My First Month on Pinterest: 17K Views With Zero Experience
When I created my blog’s Pinterest account on June 11th, I had no idea what a successful first month on Pinterest looked like in terms of metrics. I googled it but couldn’t find a recent blog post or article about it. I stumbled upon people boasting a million views in one month—but they had their accounts for years.
That wasn’t relevant to me. I was starting from scratch, all by myself, with a new blog in an unpopular niche, no experience, and a free Canva account.
The only useful help I got came—surprisingly or not—from Gemini, which said that for a new account, anywhere between 1,000 and 10,000 views can be considered a good first month on Pinterest.
The high achiever I am, I set my target at 10,000. Twenty days later, I reached it—and surpassed it. By the end of my first month on Pinterest, I had accumulated 17K views (or what Pinterest calls impressions).
I’m sharing my honest, full-disclosure strategy of what I did to get those coveted 17,000 views—and what it all means for my blog in terms of traffic and actual readers.
Why am I writing this blog post?
I know how hard it is to start a new blog from scratch and put it on Pinterest without any experience or clue whether you’re doing well or not. I remember how I jumped with happiness the first time someone saved my pin!
But there were also days of loneliness and de-motivation. I came very close to giving up a few times, but every time I considered quitting, something positive happened to cheer me up and keep me going. Often, it came from a fellow blogger sharing their personal story.
I’m new to blogging, but I have a successful corporate career—and one thing I know for sure:
The beginnings are always the hardest
So let’s help one another make these beginnings a little easier. Let’s keep the ball rolling for all Pinterest newcomers:
Share your personal stats in the comments below. How did you do your first month on Pinterest? Link your Pinterest account so we can support you.
27 Answers About My First Month on Pinterest
This blog post is structured as a Q&A session. These are all the questions I had when I began, and I wish someone had answered them for me. So here I am, answering them for you—not as an expert, but as a fellow blogger trying to get her voice out there.
When did I create my Pinterest account?
June 11th, 2025. And yes, it’s a business account—yes, that really matters. It’s free, so there’s no reason not to open a business account.
Do I have a niche?
Yes. My blog, SmartyPurse, is about personal finance. I write about saving, investing, and money motivation. Here is an article about Investing Basics to get an idea of my style: Investing-101-no-madness-no-math
Personal finance is an unpopular niche on Pinterest, which means I can’t expect the same results that lifestyle blogs, for example, get.
What’s my Pinterest account secret?
It looks human. I create the content and post it, but I also try to make it obvious it’s created by a real person. I added my personal photo, a beautiful cover image, and claimed my blog website.
Here is how my account looks now:
Tip: There’s a successful creator in the feminine energy niche whom I follow. I used her profile as inspiration when writing my Pinterest account description.
Useful ChatGPT prompt:
Send the Pinterest account description of a successful creator you like. Send ChatGPT your blog’s main topics and ask it to create a Pinterest account description in the same tone of voice.”
How many articles did I have on my blog when I started Pinterest?
Exactly 10. I created my blog at the end of April, built my website alone using a free template and the free version of Elementor. I decided to wait until I had 10 blog posts before starting on Pinterest.
In my first month, I added 6 more articles, so by July 11th, I had 16 to create pins about. I aim to write around 4 articles per month.
I have a full-time job and also want to develop my blog’s Instagram account, so for me, four articles is ambitious enough.
Did I sign up for a paid Pinterest course?
No, I didn’t. I believe paid Pinterest courses add value, and maybe I’ll take one later, but I didn’t want to spend money at the start. I’m cost-conscious with my blog expenses and keep them to the bare minimum.
Also, I wanted to experiment with creating my own voice and style first. I know this might mean a slower start, and I’m okay with that.
That said, I watched Heather Farris on YouTube. This video helped me the most:
I also chose a successful creator in my niche—Ling with Finsavvy Panda: https://www.finsavvypanda.com/
I explored all her free resources and studied her Pinterest profile.
Did I purchase Pinterest pin templates?
No. All my pins are created by me, ChatGPT (for some of the images), and a free Canva account. I experimented with different styles, colors, and tones of voice to see what would resonate most with viewers.
Here is a snippet of my pin designs to get an idea how different they are:
Do I have a paid or free Canva account?
Free. I don’t see value in the paid one in your first month on Pinterest. Once I start making money from my blog, I might upgrade—but not yet.
It takes a bit more time and creativity, but I can create anything I need with the free version and ChatGPT’s suggestions for images, fonts, and colors. If you’re in a more profitable niche, the paid version may be worth the time savings.
How many pins did I post?
I saved 53 unique pins in my first month. I aimed to post twice a day, every day.
How many boards did I create?
11 boards with relevant titles and keyword-optimized descriptions.
At what times did I post? Did it matter?
I uploaded my first pins at random times so I could track and edit them. They got around 20 views on their first day.
Then I googled the best times to post on Pinterest and saw that 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. EST is highly recommended. Since I live in Europe, I used the scheduler to post in that window.
I remember waking up, opening Pinterest impatiently—only to see my pins barely had any views. I was confused.
Then I noticed something: if I clicked on my own pins and on others shown next to them, my pins started gaining views.
Because I wasn’t active on Pinterest when my pins went live, they didn’t get that initial boost. So I realized: at least during the first month, post when you’re active so you can engage with your pins.
Did I use Tailwind?
No. I tried, but it felt like another tool I had to learn, and I didn’t have the capacity in month one. I’m curious about the Communities feature, but I’ll explore it later.
From what I understand, Tailwind helps with scheduling and connecting with other creators. But I scheduled everything manually on Pinterest—and some mature creators still do that, so I don’t feel at a disadvantage.
How many followers did I get?
