Your First 90 Days on Pinterest: What to Do and What to Expect
Most people come to Pinterest not realizing that it takes a lot longer to get data and see results from your content than it does on social media. The quietness of the first 90 days can feel unsettling and easily make you question if you’re doing the right thing. But that’s just how things work on Pinterest. And that’s because it’s a search engine platform, not a social feed. That means the way content gets indexed and shown in the feed is very different, and it’s actually a good thing.
In this blog post, I’ll break down a realistic 90-day roadmap of what to do and what to expect when you’re first starting out on Pinterest. That way, you won’t panic when you’re 90 days in and still not seeing the numbers you hoped for.
Your Pinterest 90-Day Roadmap at a Glance:
🛣️Days 1-30: It’s all about setup and routine building. This is your time to do keyword research, get your profile set up, and create and schedule pins to your blog posts. Set up your workflows and routines.
🛣️Days 31-60: This is your time to experiment. Create many different versions of graphics; try different keywords and content topics. Just post as much variety in your industry/focus topics as you can.
🛣️Days 61-90: Do more keyword research, dig into seasonal trends, map out important seasonal topics you’ll want to plan your content around. And keep on pinning.
🛣️Day 90: When you can finally look at your analytics to inform your content (yes, really, it takes at least this much time)
What Should You Do in Your First 30 Days on Pinterest?
The first 30 days are the time to build the foundation. You should be setting up your account, doing keyword research, determining your content pillars, and creating some pin graphic templates. Taking the time to get all this organized up front will save you a lot of time and ensure you create quality content.
It’s also a good time to audit the content you have on your website and make a list of any gaps you notice. As you do your keyword research, you’ll notice what topics perform best on Pinterest, and you’ll want to make note if you should create more blog posts around those topics. It’s helpful to create pins to a variety of content topics related to your industry, so map out how you’ll create pins for all the different topic types your blog posts already have.
You’ll also want to determine how many pins you plan to post each week. It’s really important to stick to a consistent strategy throughout the 90 days, so set a realistic pinning schedule you can manage.
First 30 Days Checklist
☑️ Set up your business account
☑️ Create pin graphic templates
☑️ Set your pinning schedule
☑️ Then start creating and scheduling your pins
What Should You Expect to See in Days 31-60 on Pinterest?
Honestly, you don’t see a lot of changes in this phase. But that doesn’t mean you should freak out or think that Pinterest “doesn’t work” for you. This is NORMAL!
Your content is still brand new and just starting to get indexed by Pinterest bots. It can feel discouraging because you’ve already been creating a lot of content by this point. But not seeing growth isn’t bad in this phase; it’s expected.
This is the “why does it feel like nothing is happening” phase, but it’s very important that you keep going. Keep pinning, keep building momentum, keep creating new blog content. The work you are doing to consistently pin in these months is going to pay off down the road. It can be hard to trust that, but it’s all part of the process. I actually advise clients not to even check analytics during this time.
Instead of stressing about analytics during this time, use it to experiment with your content without stressing. Try different graphic styles, keywords, and content topics. Test different pin copy structures and note the styles you’re using so you can easily identify them in analytics later.
Days 31-60 Checklist
☑️ Keep pinning consistently to a wide variety of topics
☑️ Don’t check your analytics
What Should You Do During Days 61-90 on Pinterest?
Keep on pinning. It’s still important to maintain a consistent pinning schedule during this phase. You should keep doing everything from days 31-60 and start planning next quarter’s content.
This is a great time to think about your content for months 3-6 of pinning. Do some research to find out if there are any seasonal trending keywords. Figure out what content makes the most sense to pin. It’s helpful to plan well in advance with Pinterest.
I still recommend not looking at analytics too often or focusing on it too much. By now, you’ll hopefully see some impression growth, but you need to give it the full three months before using the data to inform any future content planning.
Days 61-90 Checklist
☑️ Keep pinning consistently
☑️ Keyword research and seasonal trend research for next quarter
☑️ Don’t dive into analytics too deeply
What Happens By Day 90 on Pinterest?
After your first 90 days, you can start to pay attention to analytics. All that hard work of creating pins should be working its magic to get you impressions, saves, and clicks. You should start to see trends popping up with what’s gaining traction, and you can use that to inform what you create next.
