Pinterest Audience

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Sync warehouse and Audience Builder membership to a Pinterest customer list audience.

7 minute read

Pinterest lets advertisers target ads to people they already know through customer list audiences. Pinterest Audience keeps a Pinterest customer list, and the customer list audience built on it, in sync with an audience: members are added to the list when they join the audience and removed when they leave it. You can then target the audience in your Pinterest campaigns.

Pinterest Audience is separate from the Event Stream Pinterest Tag destination.
Use Pinterest Tag to send conversion events.
Use Pinterest Audience for Reverse ETL and Audience Builder membership syncs.

Prerequisites

A Pinterest user that owns or has access to the Pinterest ad account you want to sync to. You connect RudderStack to Pinterest by signing in as this user (OAuth). RudderStack asks for permission to read and write your ads data and to read your Pinterest username, which it uses as the account name.
At least one identifier column in your warehouse: email address, mobile advertising ID (MAID), or both.

You don’t need to create anything in Pinterest first. RudderStack can create the customer list and its audience for you, or sync into a customer list audience that already exists in the ad account.

How membership is written to Pinterest

Each sync writes to one customer list in one Pinterest ad account:

Action	Pinterest operation
Insert or update	Members are added to the customer list.
Delete	Members who left the audience are removed from the customer list.

Only Mirror mode is supported, so the customer list follows the audience at every run.

Note that:

RudderStack sends up to 1,000 rows in each request to Pinterest.
A row with both an email address and a MAID is sent as two identifiers.
Pinterest matches the uploaded identifiers to Pinterest users after it receives them. RudderStack reports a row as successful once Pinterest accepts it, which doesn’t mean it matched a Pinterest user.
If you sync to an existing audience, RudderStack doesn’t remove members that were on the list before the first sync.

Supported identifiers

Identifier	Normalization before hashing
`EMAIL` (Email)	Trimmed and lowercased. The value must contain a single `@` with text on both sides.
`MAID` (Mobile advertising ID)	Trimmed and lowercased. The value must be in the `8-4-4-4-12` hexadecimal format, for example, `cdda802e-fb9c-47ad-9866-0794d394c912`.

Normalization and the format checks apply only when Automatically hash PII data? is Yes.
Invalid values are dropped from the row. If a row has no valid identifier left, that row fails with No valid Pinterest identifier (EMAIL / MAID) after normalization. The other rows in the sync are still delivered.
Phone numbers aren’t supported.

Map Android advertising IDs (AAIDs) only. Pinterest’s policy doesn’t allow IDFAs, or lists built from activity on an iOS device.

Data hashing

The Automatically hash PII data? setting is enabled by default, and applies to every mapped identifier in the connection:

Yes (default): Map columns that hold raw values. RudderStack normalizes the values as described above, then hashes them with SHA-256 before sending them to Pinterest.
No: Map columns that already hold SHA-256 hashes (64 hexadecimal characters) of the normalized values, that is, the trimmed and lowercased email address or the trimmed and lowercased MAID.

A mismatch between this setting and your data fails the row with an error, for example:

Hashing is disabled but the value for field EMAIL appears to be unhashed. Either enable hashing or send pre-hashed data.

Pinterest also accepts MD5 and SHA-1 hashes in its own uploads, but this destination accepts only SHA-256.

Pinterest processing and audience size

Pinterest processes a customer list after it receives the data, so the audience size doesn’t show up in Pinterest Ads Manager right away. A new audience is usually ready within 48 to 72 hours, and its size updates within 24 to 48 hours.

Pinterest needs at least 100 matched users before you can use a customer list audience for targeting. The matched size is usually smaller than the number of rows you sync, because not every email address or MAID belongs to a Pinterest user. See Pinterest’s audience targeting guide for more information.

Limitations

Limitation	Details
Customer list audiences only	You can sync only into customer list audiences. Other Pinterest audience types, such as engagement, visitor, or actalike audiences, aren’t listed.
Pinterest rate limits	Writing to customer lists counts against Pinterest’s `ads_write` rate limit, which Pinterest applies per Pinterest user. RudderStack paces its requests and retries throttled requests automatically, so a very large sync, or many syncs that use the same Pinterest user, can take longer to finish.
Ad account and audience are fixed	You can’t change the ad account or the audience of an existing connection. To sync to a different one, create a new connection.
Lists stay after you disconnect	Disabling or deleting the connection doesn’t delete the customer list or the audience in Pinterest, including ones RudderStack created. Delete them in Pinterest Ads Manager if you no longer need them.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Fix
`No Pinterest ad accounts found for this account`	The connected Pinterest user doesn’t own or have access to an ad account. Grant the user access to the ad account in Pinterest, then refresh the list.
`Only Customer list audiences can be synced`	The selected audience isn’t a customer list audience. Choose a customer list audience, or create a new one.
`Audience name must be at least 3 characters`, `Audience name must be at most 500 characters`, or `Audience name must be between 3 and 500 characters`	Enter an audience name that’s 3 to 500 characters long.
`Customer list <id> was created in ad account <id>, but its audience was not.`	Pinterest created the customer list but not the audience on it. Don’t create the audience again, as that makes another customer list. Instead, create an audience on this customer list in Pinterest Ads Manager, then choose Use existing audience.
`Pinterest refused the request: <message>. Check the connected account still has access to ad account <id>.`	The connected Pinterest user has lost access to the ad account. Restore the user’s access in Pinterest, or connect a Pinterest user that has access.
`Customer list <id> was not found — it may have been deleted. Pick or create the audience again.`	Pinterest can’t find the customer list or its ad account. Check both in Pinterest Ads Manager, then create a new connection and select or create the audience again.
`No valid Pinterest identifier (EMAIL / MAID) after normalization`	The row has no valid email address or MAID. Check the values in your warehouse against the supported identifiers.
`Hashing is enabled but the value for field <field> appears to already be hashed.` or `Hashing is disabled but the value for field <field> appears to be unhashed.`	Change the Automatically hash PII data? setting to match your data. See Data hashing.
The Pinterest authorization expired or was revoked	RudderStack refreshes the Pinterest access token automatically. If Pinterest no longer accepts the authorization, for example, because it was revoked in Pinterest or not used for a long time, reconnect the Pinterest account in RudderStack to authorize it again.

FAQ

Do I need to create the customer list in Pinterest first?

No. Choose Create new audience when you set up the connection, and RudderStack creates a customer list and a customer list audience on it in the selected ad account. Pinterest requires at least one record to create a list, so a new list starts with one placeholder record that doesn’t match any Pinterest user.

Why does the audience size in Pinterest differ from the number of synced rows?

Pinterest counts only the identifiers that match a Pinterest user, and it takes time to process each upload. See Pinterest processing and audience size.

Can I reuse one Pinterest account across syncs?

Yes. One connected Pinterest account can back many syncs, across ad accounts that the Pinterest user has access to. All of them share the Pinterest rate limit for that user.

How is Pinterest Audience different from the Pinterest Tag destination?

	Pinterest Tag (Event Stream)	Pinterest Audience
Typical use	Conversion events	Audience and Reverse ETL membership
Pinterest surface	Conversions	Customer list audiences
Authentication	Conversion token	Pinterest sign-in (OAuth)
Sync mode	Not applicable (streaming)	Mirror only