Pinterest Ads

Overview

Pinterest Ads is Pinterest's advertising platform for promoting pins, shopping catalogs, and brand content to users during visual discovery. When its tracking scripts appear on an advertiser's website, they measure conversion events driven by promoted pin campaigns — tracking purchases, sign-ups, and engagement actions that followed a Pinterest ad interaction.

What This Script Does

Pinterest Ads conversion tracking loads scripts from ct.pinterest.com and s.pinimg.com. These scripts work in conjunction with the Pinterest Tag (a separate but closely related vendor) to measure campaign performance.

The Pinterest Ads scripts fire conversion pixels on advertiser websites when users complete target actions. The scripts:

1. Match visitors to ad exposure — Read Pinterest cookies and URL parameters to determine if the current visitor previously saw or clicked a promoted pin
2. Record conversion events — Fire pixels for configured events (page visit, add to cart, checkout, sign-up, lead, custom events) with associated metadata (order value, currency, product IDs)
3. Build retargeting audiences — Segment website visitors based on pages viewed and actions taken for subsequent promoted pin targeting
4. Enable dynamic retargeting — For shopping campaigns, capture product-level browsing data (product IDs, categories, prices) to serve personalized product pins to previous visitors

Cookies set include:

• _pin_unauth — anonymous user identifier; 1-year expiry; tracks non-Pinterest users across advertiser sites
• _pinterest_ct_ua — user agent tracking for conversion analytics
• _epik — Pinterest's enhanced match cookie for first-party conversion tracking; 1-year expiry
• Third-party cookies under pinterest.com for cross-site user matching

Network requests transmit page URLs, conversion event data, product information, Pinterest advertising identifiers, and hashed customer data (when enhanced matching is configured) to Pinterest's ad measurement servers.

Consent & Compliance

Pinterest Ads is classified as marketing. Its exclusive purpose is advertising measurement — conversion tracking, retargeting audience building, and campaign attribution for promoted pin campaigns.

Under the GDPR, Pinterest Ads tracking requires explicit consent. The scripts process personal data (advertising identifiers, browsing behavior, conversion events, potentially hashed email addresses) for direct marketing purposes. The cross-site tracking and audience building for ad targeting require consent under Article 6(1)(a).

Under the ePrivacy Directive, the advertising and tracking cookies (particularly the 1-year _pin_unauth and _epik cookies) are not strictly necessary for any user-requested service. Article 5(3) mandates prior consent before these cookies can be placed.

Under CCPA/CPRA, Pinterest Ads conversion tracking constitutes sharing personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. The retargeting audience building and cross-site user matching are clear instances of data sharing under CPRA. Websites must provide opt-out mechanisms and honor GPC signals.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. Pinterest Ads scripts serve exclusively advertising purposes — measuring promoted pin campaign conversions, building retargeting audiences, and enabling dynamic product remarketing. They set long-lived tracking cookies and share browsing data with Pinterest's ad platform. These scripts must not execute before marketing consent is granted.