Connecting a Pinterest account

Pinterest is linked to gas with a single sign-in that covers both parts at once: the profile with pins and the Pinterest Ads accounts. This guide walks you through the whole process, from signing in to Pinterest to the moment you see the data in the application.

Before you start

• You need the login details for the Pinterest account that manages the profile or the ad accounts. You sign in directly on the Pinterest website, gas never sees or stores your password.
• The Pinterest account has to be a business account. Pinterest provides profile and pin statistics only to business accounts, a personal profile will not give you any figures and cannot have an ad account either. Switching to a business account is free and is done in your Pinterest account settings.
• You need a sufficient role on the ad account. Pinterest provides advertising figures only to the owner of the ad account, or to someone who has the role Pinterest calls Admin, Analyst or Campaign Manager. The role is assigned by the ad account administrator on the Pinterest side.
• gas asks Pinterest only for read access to data: profile, boards, pins, advertising data and catalogues. It never publishes, deletes or changes anything on Pinterest.
• The connection is always made to a specific customer account. A customer account is the environment of one client or one company in which the data is shown.
• The advertising part of Pinterest is a paid feature in gas. If your plan does not include it, the Ad campaigns section will not appear in the left menu and when connecting an ad account you will see the note Feature not in plan next to the customer account.

Procedure

Step 1: Linking the Pinterest account

You can tell the link is done when a row with the Pinterest account name appears in the table. That alone does not give you any data yet, only now do you decide what should be tracked.

Step 2: Connecting the profile to a customer account

After you confirm, a brief confirmation appears at the top saying the profile was successfully linked. If you already have regular reports set up that do not include the profile yet, gas immediately asks Add profile to report?. You can select the reports and confirm with the Add to selected button, or postpone the choice with Not now.

Step 3: Connecting a Pinterest Ads account

Ad accounts are part of the same link, you do not have to sign in to Pinterest again.

In the table of ad accounts you then see the columns Name, Currency, Agency account and Customers. gas takes the currency from the ad account on Pinterest, you do not set it yourself.

You can repeat step 2 and step 3 for every other profile and ad account you manage under the same sign-in.

What happens next

gas starts downloading the data by itself, you do not have to launch anything:

• Pins and ad campaigns are loaded several times an hour.
• Profile statistics and advertising performance are loaded several times a day.
• The first figures therefore do not appear immediately. If the page is empty right after connecting, wait and look again later.

You will find profile data in the left menu in the Pinterest section: Overview, Followers, Engagements, Reach, Saved and Pins. Advertising data is in the Ad campaigns subsection.

For an organic profile, Pinterest provides the number of followers, impressions, saves, clicks on a pin, clicks on the target link, engagements and the corresponding rates. Pinterest does not provide the number of unique people who saw the content for an organic profile, impressions are used instead.

Figures for the last few days may still change. Pinterest itself distinguishes whether the data for a given day is already final, and it finalises conversion metrics later than the rest. It also counts days in UTC, so the day boundary may not exactly match the Czech calendar day.

You will find a summary of everything connected to your customer account in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts. That is also where the order of profiles and the default profile for each network is set.

You can change the names later at any time: in the table of profiles you edit the Company name column, in the table of ad accounts the Name column. You can also change later which customer accounts the profile is available to, using the Customers column.

Who owns the link

The service link belongs to the user account of whoever signed in to Pinterest, whereas the connected profile belongs to the customer account. That is why in Settings → Connected services you see only your own links. If a colleague linked Pinterest, this page will be empty for you even though data keeps flowing into gas normally. The full picture is in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts, where the Who links the account column shows the e-mail of the link owner. When this column shows Nobody, the profile has no live link and needs to be connected again.

Common problems when linking

I cancelled or did not confirm the link on Pinterest

You will see the message You cancelled the account link. Try again and complete the access approval. Click Try again and this time confirm access on the Pinterest screen.

It says the OAuth state does not match

The message The OAuth state does not match. You probably switched to a different browser or device. means the link started in one browser and finished in another. Repeat the whole procedure in one and the same browser and on one device.

The link ended with an error

With the message Error while linking with the Pinterest account. use the Try again button. If the error repeats, first try signing out of Pinterest and signing in again to make sure you are working under the right account.

Common problems with data and profile selection

The profile is connected but no figures arrive

The most common cause is that the Pinterest account is not a business account. Pinterest provides statistics only to business accounts, a personal profile will not give you any figures. Switch the account on Pinterest to business, it is free, and the data will start arriving at the next download. The other possibility is that the connection is fresh and the first figures have not arrived yet.

