On September 17, at Pinterest Presents, its annual advertiser summit, Pinterest introduced Visual Search Ads. The new format places ads in search results and in Pin closeups, the screen that opens when someone taps a specific Pin.
Alongside it, the company announced several updates for performance campaigns: Priority Products in Performance+, self-serve A/B testing and a dedicated App Promotion objective. Below we look at what has been confirmed, what is still in beta, and where the limits start for affiliate teams.
The beta will open "in the coming weeks" to eligible advertisers in all Pinterest ad markets. Eligibility criteria aren't described in the announcement, and Pinterest hasn't given a date for full launch.
How Visual Search Ads work
Pinterest describes the format as a combination of keyword relevance and a new visual ad unit. Advertisers bid for the top response to a search, and the click goes to their site.
In the announcement screenshots, it plays out like this. A user searches for a handbag, opens a Pin they like, and an ad for a similar bag from an advertiser appears over the image. Pinterest hasn't said how the system picks which ad to show, or how keywords are weighted against visual signals in the auction.
In the announcement, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready positioned the format against traditional keyword-based search advertising. His point: in AI-driven search, people express what they want in richer ways than a string of keywords. Under the hood, Visual Search Ads rely on Pinterest Intelligence, the company's in-house AI that interprets images, products, taste and user intent.
The numbers in the announcement
Pinterest's main argument for the format is search volume. According to the company, users run more than 80 billion searches a month. The vast majority are visual, and more than half are commercial.
The announcement doesn't explain how these figures were calculated. Pinterest also hasn't published any CTR, CPC, conversion or ROAS data for the new format.
Officially, Visual Search Ads support lower-funnel objectives and are compatible with Pinterest Performance+.
What changed in Performance+
Performance+ is Pinterest's suite for automated performance campaigns. There are two updates here.
Priority Products
This setting lets advertisers flag products that should get priority during a specific period: a seasonal launch, a promotion or a category push. Performance+ automation keeps running in the background.
For e-commerce, this addresses a familiar problem with automated campaigns. The algorithm decides which catalog items to show, and its choices don't always line up with margin targets or stock levels.
A/B testing without an account manager
The second update is self-serve A/B testing. Advertisers will be able to test campaign strategies, creative and targeting on their own, including within Performance+. The announcement says nothing about minimum budgets, test duration or how Pinterest calculates statistical significance. Timing and market availability for Priority Products and A/B testing aren't specified either.
App Promotion
For mobile apps, Pinterest now has a dedicated campaign objective for installs. It's in global beta with qualified advertisers.
The announcement includes a figure that's already being widely quoted: one advertiser saw up to an 85% improvement in cost per install compared to previous workarounds.
I wouldn't read too much into it. It's one advertiser's result, not a beta-wide average. "Up to" marks the upper bound. The comparison is against that advertiser's own earlier setups, not other platforms or industry benchmarks. Pinterest doesn't name the company or disclose its vertical, geo or volumes. It's not a number to build a budget forecast on.
What this means for affiliate marketing
What's prohibited
Let's start with the question our readers will ask first. Pinterest's advertising guidelines explicitly prohibit ads for gambling websites and gambling game apps, as well as fantasy sports and other online prize-based games that require payment to enter. Lotteries are allowed only in certain countries and with Pinterest's prior permission. For casino and betting, Visual Search Ads change nothing: those offers won't get into the format. iGaming teams will still need other traffic sources, including search.
Other popular verticals face strict rules too:
- in dating, services offering casual sex, international matchmaking or escorts are prohibited;
- weight loss products, including pills and supplements, are banned, as are before-and-after images;
- cryptocurrency products are almost entirely prohibited, with exceptions for licensed exchanges and wallets pre-approved by Pinterest;
- payday loans, MLM and get-rich-quick schemes are prohibited.
Pinterest's advertising guidelines have no separate section on affiliate links. Whether a specific affiliate offer can run needs to be checked against Pinterest's advertising guidelines and the requirements of the target market.
There are, however, landing page requirements, and they directly affect typical media buying setups. Pinterest doesn't allow pages with pop-ups or automatic downloads, made-for-ads sites built mostly around advertising, or landing pages that force people to visit another page. The ad image, description and landing page must be consistent. A setup with an automatic redirect to the offer will most likely fail these rules.
One more detail: Pinterest is updating its Advertising Guidelines, with the new version taking effect on November 12, 2026. Before launching long-running campaigns, check the preview version.
Where the new opportunities are
The restrictions mostly hit grey and heavily regulated verticals. Most whitehat niches aren't blocked by Pinterest's general rules. That includes product e-commerce, mainstream dating without adult content, mobile apps, alcohol with age restrictions, and financial products with proper disclosures and licensing where the market requires it. For these verticals, the update adds genuinely useful tools.
The main change is that advertisers get an entry point into search. The user has typed a query, opened a specific Pin and is comparing options. According to Pinterest, more than half of searches on the platform are commercial. For a product offer, that kind of touchpoint should in theory sit closer to a purchase than an impression in the feed, though you'll need your own data to confirm it.
The format fits best with products that sell on visuals: fashion and accessories, home decor, beauty. Pinterest itself demonstrates the mechanics with a handbag. Affiliates running offers like these can send traffic to the merchant's catalog or to a full content review, as long as it complies with the landing page rules.
Timing matters too. If the beta opens in the promised "coming weeks," the first tests will land in Q4, with Black Friday and holiday sales. That's where Priority Products comes in: you can flag promo products in advance without switching off Performance+ automation. Built-in A/B testing lets you test creative without separate tools.
For app marketers, the opportunity is App Promotion. Shopping apps, utilities and mainstream dating services get a dedicated install objective instead of the workarounds that, judging by Pinterest's wording, they previously had to rely on.
One caveat. How the auction will behave in the new placement and what clicks will cost is still unknown, since Pinterest hasn't released that data. For product offers on CPA or CPS, the format looks like a worthwhile test, not a guaranteed result. If you want a refresher on how these models work, see our affiliate marketing guide.
The bottom line
The new features expand Pinterest's performance toolkit, but hard performance data is still thin. There's one App Promotion figure from a single advertiser and search volume numbers calculated by Pinterest itself.
If you already run product offers on Pinterest, it makes sense to request beta access and test the new format on a small budget, comparing results against your current campaigns. If you're not on the platform yet, start by checking your offer against the policies: for a good share of media buying verticals, that's where the question will be settled.
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