Performance+
Pinterest Performance+ Campaigns: How They Work and When to Use Them
Key takeaways
- Performance+ automates bidding, most targeting, and parts of creative. It is available for the Consideration, Leads, and Sales objectives.
- It works best with clean conversion data, enough weekly conversions, and a deep creative library.
- Pinterest says the learning indicator takes about two weeks on average to disappear. Avoid editing ads or budget before then.
- Test it against your manual structure with a clear success metric instead of switching everything at once.
Every major ad platform now pushes automation. On Meta it is Advantage+, on Google it is Performance Max, and on Pinterest it is Performance+. The promise is similar: fewer settings, faster setup, and a delivery system that finds buyers for you.
The promise holds when the inputs are good. This guide explains what Performance+ automates, what you still control, when it tends to work, and how to test it without handing over your whole account on day one.
What Performance+ is
Pinterest Performance+ is a set of automated campaign features. You create a campaign with a simpler setup, and Pinterest’s system handles much of the optimization. According to Pinterest, it is available for the Consideration, Leads, and Sales objectives.
What is automated and what you control
| Area | In Performance+ | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Bidding | Automated with Performance+ bidding | No manual bids; your budget and conversion goal drive delivery |
| Targeting | Country, simplified age targeting, and customer lists to include or exclude | No interest, keyword, or language targeting |
| Creative | For Sales campaigns, optional AI image backgrounds, resizing, and creative optimizations that build collections and shopping ads from your catalog | Your images, catalog quality, and product feed matter more than ever |
| Budget | You set it | The main lever you keep, along with creative and exclusions |
In short, you trade targeting control for scale and speed. What you feed the system (conversion data, creative, catalog) becomes the main way to steer it.
What Pinterest recommends
Pinterest’s own guidance for Performance+ includes a few concrete numbers:
- Budget: an investment of about five times your cost-per-acquisition goal.
- Conversion volume: more than 50 conversion events per week for Leads and Sales campaigns.
- Creative volume: at least 10 ads per ad group, and more is better.
- Patience: wait for the learning indicator to disappear before changing ads or budget. Pinterest says this takes about two weeks on average, depending on spend, conversions, and engagement.
These numbers explain most of the disappointing Performance+ tests we see: budgets well below the guidance, a handful of ads, and edits in the first week.
When Performance+ tends to work
- Your tracking is reliable. The purchase event fires once per order with value and product IDs, and browser and server events are deduplicated.
- You have conversion volume, or you can optimize toward a higher-volume event while purchases build.
- Your catalog is clean, with descriptive titles, accurate prices, and good images.
- You can supply creative. Ten or more ads per ad group, refreshed as they fatigue.
- Your goal is broad. You want to find new buyers across the country rather than reach one narrow audience.
When to keep manual control
- Tracking is broken or unverified. Automation optimizes toward whatever signal it receives, including a wrong one.
- You need keyword or interest control, for example to test a new category theme or protect a seasonal message.
- Volume is very low. A few purchases per week rarely gives the system enough to learn.
- You need clean learnings. Manual campaigns make it easier to see which theme, audience, or creative drove a result.
Many accounts end up with a mix: Performance+ for broad prospecting and catalog, manual campaigns for keyword themes and tests.
How to test Performance+ properly
- Fix tracking first. Verify purchase events with a test order and check deduplication. Our Shopify tracking guide covers the steps.
- Define one success metric before launch, such as cost per purchase within an agreed attribution window, or new customer cost measured in Shopify.
- Give it a fair budget, close to Pinterest’s five-times-CPA guidance, and a fixed test period of at least four weeks.
- Load enough creative: at least 10 ads, mixing lifestyle images, product shots, and video if you have it.
- Exclude recent buyers with a customer list if your goal is new customers.
- Do not touch it during learning. No budget swings, no creative swaps, no pauses.
- Compare against your manual structure over the same period, and check total store results, not only platform-reported numbers.
Reading the results
Automated campaigns can look strong in platform reports because they find people already close to buying, including existing customers. Two checks keep you honest:
- New versus returning customers. If most attributed purchases come from existing customers, the campaign may be capturing demand you already had.
- Total store trends. When Performance+ spend increases, does total revenue follow? If not, the attributed results may be overlapping with other channels.
For larger budgets, a holdout test gives the clearest answer about incremental impact.
Common mistakes
- Launching Performance+ on a tag that double-counts purchases
- Starting with three or four ads instead of ten or more
- Setting a budget far below the recommended investment, then judging results after a week
- Editing the campaign daily during the learning phase
- Reading platform ROAS without looking at new customers or total revenue
With clean data and strong creative, Performance+ can save setup time and help you scale. On a shaky foundation, it scales the wrong things faster. If you want help deciding where it fits in your account, our Pinterest ads management team tests it account by account. Start with our complete guide to Pinterest ads if you are new to the channel.
Frequently asked questions
Is Performance+ better than manual campaigns?
It depends on your data, volume, and creative. With reliable tracking and enough conversions, it often simplifies scaling. With weak data or low volume, manual campaigns usually give more control and clearer learnings.
Can I use keywords with Performance+?
No. According to Pinterest, Performance+ campaigns do not support interest, keyword, or language targeting. Targeting is limited to country, simplified age targeting, and customer lists.
How long does the learning phase last?
Pinterest says the learning indicator takes about two weeks on average to disappear, and the exact time depends on spend, conversions, and engagement.
Does Performance+ work with a product catalog?
Yes. For Sales campaigns, creative optimizations can build collections and shopping ads from your catalog, which is why feed quality matters.
Aurélien · Founder of Scalypin
Aurélien founded Scalypin to help e-commerce brands turn Pinterest into a measurable acquisition channel. He has launched e-commerce brands of his own and has worked hands-on across Pinterest advertising, creative strategy, conversion tracking, and store optimization.
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