You’ve heard about selling on Pinterest…
And you’ve heard of being verified on Pinterest....
But have you heard of selling as a verified merchant on Pinterest?
As a response to what Pinterest calls “an unprecedented change in modern retail,” Pinterest recently unveiled its Verified Merchant program.
What is Pinterest’s Verified Merchant Program?
Pinterest’s Verified Merchant program helps people on Pinterest discover and buy from manually vetted brands. If accepted into the program, your Pins may appear organically to people who are searching for products and shopping on Pinterest.
It’s free to join and makes your brand stand out. All eligible businesses are encouraged to apply.
“As consumers shift their spending to online channels, brands should inspire Pinners and create a shopping experience that feels more like ‘real life,’ bringing a sense of normalcy and delight to challenging times.” - Pinterest
Not to be confused with regular Pinterest verification – which validates all sorts of celebrity, media, or brand accounts – merchant verification is a focused effort to legitimize established merchants and brands as well as the products they sell.
Verified merchant benefits:
- An exclusive badge on your profile and Pins that lets people know you’ve been vetted.
- Early access to Pinterest’s Conversion Insights tool, which measures the total sales impact of paid and organic Pins.
- A Shop tab on your profile that houses all of your shoppable products in one, easy-to-find place.
- Eligibility for distribution of your products within Pinterest shopping experiences.
Verified merchant requirements
Here’s what you need to do before applying:
1. Connect your catalog
First and foremost, you’ll need to connect your product catalog, and at least 50% of your products have to be ingested successfully.
Having a basic catalog and connecting it is easy enough, but ongoing product data optimization can very quickly become a daunting task. This where a catalog manager like GoDataFeed shines.
2. Install the Pinterest tag on your site
Measure the impact Pinterest is having on your business, by installing the Pinterest tag.
You need to have a tag set up so that it can track key conversion events and return high quality data on shopping-related events. You’ll need to make sure:
- Your tag fires whenever a Page Visit, Add to Cart or Checkout event occurs
- Your tag fires at least one Page Visit, Add to Cart and Checkout event every 7 days
- Your checkout events have parsable, positive $ values with valid currency code
- Your product IDs send in each of your tag events match product IDs in your catalog
Pinterest recommends using enhanced match and installing the JavaScript Tag instead of the Image Tag. This allows you to see more conversions by tracking website actions when there’s no Pinterest cookie present.
3. Meet Merchant Guidelines
To verify your account, Pinterest makes sure that you have clearly-stated policies, don’t see prohibited products, and aren’t a spammer or dropshipper. You’ll have to meet all Pinterest Merchant Guidelines.
Any verified merchant who doesn’t have an active catalog or functioning tag will have 30 days to meet requirements before being removed from the program. Those who don’t meet the guidelines will be removed immediately.
Applying to be a verified merchant
If you're in the US and you meet these requirements, you can apply to join the Verified Merchant Program here.
If you’re not in the US, you should be able to apply later this year.
