Pinterest visual search lets people search with a photo instead of typing. They point their camera at something they like, or upload a screenshot, and Pinterest shows them similar Pins and products they can buy. For online shops, this means your product photos now help people find you, just like keywords do.
Most brands still see Pinterest as a place for mood boards. But plenty of people use it to shop, especially when they can’t describe what they’re looking for. Visual search fills that gap.
What Is Pinterest Visual Search?
Imagine you spot a lamp in a café and want one just like it. What would you type into a search bar? “Gold lamp”? “Curved brass lamp with white shade”? Most people give up after a couple of tries.
Pinterest visual search solves this. The main tool is Pinterest Lens, the small camera icon in the Pinterest search bar. Take a photo of the lamp, and Pinterest shows you lamps that look like it. You can also tap one item inside a Pin, like a rug in a living room photo, and search for rugs that look similar.
Text search needs the right words. Visual search only needs a picture.
How Pinterest Visual Search Works
The easiest way to understand Pinterest visual search is to break it into three steps:
- It reads the image. Pinterest picks out each object in the photo. In a bedroom picture, it sees the lamp, the cushion and the bed as separate items, and notes their shape, colour, pattern and style.
- It finds matches. Pinterest compares those details with millions of Pins, including products from online shops. The closest matches appear first.
- It shows products to buy. If some matches are in-stock products, they can appear in a Shop tab, so the shopper can go straight to buying.
You don’t need to worry about how Pinterest processes the image. What you can control is the quality of your product photos and catalogue data.
Pinterest Shopping Features Worth Knowing
Several Pinterest shopping features work alongside visual search, and each one plays a slightly different role.
- The Shop tab. When someone searches with Lens, Pinterest can show a Shop tab with matching products that are in stock. It’s the quickest path from “I like that” to “I’ll buy that”.
- Pinterest Product Pins. Pinterest Product Pins are your product listings on Pinterest. They show your product details and link straight to the product page on your website. Without them, your products can’t appear in shopping results.
- Your catalogue. Product Pins come from a product feed you connect to Pinterest, known as your Pinterest shop catalogue. Most online stores connect it through Shopify or WooCommerce. If your feed has vague product names or missing details, those problems show up on Pinterest too.
How To Optimise for Pinterest Lens
If you want to optimise for Pinterest Lens, start with your photos and product details. Pinterest Lens for ecommerce works best when your products are easy for Pinterest to recognise:
- Keep your catalogue synced so prices and stock are always correct.
- Use one clean photo per product with a plain background and the whole product in view.
- Add real-life photos too. People photograph products in rooms and on people, so styled photos give Pinterest more to match.
- Name products clearly. “Cream Wool Cardigan” tells Pinterest much more than “The Ellie”.
- Fill in colour, material and size, because these details help matching.
A quick test: take a photo of one of your own products using Lens. If Pinterest shows a competitor’s product instead of yours, you know what to fix.
Don’t forget where the click ends up. Every Product Pin sends shoppers to your website, and a good-looking website isn’t the same as one that converts. Your product page should load fast on a phone and match what the shopper saw on Pinterest.
How Breeze Development Can Help
Getting found on Pinterest, Google or AI search comes down to the same things: clear product details, strong pages and a website that turns visits into sales. That’s what we do at Breeze Development, a Liverpool-based digital agency with 10+ years and 300+ projects behind us.
- SEO to help your products show up for the searches your buyers make
- Answer Engine Optimisation and Generative Engine Optimisation to help AI search tools understand and recommend your brand
- PPC across Google Ads and paid social, built to turn clicks into customers
- Shopify development for fast, mobile-first stores designed to convert
FAQs
1. What is Pinterest Lens?
Pinterest Lens is the camera tool in the Pinterest app. You take or upload a photo, and it finds similar Pins and products. Matching in-stock products can appear in a Shop tab.
2. How do I get my products to show up in Pinterest visual search?
Set up a Pinterest business account and connect your product catalogue, which turns your products into Product Pins. Then use clear photos, accurate details and descriptive product names. Clear product information gives Pinterest more useful information to work with when matching products to searches.
3. What does Breeze Development do for Pinterest marketing?
Breeze Development helps businesses improve their online visibility through SEO, ecommerce development, PPC and digital marketing. For Pinterest, this can include optimising product content and ecommerce pages to make products easier to discover through Pinterest search and visual discovery.
4. Can Breeze help my products get found through Pinterest visual search?
Yes. Breeze Development can help optimise your ecommerce product pages, product information and images to support better visibility across Pinterest and other search platforms. This includes making product content clear, descriptive and relevant to visual search.