression has been on screen for at least one continuous second, and is thus counted…. ‘ (source)
I know this is pretty technical, but they need to accurately define impressions for one important reason – advertising.
Pinterest wants people not only to spend time on the platform but also to buy products from the platform. To attract advertisers, they need to offer accurate reporting tools.
Now you might wonder: why should you care? why does it matter?
I will get to that later in the article, but first, it will help you to understand Pinterest impressions when you compare it with other platforms.
Impressions on Pinterest vs Other Platforms
I think it’s important to distinguish how impressions are defined on Pinterest vs. other platforms like Facebook.
In Facebook, impressions are defined as the number of times your content was viewed on a user’s timeline or audience network.
Notice the difference?
On Pinterest, nobody has to see the content, and it will still count as an impression, while on Facebook, a real human has to see the content before it counts as an impression.
Why is it important?
Paid ads.
All platforms use impressions as one of the metrics to determine your campaign and advertising ROI, so Pinterest had to come up with the best version available.
Are Pinterest Impressions Important?
Yes and no.
They are important for tracking your Pinterest SEO efforts, to see if your keyword strategy works and if your content is displayed for users.
They are not the most important metric on Pinterest.
Impressions only give you a part of the picture and you should not consider them in isolation.
Many bloggers freak out when they see their impressions drop, or get very low impression numbers on their new pins.
If you’re one of them, you shouldn’t freak out.
Low impressions are not necessarily a bad thing – in many cases, they are actually good, if your content is getting good engagement, as that will dramatically improve the quality of your account.
Should You Focus on Increasing Pinterest Impressions?
It shouldn’t be your top priority.
As I mentioned, they are not the most important metric on Pinterest, and they only give you a part of the picture.
On top of that, they are very easy to artificially inflate, for example by joining multiple group boards.
You should pay attention to them if you see a big drop in impressions or notice that your new pins are not getting double digit impressions in one to two weeks.
Low impressions can indicate potential issues with your account, such as getting caught up in the spam filter.
How to Track Pinterest Impressions
The best place to track Pinterest impressions is in your Pinterest analytics account.
To get access to analytics, you need to convert your account to a Business Account.
There are a few places where you can check your Pinterest impressions and a few filters you should use to get the full picture of how your content performs.
1. Pinterest Impressions Overview
When you get to your analytics dashboard, you will see a timeline chart showing your account impressions in the last 30 days.
Here are a few things you should know about this data:
- it includes impressions for organic and paid content
- it includes impressions on content that has been repinned from your account
- it includes impressions on third-party content pinned to your account
- it includes data on pins, video pins, and product pins
That’s quite a mess, isn’t it?
To get an accurate picture of the impressions on your own content only, you will need to apply a few filters, as illustrated in the graphic below.
Using these filters will ensure you will only see content for your own website, and only static image pins.
I won’t go into details about why video or idea pins don’t matter, that’s for another blog article. When it comes to impressions, you should only worry about your static pin images.


2. Top Boards by Impressions
I use board impressions in my monthly reporting sheets, as it helps me understand which content is best optimized for SEO, since it’s getting most served in the results and to individual users.
It’s a useful thing to keep in mind when doing your content plan, especially if you cross-reference it with outbound clicks for the same boards.
You can also use the date range bar at the top to check the trends for your boards in the period of 6 and 12 months. The board impressions you see in your analytics are last 30 days by default.
You should also analyze your board performance when planning content ahead – check what content performs best in the winter months, and add more of those topics to your content schedule 3 to 6 months ahead of the peak time.
How about group boards?
I tend to leave them out of my analysis as you have no control over the board SEO optimization.
If there are a few that drive clicks to your site, by all means, don’t ingore them, but focus mostly on your own boards.
3. Individual PIN Impressions
In addition to overall account impressions, you can also check impressions on your individual pins.
Simply click on any pin image and the analytics will be displayed on the top.
When you select to see more stats, you can see the performance of the image over time, and also the boards to which it’s been saved to.
How is this useful?
Sometimes reviewing this data gives you an indication of content seasonality, or you might spot patterns that will inform your content strategy.
You will also quickly identify if a pin has gone viral by looking at the individual timeline for the pin image.


4. Top PINs by Impressions
Further down the analytics dashboard, you will find a list of your pins, which you can sort by pins posted in the last 30 days.
If you check the performance in the last 30 days, you can spot content that gets traction really quickly, and on the other hand, content that falls flat.
It’s useful to do this exercise once a month to track the performance of your content and make adjustments to your content plan.
How Many Impressions Is Good on Pinterest?
That totally depends on your niche, how old your account is, how seasonal your account is and other factors.
I have covered this in detail in this article and included examples from my own accounts.
Why are my Impressions Going Down?
This can be due to several reasons:
- content seasonality
- Pinterest spam filter
- algorithm update
- your posting frequency is off
- your content has been outperformed by competitors
How to Increase Pinterest Impressions?
The best way to increase your Pinterest impressions is by using up to date Pinterest SEO methods, posting frequently and following the best practice guidelines.
I will cover each of these shortly here:
1. Pinterest SEO
Pinterest SEO means optimizing your account, boards and pins to make sure your content can be discovered and served by Pinterest.
Pinterest is a search engine, and in many ways works like Google – you need to use your keywords and do proper keyword research if you want to make sure your content is displayed for users.
Check my free course linked below which will help you to get the basics covered.
2. Posting Frequency
Keyword research, together with consistency, is the secret sauce to success with Pinterest.
If you want to get stable traffic from your account, you need to make sure you post at least one pin per day, ideally more than that.
If you have a new account, you need to start slow and steady, just one or two pins per day, and over time you can scale up to 10 to 20 pins per day.
3. Best Practice Guidelines
These include, but are not limited to:
- using great quality original images
- posting mainly fresh pins (99% of the time)
- not posting a pin to the same url in short period of time (same day)
- using text overlay on your images
- not stuffing keywords into your content
- follow Pinterest community guidelines
Need to Learn More?
If you want to learn more about success on Pinterest, I created a free simple mini course that will teach you everything you need to know about the platform.
Key Takeaways
Impressions on Pinterest are not the most important metric to focus on, but you should pay attention to them if you see a sudden drop in your impressions or you’re not getting decent impressions on your new pins.
Impressions on Pinterest are defined as the number of times your pins were on screen, and that’s at least one pixel loaded for one continuous second.
There are a number of Pinterest analytics metrics you can check and use them to inform your content strategy.
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