Pinterest ads: a practical guide to advertising the right way from Saudi Arabia

Pinterest isn't TikTok or Snapchat. People don't open it to be entertained or to talk to friends; they open it to find an idea: a living room design, an outfit for an occasion, a recipe for guests, a party setup. That's where Pinterest ads earn their place: your ad shows up as a Pin among the results the person is already looking for, so it sits closer to the buying decision than an ad that interrupts a video.

This guide walks you through it step by step: opening the account from Saudi Arabia, preparing measurement, choosing the objective, targeting and format, designing the promoted Pin, and the mistakes that waste budget. For the full picture across platforms, read our digital advertising guide for Saudi Arabia.

Are Pinterest ads available in Saudi Arabia?

Yes, but it works differently from Meta and TikTok. The Pinterest Help Center splits countries into two groups: countries where advertisers open their ad account directly with Pinterest, and countries where advertising runs through an authorized partner. Saudi Arabia is in the second group, along with the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Egypt.

The authorized partner in the region is DMS, part of the Choueiri Group. Pinterest announced the partnership to expand its ad solutions across the Middle East and North Africa, and the contact details are on the "Ads overview" page of the Pinterest Help Center.

Three points matter before you start:

• Targeting inside Saudi Arabia is available. You can target Saudi Arabia as a country, and go down to region or postal code. Metro targeting isn't available for Saudi Arabia.
• The country you pick the first time sets your billing currency, and it can't be changed later. Confirm it with the partner before the account is opened.
• Catalog shopping ads aren't available in every market, so ask about them before you build your plan on them.

When is Pinterest a good fit?

Pinterest is a visual search platform, and people save ideas to boards and come back to them. That makes it a good fit for products and services customers choose by eye and plan before they buy:

• Fashion, abayas and accessories. We covered the photography side in our article on marketing abayas.
• Furniture, decor and interior design.
• Food, desserts and hospitality.
• Weddings, occasions and gifts.
• Travel, tourism and hotels.
• Beauty and personal care.

If your product is a quick decision with no planning, or a service that's hard to show in a picture, you'll usually get clearer results on Google or the social platforms. Before you set an amount, read how much ad budget do you need.

Set up before your first campaign

Most weak Pinterest campaigns start with incomplete setup. Before you spend anything, finish these steps:

1. Business account: your Pinterest account must be a business account, not a personal one.
2. Claim your website: claim your domain in the account settings, so Pinterest can attribute Pins from your site to you.
3. Public Pins on public boards: a Pin you want to promote must be saved to your profile on a public board and have a destination link.
4. Pinterest tag: install it on your site before the campaign, to measure results and build audiences from your site visitors. Installation is done from a computer, not a phone.
5. Catalog (for stores): if you want shopping ads, upload your product file, and make sure prices and availability in it match the store.

If your store runs on Salla, there's an official Pinterest app in the Salla app store: copy the Tag ID from your Pinterest account and paste it into the app. If you're still choosing a platform, compare them in Salla, Zid or WooCommerce.

Choose the right campaign objective

On Pinterest, the objective sets how you bid in the ad auction and which formats you can use. Pinterest renamed its objectives in 2026, and there are now five:

For every objective you can let Pinterest manage bids automatically with Performance+, or set them yourself: a maximum CPM for awareness, a maximum CPC for consideration, and a target CPA for leads and sales. Video completion is the only objective that offers Performance+ alone.

The simple rule: don't choose Leads or Sales if your tag isn't sending correct events, because the system learns from the events it receives. If you don't have enough events yet, start with Consideration, drive visits to strong pages, and move to conversion objectives after that.

Targeting: keywords, interests and audiences

Pinterest's advantage is that people type what they want into search. So its targeting combines Google's logic with the social platforms' logic:

• Keywords: pick the terms your audience searches for, and exclude the ones that aren't about you. This is the closest you get to purchase intent.
• Interests: broad topics such as decor or fashion, suited to awareness campaigns.
• Audiences: your customer lists, your site visitors through the tag, or people who engaged with your Pins.
• Actalike audiences: new people whose behavior resembles an audience you already have.
• Demographics: gender, age, location, language and device.
• Performance+: expands reach automatically to people searching for or interested in topics close to your targeting.

Our advice: keep keyword campaigns separate from interest campaigns, so you know what drove the result. And write your keywords in both Arabic and English, because your audience may search in either.

Ad formats and specs

The vertical Pin is the heart of Pinterest, and the recommended image ratio is 2:3, which is 1000 × 1500 pixels. These are the main formats according to the Pinterest Help Center:

In every format you can write a title of up to 100 characters, but only about the first 40 show in the feed, so put what matters at the start. The description doesn't show on the ad itself, but Pinterest uses it to understand who to show the ad to, so write it with clear words your customer searches for.

How to design a promoted Pin that works

An ad on Pinterest competes with beautiful organic Pins, so it has to be useful and look like the content around it:

• A sharp, vertical image: Pinterest's policies reject fuzzy, blurry or grainy images.
• The product in context: the whole living room rather than the sofa on its own; the abaya worn at an occasion rather than on a white background.
• Little text on the image: the policies don't allow images overly busy with text, and suggest no more than two font styles or colors.
• No misleading curiosity: withholding information to get the click counts as clickbait and isn't allowed.
• A landing page that matches the ad: if you advertise a product, it must be on the page that opens, and the page must not have pop-up ads or automatic downloads. More in our article on landing pages for ads.
• Several versions: prepare 3 to 5 designs per ad group, and let the results tell you which one deserves more budget.

