She chased idea pins for a year. Standard pins paid the rent.

She chased idea pins for a year. Standard pins paid the rent.

A budget-travel blogger went all-in on idea pins in 2023 because the reach was intoxicating — one hit 90,000 views. She made 4 a week for months.

The problem showed up in her analytics: those 90,000 views produced 11 outbound clicks. Idea pins kept people inside Pinterest. Beautiful for follower growth, useless for her affiliate links.

She rebalanced: kept 1 idea pin a week purely as a follower magnet, and pushed 5 standard pins with a single clear link to her packing-list posts.

Over the next quarter outbound clicks went from ~140/month to ~620/month. Same effort, redistributed.

Takeaway: idea pins grow your audience, standard pins move that audience off-platform — decide which one a given pin is actually for before you make it.