Bid Strategy

Your bid strategy is how you tell Pinterest to set the price it pays in each auction: automatic or custom.

On automatic, Pinterest sets the bid for you and spends your budget to get the most results it can. On custom, you cap the bid at a number you choose, which holds the ceiling but can throttle delivery if you set it too low. You pick automatic when you want the system to find the price, and custom when you have a hard efficiency limit you refuse to cross.

A brand launches on automatic to let Pinterest learn the auction, then, once it knows its true cost per result, switches to custom to hold the bid at that ceiling.

A custom bid set too low does not save money; it stops delivery. People set an aggressive cap, get almost no impressions, and conclude Pinterest has no inventory. The auction simply passed them over. Custom bidding controls price, not outcomes, and starving delivery is not the same as being efficient.

A bid nobody wins buys nothing.