How to Add Rich Pins and Tracking Links to Scheduled Pins

Step by step

1. 1

   Build your UTM-tagged destination URL before you open the pin composer

   Open the free SocialKit UTM builder at /tools/utm-builder. Set the campaign source to "pinterest", the medium to "social", and give the campaign a descriptive name that matches the content batch (for example, "spring-sale-2026" or "recipe-roundup-june"). Copy the generated URL — it will look like https://yoursite.com/page?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring-sale-2026. Using UTM parameters on every pin means that when a user clicks through, Google Analytics 4 logs the session under the Pinterest / social channel with the exact campaign name, letting you compare Pinterest-driven revenue or events against other channels.

   Tip: Create a naming convention for your utm_campaign values and stick to it — inconsistent naming (e.g. "spring_sale" vs "SpringSale" vs "spring-sale") fragments your GA4 reports and makes comparisons unreliable.

2. 2

   Open the SocialKit composer and select your Pinterest account

   In SocialKit, create a new post and select your connected Pinterest Business account as the destination. If you have not yet connected Pinterest, go to your workspace settings, choose Pinterest from the platform list, and authorize via Pinterest's OAuth screen — you are redirected to Pinterest's own login rather than entering credentials into SocialKit. As of June 2026, SocialKit publishes standard image pins and video pins via the Pinterest API; connecting requires a Business account.

3. 3

   Upload your pin image or video and write the title and description

   Upload your pin image (recommended 1000 × 1500 px at 2:3 aspect ratio for standard pins — the /sizes/pinterest-pin-size page lists the current verified specs) or a video file for a video pin. Write a pin title (up to 100 characters as of June 2026) and a description (up to 500 characters). Pinterest's algorithm uses both the title and description for keyword matching in its search and discovery surfaces, so include the core keyword phrase naturally in the first sentence of the description rather than stuffing tags at the end.

   Tip: If you have Rich Pins enabled for the destination page (steps 5–7 below), Pinterest may supplement or override the pin description with text pulled from your page's meta description tag. Write both with the reader in mind — the on-pin description and the page meta description should reinforce each other.

4. 4

   Paste your UTM-tagged URL into the destination link field

   In the SocialKit pin composer, find the destination link field (sometimes labelled "Pin URL" or "Link") and paste the full UTM-tagged URL you built in step 1. SocialKit preserves the URL as-is when it publishes to the Pinterest API — the parameters are not stripped or modified. Verify the full URL is present in the field before scheduling, because a missing or truncated link turns your pin into a dead-end that drives no GA4 data.

   Tip: If you use a URL shortener for tracking, note that Pinterest may display the shortener domain rather than your brand domain in the pin UI. Some brands prefer to keep the full UTM URL and rely on GA4 for attribution rather than using shorteners, since a recognisable domain can improve click-through confidence.

5. 5

   Select a board, choose a best-time slot, and schedule

   Select the target Pinterest board from the dropdown in the composer. You must assign a board at schedule time — there is no "board-later" option via the API as of June 2026. Then pick a date and time: use the /best-time-to-post/pinterest data as a starting point (broadly, early evenings and weekends tend to see higher engagement for lifestyle and product content, but your own Pinterest Analytics audience activity graph is the most reliable signal). SocialKit can also suggest optimal slots based on engagement patterns. Confirm all fields — image, title, description, destination link, board, and schedule time — then click schedule. SocialKit auto-publishes the pin via the Pinterest API at the chosen time.

6. 6

   Verify your destination page has Open Graph or schema.org metadata

   Rich Pins pull their data from structured metadata on the destination URL. For article/blog Rich Pins, the page needs at minimum: og:title, og:description, og:image, and og:url Open Graph tags in the <head>. For product Rich Pins: og:type set to "product", plus price, availability, and either og:price:amount or schema.org/Product markup. Most modern CMS platforms (WordPress with Yoast/RankMath, Shopify, Squarespace) populate these tags automatically. To check, paste your destination URL into a browser and use the Facebook Sharing Debugger or a meta-tag inspector to confirm the tags are present and populated with the correct content.

   Tip: If og:image is missing or points to a broken URL, the Rich Pin will fall back to the uploaded pin image. Always use an og:image of at least 600 × 315 px to meet Pinterest's minimum as of June 2026.

7. 7

   Validate Rich Pins for your domain in the Pinterest Rich Pins validator

   Go to developers.pinterest.com/tools/url-debugger (the Pinterest URL debugger / Rich Pins validator, as of June 2026 — check current Pinterest developer documentation if the URL has moved). Enter one of your destination page URLs and click "Validate". Pinterest reads the Open Graph or schema.org tags on that page and confirms whether your domain's pins are eligible for Rich Pin status. If validation passes, Pinterest applies Rich Pins retroactively to all existing pins pointing to your domain within approximately 24 hours. You only need to validate once per domain, not once per pin — subsequent pins to any page on that domain will automatically display as Rich Pins.

   Tip: Rich Pin validation is a domain-level setting. If your pins point to multiple domains (e.g. yourstore.com and yourblog.com), you need to validate each domain separately.

8. 8

   Check GA4 and Pinterest Analytics to confirm attribution is working

   Within 24–48 hours of your first scheduled pin going live, open GA4 and navigate to Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. Filter by Session source / medium = "pinterest / social" and confirm sessions are appearing under the campaign name you set. Then open Pinterest Analytics > Audience Insights and check the outbound click data for the pin to verify the link is firing. If the GA4 data shows "pinterest / (not set)" or the campaign is missing, the UTM parameters were not preserved — recheck the destination link field in SocialKit or look for a URL-wrapping layer (some Pinterest boards auto-wrap links, which can strip query parameters; test by clicking the live pin yourself and inspecting the destination URL in your browser's address bar).

Best practices

• Use UTM parameters on every single pin link, not just campaign content — even evergreen pins to your homepage or top blog posts should be tagged so you can see the cumulative Pinterest contribution in GA4 over time.
• Keep utm_source="pinterest" and utm_medium="social" consistent across all pins; vary only utm_campaign (and optionally utm_content for A/B testing different images on the same URL) to keep reports clean.
• Validate Rich Pins for your domain once, then focus your ongoing effort on the og:title and og:description quality on each destination page — these are the fields Pinterest uses to generate the auto-populated text, and a weak meta description becomes the pin description.
• Audit your destination URLs before scheduling a content batch: broken or redirected links waste the entire click-attribution chain. A quick status-code check on each URL before you paste it into SocialKit catches these before the pin goes live.
• Check the /best-time-to-post/pinterest data as a starting point for scheduling windows, but validate against your own Pinterest Analytics audience activity graph monthly — Pinterest audiences vary significantly by niche and geography.
• After publishing, save pin performance data alongside the UTM campaign name in your content calendar so you can replicate the best-performing destination/link combinations in future batches.

Good to know

Do it in SocialKit