The ad account I can see on Pinterest is missing from the list

Pinterest provides data about an ad account only to its owner, or to someone who has the Admin, Analyst or Campaign Manager role in it. With more limited access the ad account will not appear in the list. Ask the ad account administrator on Pinterest to assign you a role.

I cannot see older data after connecting

Pinterest provides statistics for a maximum of 90 days back. Older periods will therefore not be in gas unless you were already tracking the profile before. This applies to the profile, pins and advertising alike.

The figures differ from what Pinterest shows

There are usually two causes, both on the Pinterest side. Figures for the last few days may not be final, and conversion metrics are finalised later than the rest. And days are counted in UTC, so the day boundary may not match the Czech day. The difference usually evens out within a few days.

There is no profile or account to select

The message All profiles are already linked. Select another account. (in the advertising part All accounts are already linked.) means that everything this signed-in Pinterest account can see is already connected in gas. If a profile is still missing, link the Pinterest account under which that profile is managed.

The profile or account is already linked

The messages Profile is already linked and Account is already linked mean the same thing: the item exists in gas. Check the table of linked accounts, or the Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts section.

Someone else linked the profile

During selection you may see the message Profile {label} was linked by user {by}. You can take ownership of it and thereby change its settings and availability for customer accounts. A similar message appears when the profile was linked by another user under a different Pinterest account. The Take ownership button is offered. If a colleague is working on it and data is arriving, do nothing, there is no need to create a second link for the same profile.

I have the profile linked under another of my accounts

The message You have profile {label} linked using another account that you linked yourself. Do you need to relink it? appears when you connected the profile yourself some time ago, but under a different Pinterest account. The Relink button transfers the profile to the current sign-in.

Common problems with connection state, plan and removal

The colleague who linked the profile left the company

This is the most common cause of suddenly missing data. The profile was connected by someone who no longer works at the company. As soon as their permissions on Pinterest are removed or their account is cancelled, the link stops working and data stops arriving, even though you can still see the profile in the application. In the Who links the account column you see the e-mail of the departed colleague, or the value Nobody.

Do not delete the profile and create it again. Proceed as follows:

The profile then moves under their link, the history and settings are preserved and data starts arriving again. The sooner this is done, the better: Pinterest can supply missing days only within the last 90 days.

The account shows the Paused label

The Paused label means access to Pinterest has stopped being valid, typically after a password change or removal of permissions. Clicking the label opens a small window Connection paused with the date when it happened and the Reconnect button. The button takes you through the same sign-in as in step 1. You usually do not have to select the profiles again, gas relinks them itself after reconnecting and sends you the notification Pinterest accounts automatically relinked. A longer outage leaves a permanent gap in the data, because Pinterest supplies at most 90 days retroactively.

The profile shows the Missing permission label

The Missing permission label means something different from a pause: the sign-in still works, but gas has lost the right to read data for a specific profile. Above the table you will also see the alert Some profiles of this connection have lost permission with a list of the affected profiles. The label window shows the date from which data is missing and the Reconnect button. After clicking it, go through the Pinterest screen again and approve the profile there once more. The label disappears by itself after the first successful data download.

The customer account cannot be selected in the dialog

An unavailable customer account shows the reason: Limit reached (you have reached the maximum number of profiles your plan allows), No permission (you do not have a sufficient role in that customer account), Feature not in plan or Invalid licence. Depending on the reason, a role change, a plan upgrade or a subscription renewal will help. Sort this out with the customer account administrator.

Pinterest ad campaigns are not in the menu

The Ad campaigns section is a paid part. If you do not see it in the left menu, it is not part of your plan. Arrange a plan extension with the customer account administrator.

I want to remove a profile or an ad account

There are three options and they differ in scope:

• Unlink account on a row in the list of linked Pinterest accounts cancels the whole link, that is, the profile and all ad accounts under it.
• Delete profile on the Profile tab removes a single profile.
• Delete account on the Pinterest Ads tab removes a single ad account.

When you unlink a whole connection and one of its profiles is used in regular reports, gas lists those reports before you confirm and offers the option Remove the unlinked profiles from these reports as well. If you do not tick it, the reports stay unchanged, but data will stop loading into them.

I want to revoke Pinterest access completely

You can revoke the access you granted to gas at any time directly in your Pinterest account settings. Data will then stop arriving and the Paused label will appear next to the account in gas.