Social Rocket
Pinterest is expanding its advertising business with Visual Search Ads and is adding to Performance+ at the same time. The new ad format places ads in visual search results and in the enlarged Pin view. Since 21 September 2026, Pinterest has also added a Campaign Optimization Score in Ads Manager, which rates campaigns against platform best practices and makes concrete optimisation suggestions.
According to the company, Pinterest now handles more than 80 billion search queries per month. The majority of them are visual, and more than half have a commercial context. Visual Search Ads are meant to monetise exactly this phase between inspiration, comparison and purchase decision.
Visual Search Ads move into beta in all ad markets
According to the official Pinterest announcement, Visual Search Ads are being rolled out as a beta for eligible advertisers in all Pinterest ad markets. The format supports lower-funnel goals and is compatible with Pinterest Performance+.
This matters for retailers because Pinterest is treating visual search more like a dedicated performance channel. Instead of only booking keywords or interests, brands can appear closer to a concrete visual search moment: for example, when users select a bag, a piece of furniture or a style and compare similar products.
The existing Srocket guide to Pinterest Shopping Ads and Performance+ explains what foundation should already be in place: a clean product catalogue, conversion tracking and reliable commerce signals.
New: Campaign Optimization Score rates Performance+ setups
With the new Campaign Optimization Score, Pinterest shows directly in Ads Manager how closely a campaign matches proven performance practices according to the platform. The score appears when creating, editing and duplicating campaigns and is supplemented by concrete recommendations.
Pinterest names three central areas: Campaign Setup, Creative Mix and Signal Strength. These include, for example, full use of Performance+, broader product and creative sets, sufficient conversion signals and fewer unnecessarily narrow audiences.
Important: Pinterest says higher scores correlate with better campaign performance. This is not a guarantee and not independent proof of causation. The score should therefore be understood as a diagnostic and prioritisation aid, not as a replacement for your own conversion, revenue or incrementality measurement.
The official Pinterest business guide recommends, among other things, at least three ad formats per ad group and ideally five or more different ads so that optimisation has more signals to work with.
Performance+ gets Priority Products and A/B tests
Pinterest is simultaneously expanding its automated advertising suite. With Priority Products, retailers can prioritise certain products for seasonal promotions, launches or categories without giving up Performance+ automation entirely.
Self-service A/B tests are also new. Advertisers should be able to test creative, targeting and campaign strategies against each other more systematically directly within Pinterest. For mobile marketers, there is also a dedicated app promotion goal, which is running in beta globally with qualified advertisers.
Pinterest cites an example in which an advertiser improved cost per install by up to 85 percent compared with previous workarounds. This is a single platform case and not a general performance benchmark.
Restyle brings generative AI into product discovery
On the user side, Pinterest is also expanding its AI features. Restyle initially launches as a beta in the USA and Canada. Users can upload a photo of a room and have it redesigned with Pinterest Intelligence to compare different looks and ideas.
For marketers this is interesting because Pinterest is not positioning generative AI purely as a content tool. Restyle combines a personal photo, visual inspiration and possible product decisions in a single flow. It is exactly at this intersection that Visual Search Ads are meant to create additional commercial reach.
How strongly shopping journeys now switch between social, search and AI is also shown by our analysis of social search and GenAI in the purchase process.
What German advertisers should prepare now
Visual Search Ads and the Optimization Score interlock: Pinterest is creating new purchase-close placements while giving advertisers more automated hints about whether their setup provides enough creatives, products and signals for optimisation.
For German retailers it is therefore worth checking product feeds, mobile landing pages and conversion tracking before scaling new placements. The score can help identify obvious setup gaps. What remains decisive, however, is whether the suggested changes also work for cost per conversion, revenue and incrementality.
At the same time, audience logic remains important. The current Pinterest Men’s Trend Report shows, for example, how strongly individual user groups become visible through search and save behaviour.