It’s important to note that day 90 is just a checkpoint in the Pinterest journey, not a finish line. The pins will continue to gain more traction as the months go on, and you’ll be able to see more growth from the pins you created in the first 90 days well into the first year on Pinterest.
While Pinterest does take longer to see growth, the growth continues to compound for months and years down the road.
Why Does Pinterest Take Longer Than Instagram To Get Results?
Pinterest is a search-based, evergreen discovery platform. That means Pinterest is showing content to the user that they’re actually searching for. It’s meant to drive evergreen (and seasonal) traffic to your website all year round. Because this is how the platform is built, it takes longer for your content to be indexed and to build traction on the platform. But once it does, it continues to drive traffic to your website long after you posted.
Instagram is designed to be a social feed sharing relevant information for today. The content you’re seeing has been created in the last 24 hours (sometimes longer now that the algorithm has changed a bit). The content appears in more feeds as engagement increases. That’s the social element in action.
Because of how each platform is designed, users use them differently, too. Pinterest users are going to Pinterest to plan and dream for the future. They are pinning things that they want to come back to months from now for that party they’re planning or the home renovation they’re planning, etc.
They might save your pin first, then come back a few months later and click to your blog post, and then it could even be a little while longer before they click with the intent to purchase, depending on their planning process. While Instagram users are going to connect and see what’s happening currently. That means engagement will happen quicker, and you’ll see results sooner.
What Mistakes Slow Down Your Growth in the First 90 Days on Pinterest?
Just like you can do things to help boost your growth in the first 90 days on Pinterest, there’s also a few things you can do that can negatively impact your growth too, like:
Pinning inconsistently
Quitting after 30 days
Treating pins like Instagram posts (or only sharing Instagram posts directly to Pinterest)
Skipping keyword research
Expecting pins to go viral immediately
Changing up your strategy too often or too drastically
How Do You Know if Your Pinterest Strategy is Working After 90 Days?
This is where you reference your analytics to determine what’s working. It’s still the early phase of your growth, but you should start to see some numbers moving in the right direction that you can pay attention to in your planning.
What Impressions Mean For Your Pinterest Strategy
If your impressions are growing, it means your content is being shown to a wider audience. That’s a good sign that your Pinterest keywords and SEO are strong and aligned with what Pinterest users are searching for.
What Saves Mean For Your Pinterest Strategy
If saves are starting to happen, that means your content is valuable to your audience. They want to return to it later for inspiration, planning, or purchase. This is a good sign your content is resonating with your audience and answering a problem they are looking to solve.
What Outbound Clicks Mean For Your Pinterest Strategy
You may or may not see many outbound clicks in the first 90 days, but when you do, it means the Pinterest audience trusts you’re going to deliver the information or product they’re looking for. They are ready to implement or buy, and they chose to explore your content. For most businesses and creators, this is the number you want to see grow the most, but you need impressions and saves for that to happen.
What Top Performing Pins Can Tell You About Your Strategy
Top-performing pins help you identify which content is performing best. You can analyze the content topic, pin graphic style, and keywords you used to help determine what’s performing well in your content. Once you identify what’s working, you want to keep creating more content aligned with that content.
Pinterest Tips and Resources for Business Owners and Content Creators
When we look at the overall process of the first 90 days on Pinterest, we can see that it’s not slow in a bad way; it’s just how Pinterest is supposed to work. That slower start, when done right, pays off for months and months after you get started.
With the first 90 days under your belt, you’ll likely find that you’ve created a good system and you’ve built a strong foundation that will help you to continue creating content that builds momentum in your business.
If you’re looking for more Pinterest tips and resources, I’ve got them for you:
Download The Pinterest Keyword Starter Pack – a free guide to help you find the right keywords and keep them all in one (very) organized place.
Pinterest Content Audit – A personalized video audit that shows you exactly how your existing content translates to Pinterest — in 10 minutes or less.
If you’re starting your Pinterest account from scratch and feel a little overwhelmed, that’s why I offer a Pinterest Account Setup.
With the Account Setup, you get:
Pinterest profile optimization guidance
Board suggestions + trending topic ideas for your industry
Initial keyword research done for you
One week of pin titles + descriptions
5 starter pin templates
Content planning guidance based on your offers and content hub
All delivered to you in a PDF guide w/ a Loom video walkthrough
You’ll walk away knowing exactly what to post and why.