Measurement: the Pinterest tag and the Conversions API

The Pinterest tag is the code that measures what people do on your site after they see your ad. It supports standard events; the most important are:

• pagevisit for a key page view, and viewcategory for a category page.
• addtocart for adding to cart, and checkout for a completed purchase.
• lead for expressing interest, and signup for registration.
• search for searching your site.

There are other standard events too, such as Contact and Schedule, if your business runs on conversations or bookings rather than purchases.

Alongside the tag you can add the Conversions API, which sends events from your server. When you use both, send the same event_id from each so the event isn't counted twice. We explain how in detail in our guide to the pixel and server setup.

Pinterest rates your data with an Event quality score: Good, Fair or Needs improvement. The inputs that raise it most:

• IP address and user agent.
• A stable external ID for the customer.
• Email with checkout and sign-up events.
• Less duplication of events between the tag and the server.

Before you rely on the numbers, check the Test Events page in Ads Manager, and the Deduplication tab on the Events Overview page.

Pinterest ad policies in Saudi Arabia

Pinterest's advertising guidelines have a section for Saudi Arabia:

• Not allowed: alcohol and brick-and-mortar casinos.
• Allowed with restrictions: financial products must hold the relevant licensing. Food, infant formula, medical devices and over-the-counter drugs must hold the relevant registrations.

On top of that, the general rules don't allow misleading content, counterfeit goods, political campaigning, tobacco or weapons. Review the guidelines before you submit your ad, so it isn't held up by a rejection.

Common Pinterest ads mistakes

• Reusing Instagram and TikTok designs at their own size: a square or landscape image gets lost among vertical Pins.
• Judging too early: people on Pinterest save the idea and come back to it later, so the decision can take time after the first view. Give the campaign enough time before you stop it.
• A conversion objective without the tag: the system learns from events, so without correct events it spends without direction.
• Keywords that are too broad: "dresses" alone brings everything; "long embroidered evening dress" brings the people who actually want it.
• Neglecting organic Pins: an account that posts consistently builds trust and an engagement audience you can target.
• A landing page that doesn't match the ad: it breaks the policies and loses the customer who came to you.

Checklist before you launch

• The ad account is opened through the partner, with the right billing currency.
• The account is a business account, and the domain is claimed.
• The tag is installed, and the key events show in Test Events.
• When the tag and server run together, they share an event_id.
• The objective matches what you actually want, with no conversion objective lacking events.
• Keywords in Arabic and English, with irrelevant terms excluded.
• 3 to 5 vertical designs at 2:3, with the key words of the title in the first 40 characters.
• The landing page has the same product and loads fast on mobile.
• The ad follows Pinterest's guidelines, including the Saudi Arabia section.

Frequently asked questions

Can I open a Pinterest ads account directly from Saudi Arabia?

No. Saudi Arabia isn't one of the countries where advertisers open accounts directly. Advertising there runs through the region's authorized partner, whose details are on the "Ads overview" page of the Pinterest Help Center.

Can I target specific cities in Saudi Arabia?

You can target Saudi Arabia as a country, or go down to region or postal code. Metro targeting isn't available for Saudi Arabia, according to Pinterest's table.

What size should a Pinterest ad be?

For images, a 2:3 ratio at 1000 × 1500 pixels. For video, square or vertical at 2:3, 4:5 or 9:16, ideally 6 to 15 seconds long.

Do I need the Pinterest tag before I advertise?

It isn't required for awareness and traffic campaigns, but it's essential for the Leads and Sales objectives, for measuring results, and for building audiences from your site visitors. Install it before your first campaign.

Is Pinterest right for every business?

It suits products and services customers choose by eye and plan for, such as fashion, decor, food, occasions and travel. For services that are hard to show in a picture, or quick decisions, you'll usually get clearer results on other platforms.

Conclusion

Pinterest ads work when you respect the platform's nature: people looking for ideas and planning. Open the account through the partner, set up the tag before the campaign, and choose the objective according to how ready your data is. Design useful vertical Pins that look like the content around them, and give the campaign time before you judge it. If you'd like someone to set up your account, run your campaigns and measure their results, learn about our digital advertising service.

Sources

1. Pinterest Business Help — Ads overview
2. Pinterest Business Help — Set up location targeting
3. Pinterest Business Help — Campaign objectives
4. Pinterest Business Help — Targeting overview
5. Pinterest Business Help — Review ad specs
6. Pinterest Business Help — Install the Pinterest tag
7. Pinterest Business Help — Add event codes
8. Pinterest Business Help — The Pinterest Conversions API
9. Pinterest Business Help — Event quality score
10. Pinterest Business Help — Validating your set up with event testing
11. Pinterest Policy — Advertising guidelines
12. Campaign Middle East — DMS to expand Pinterest digital ad solutions in the MENA region
13. Salla Help Center — Connect with Pinterest