A rich snippet is basically a HTML markup that adds extra detail to the text underneath the URL in a search result. 

Google has a favoured HTML markup called Schema. Schema markup gives webmasters all kinds of options to make their site’s listing on a search engine results page (SERP) look all snazzy and relevant to your business or service. If you want to know more about this check out What is Schema markup and why you should use it?

Rich Pins don’t offer quite as many options as Schema markup but there’s certainly a lot for marketers to begin with and adding metadata to your pinnable content is definitely helping drive referrals. 

According to Get Elastic one study found Pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without. Target saw a 70% increase Pinterest referrals after enabling Rich Pins.

Product pins

Here are some products featured on a ‘Products we love’ board. If you click on the image below you’ll see these are all Rich Pins.

This rucksack from ASOS clearly features the current price, the original price it has dropped down from, whether it’s in stock and a number of links directly to the item’s product page.

The best reason for using rich pins

Pin dropping! 

Any Pinterest user who has pinned your product will be notified by email when the price of that product drops. It doesn’t matter if the user has never visited you site or signed up to your email marketing, they will still receive this product specific email.

This is directly targeted email marketing that you can completely trust to deliver a personalised message about a product you know the consumer is definitely interested in with a genuinely tempting offer.

According to Get Elastic, many retailers like ModCloth, Walmart and Target are also using the Pinterest API as an alternative to a wishlist.

They believe that social emails have a higher open rate than retail emails (another useful note: Gmail users receive pin drop emails in their social inbox, rather than the promotions one). The user also doesn’t not have to create an account with the retailer, which can certainly be a barrier.

Rich Pins aren’t just for products

There are five types of Rich Pins: movie, recipe, article, place and course product.

  • Place Pins include a map, address, and phone number.
  • Article Pins include headline, author and story description. 
  • Recipe Pins include ingredients, cooking times and serving information.
  • Movie Pins include ratings, cast members and reviews.

Using Rich Pins

Decide what kind of Rich Pin you want to use, read the documentation for your Rich Pin type (Pinterest supports two methods of information collection, oEmbed and semantic markup such as the aforementioned Schema markup and Open Graph.), add the appropriate metatags to your site and finally validate your Rich Pins to see them working.

Easier said than done I’m sure you’ll agree, however if you head over to the Pinterest Developers page, there is a much more detailed explanation that tells you all the HTML you need to know. 

Further reading…

For more on Pinterest from the blog check-out:

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