Zero at first. Then I asked my mom and sister to follow me—my mom didn’t know how, so she still hasn’t! By the end of my first month, I had 16 followers.
👉 If you find this article useful, follow me on Pinterest to support my account:
SmartyPurse on Pinterest
What were my daily impressions like?
I averaged 600 impressions a day. If I hit more than 1,000 views, I considered it a good day.
Interestingly, mature Pinterest accounts often see higher weekend traffic, but for me, it was the opposite—my impressions were higher Monday to Friday. Maybe there’s less competition during the week.
How many pin clicks did I get?
Pinterest impressions = how often your pin appears on screens.
A pin click = someone clicked to view it more closely.
I got 534 pin clicks in my first month, which is a 3.14% click rate (534/17,000). That’s not great. Either my pins aren’t compelling, or they appear too far down the feed—or both.
How many saves?
Only 5 pin saves my first month. It was a bit discouraging.
Saves signal to Pinterest that your content is valuable and boost your entire profile. They’re especially important early on.
Interestingly, 3 of the saved pins were ones I expected to perform well—but 2 were total surprises. That just proves any pin can be noticed.
📌 No-surprise pin:
📌 Surprise pin: I didn’t want to post this pin since I thought it will not attract views but it ended being my most successful pin in terms of impressions.
How many outbound clicks?
Outbound clicks are what bloggers care about most—this is when someone clicks the link in your pin and lands on your blog.
To be honest, I was disappointed. I got just 90 outbound clicks—and most were probably me testing my links.
That’s 90 clicks from 17,000 impressions = 0.5% click-through rate.
At this rate, even if I had 1,000,000 impressions, I’d only get around 5,300 blog visits. That’s not great considering the effort Pinterest requires.
I’m not giving up. I’ll focus on improving this metric over the next 3 months and share an update.
How much time did I spend on Pinterest?
A lot. Maybe 2 hours a day—creating pins, scheduling, exploring creators’ content, reading advice, and watching YouTube strategy videos.
At some point, I got obsessed—to the point of being unhealthy.
So I built a structure to use my time more efficiently:
- Fill an Excel spreadsheet with my weekly pin schedule
- Block 2 hours, two days per week, to create and schedule pins
- Spend 10 minutes per day engaging on Pinterest and checking analytics
This helps me stay focused on content creation without burning out on pin design.
Did I ask friends and family to promote my account?
No. None of my friends or family use Pinterest. I wanted to see what I could do on my own.
But let me be clear: if you have family, friends, or communities who can click and save your pins—use them! Especially in the early days when you’re building algorithm trust.
Did I pay to promote a pin?
No. It doesn’t make sense for my account yet—I’m not selling anything, and I don’t have affiliate links. I’m still learning what content resonates most.
Did I notice certain pin designs perform better?
I can’t back this with hard data, but I’m convinced Pinterest favors original content.
Some Canva templates are used by everyone—so I recommend customizing them. Change the colors, fonts, and layout.
I also think Pinterest likes some AI-generated images. One of my pins with an AI-generated image got 200 more impressions than the pins before and after it—even though it had no saves. I think the algorithm liked it and pushed it more.
📸 AI-generated image pin
Did I notice anything else the algorithm liked?
Here’s what I believe Pinterest favored in my first month:
- Me being online when my pins went live
- Engaging with my own pins
- Exploring, clicking, and following other creators
- Long pin descriptions with helpful keywords
- Pins where the image matches the topic
- Pins with text overlay performed better than plain images
- Infographics—visuals with data or key ideas
What about video pins?
I read that the Pinterest algorithm favors video pins, but I didn’t see strong results.
I created two video pins—neither outperformed my regular ones. Maybe they weren’t engaging enough, but I expected more impressions.
I’m not giving up on video pins—I just need to get better at making them.
How I created them:
I recorded a short video on my phone, then uploaded it to https://vizard.ai/. It adds beautiful subtitles, splits the video into clips, and ranks them by viral potential.
The free version is good enough for beginners—quick and easy to use.
Did I save other people’s pins?
No, but maybe I should have. Some say it boosts your profile. I plan to test this in months 2 and 3.
Did I repin?
No. I still don’t fully understand the benefit of repinning. It means saving an existing pin (yours or someone else’s) to another board.
I’ve seen many creators repin their own content, so I’ll test this too.
How did my blog traffic grow?
I started with 0. From the end of April to July 11th, I didn’t get a single referral from Google. All 559 views came from Pinterest.
📈 Image: Blog traffic
What’s discouraging is that I didn’t see much momentum by the end of the month. My traffic graph still looks sporadic.
What’s my target for the next two months?
I’m aiming for 30K impressions by the end of my third month.
But I won’t set targets for other metrics yet—I’ll just focus on improving what I’ve learned:
Wider reach = more clicks = more blog traffic = more feedback to refine your strategy.
A self-fulfilling loop.
What do I plan to try next on Pinterest?
Now that my first month on Pinterest is over, what strategy do I have for the future?
In months two and three, I’ll:
- Create 10 new boards
- Write longer pin descriptions
- Add more video pins
- Reuse high-performing pin designs
- Repin 3 times a week
- Save other creators’ pins
- Write 8 new blog articles
- Spend less time designing pins and more time on quality content
Do I regret my first month on Pinterest?
There were days with zero engagement and no blog traffic—despite hours of effort and no income. I imagined this would happen often in the next 6–12 months. I came close to quitting.
But here’s the reality:
- Each day, pin creation takes less time
- Strangers saved my pins
- I got 131 real visitors to my blog (compared to just 1—myself—before Pinterest)
- I became more focused on my brand and message
- It gave me the courage to create short videos, launch an Instagram and Medium account, and think bolder
Overall, I don’t regret it.
I hope what I’ve shared helps you navigate your first steps—and build an online presence you’re proud of.