The Definitive List of Metrics and Analytics Tools for Pinterest

The following list is a collection of, what I believe, are the most useful Metrics and Analytics tools available for Pinterest. I hesitate to choose one that is superior to the others because each of them differs in purpose and functionality. This list is intended to help you choose one (or two) that fits your specific Pinterest marketing strategy. The first step is to determine what it is you hope to achieve through running analytics for Pinterest. The ultimate goal of course is always going to be to facilitate your marketing campaigns. In the case of content, Analytics can help to pinpoint what content is resonating with your audience; how viewers or potential customers are engaging with your website and Pinterest pins. Although the tools on this list are primarily concerned with those considerations, it is also helpful to understand how those considerations can branch off into SEO and even CRO. Through the use of these tools you can discover what types of content are popular, look for opportunities in expanding your social reach, track conversions, measure the ROI available on Pinterest and unearth new audiences. This article will be written in a way that highlights these objectives so you can better envision how the various tools can assist and even transform your marketing strategy. One last thing before reading through the list – since this article is focused specifically on Analytics for Pinterest it is important to know what kinds of metrics data you should be looking for. A few of the simple things are:

Clicks per pin:: Being up to date with this metric can help to uncover what content and which strategies are working.

Re-pins per Pin:: A study by RJMetrics shows that over 80% of all pins on Pinterest are re-pins; this fact in itself justifies why following Re-pins should be a priority. Expanding brand presence is one of the central pillars of marketing and knowing how to create shareable content is key to that enterprise.

Average Visit Duration:: The relevance of this particular metric is essentially analogous to the last one. It is easy to understand why longer visits tend to translate better into conversions; the purpose here is once again to figure out how to expand brand awareness.

Now without further ado here is the list.

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is of course the standard option when it comes to analytics. First off, before moving on to the other entries on this list it is important to understand what exactly Google Analytics brings to the table. There are essentially four ways to measure Pinterest using Google Analytics:

Referral reports:: Determine the number of visitors coming to your site from Pinterest.

Customs Reports:: Custom reports simply allow you to isolate specific information.

Dashboards:: Dashboards in Google Analytics provide high-level, end-to-end data of your site activities. Information is included in the dashboard in the form of widgets.

Multi-Channel Funnels:: The Standard reports in Google Analytics use last click attribution, which means Pinterest only gets credit for the conversion if it happens to be the last source of the visit that converts. To better assess how many conversions can be attributed to Pinterest review Multi-Channel reports.

Pinterest Web Analytics:

Recently, Pinterest has released Pinterest Web Analytics. Pinterest Web analytics is available for free to Pinterest Business users with a verified website address (another good reason to set up a Pinterest business account and verify your website). Pinterest Web Analytics can collect a range of data connected to your Pinterest account. Access the site metrics tab to retrieve the following data:

Which content has been pinned directly from your website
Number of unique visitors who have pinned content from your website
Which of your pins have been repinned
Number of unique visitors who have repinned your pins
Number of times your pins have appeared in search results across multiple platforms, including the desktop Pinterest site, Android or iOSNumber of unique visitors who have repinned your pins
Number of unique visitors who saw your pins on given dates
Number of users who have visited your site through Pinterest
The number of times users have clicked on your website
The changes in your statistics between periods

There is also the capability to export data as a CSV file and sort through it at a later time through alternate means. This service will surely serve as the standard option for many pinterest users as it is conveniently housed within the same platform. On the other hand, as will become evident in some of the later entries, there are other options that are more robust in the sense that they can better manage data collected from a wider range of sources and so can better assess your cross platform social marketing strategy.

Pinalytics:

Pinalytics allows you to find, track and evaluate pins and content. Pinalytics isn’t just limited to activity within Pinterest. Because Pinalytics is able to track the original content source, it can also provide details of how a particular piece of content has performed outside of Pinterest. It can trace the spread of pins through a number of social media sites such as facebook, twitter and google+. Although Pinalytics has a wider range of capabilities when it comes to the matter of tracking original content, it operates in a completely different manner than Pinterest Web Analytics. Pinalytics works by running searches on pins, boards and users (think back to the key metrics data list in the introduction of this article) – which reveals data on those subjects with the option of running analytics (for members) through an integration with Google Analytics The nice thing for interested users is that Pinalytics doesn’t require an account if you want to give it a test run. For non-members, a search will return up to five results. For those who log in as members, Pinalytics will return up to 50 results. There is the option of sorting search results by performance on Facebook, Twitter and various other networks Pinalytics is not limited to tracking returns; it is also useful for getting a handle on trends and creating social connections and opportunities.

Cyfe:

Cyfe is a great all in one solution to Social Media Metrics and Analytics in the form of a dashboard that allows you to moniter data (in real time) from a variety of online services, including: AdSense, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Facebook, WordPress and of course Pinterest. Aside from analytics the dashboard also displays new messages and other activity – All in a single place so you won’t have to keep a large number of browser windows open at a time. To use Cyfe for Pinterest, all you have to do is add a Pinterest widget to the dashboard. This will allow you to track and measure your marketing campaigns. The widget tracks pins, boards, likes, followers etc. Cyfe offers its basic version for free as well as a number of paid alternatives with extra features. Cyfe is a great one stop option to monitoring your social media networks. However, the cyfe dashboard is less robust when it comes to Pinterest specific Analytics than some of the other entries on this list.

WP Pinner:

Continuing the trend of applications that go beyond Analytics, WP Pinner is a WordPress plugin dashboard that allows you to manage your entire Pinterest account. For a WordPress plugin the functionality of WP Pinner is quite extensive. According to wppinner.com the plugin functions include: scheduled pins, auto-pin wordpress posts, auto-follow pinterest users aswell as analytics capabilities. The idea behind the dashboard, according to the developers, is to be able to get more out of Pinterest while not having to spend as much time on the site. free access to WP Pinner beta can be found at wppinner.com.

Honorable mention, Repinly:

I include Repinly only as an honorable mention because strictly speaking Repinly isn’t a metrics and analytics service. Instead, Repinly is a directory that helps you to pinpoint the most popular content on Pinterest. The Popular tab on the Pinterest home feed page will give you a selection of popular pins, Repinly on the other hand actually sorts the pins by popularity. Repinly is basically a simple and easy to use market research tool. There is also an interesting and informative stats page on the site that reveals the most popular categories and top pinning sources among other things. The entries on this list were selected in an effort to showcase a variety of approaches to measuring Pinterest for Business. I can only hope that this list will make life easier for you rather than induce the burden of indecisiveness.

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