The holiday shopping season on Pinterest isn’t coming. It’s started.
But don’t worry – we’ve got you covered with a simple guide to ramping up your Pinterest presence with little time required during your busiest season.
Pinterest’s Trends data shows gift searches rising steadily since late summer, and several have doubled or more in the past month. Pinterest Trends reports US month-over-month growth of 200% for “christmas gift ideas for mom,” 100% for “christmas gift basket ideas,” 90% for “christmas gifts for him,” 80% for “teacher christmas gifts,” and 70% for “gift guide.” Broader terms are moving too, with “gift ideas” and “gifts for mom” each up 30%. (Pinterest Trends, US, month-over-month change, week of October 5, 2026.)
Those percentages are big because the starting point is small.
That’s good news: most of the curve is still ahead – and you can still get there in time.
They grey line shows how how the same searches played out last year, with the blue line showing this year’s trajectory. This year’s numbers are roughly in line with last year’s early slope. And with shopping intensity growing as we get closer to Christmas, it’s safe to assume we’ll see similar peaks in the range of December 15-22.
That’s about 9-10 weeks away. Just enough time to build momentum around your products and Pins for when the climb gets steep in mid-November.
An organic Pin doesn’t start working the day you publish it. Pinterest has to read your Pin’s title, description and image, understand what it’s about, and start showing it in the searches it matches. Only then can people save it and click through. As they engage with your Pins, Pinterest sees that and decides to push them to more people. The sweet spot is to have your Pins beginning to rank highly for relevant searches just as demand is spiking.
In Tailwind’s 2025 Pinterest Marketing Benchmark Report, which analyzed 1.2M+ Pins across 17k+ accounts, about 20% of Fresh Pins had no distribution at all after roughly a week. That may sound crazy compared to other social networks – but that’s the thing: Pinterest isn’t really a social network. It’s more of a personalized search and inspiration engine.
As with Google, it takes time for new content on Pinterest to become trusted, show it’s worth ranking over other similar content and then grow into maximum distribution. That’s why Pinterest experts always say you can’t judge new Pins on until they’re two to three months in, not their first few days.
Put that next to the Trends curve and the timing is plain:
Starting late still pays off, because Pinterest content keeps working for a long time. In the same benchmark data, more than 60% of recent saves on Pins linking to users’ own sites went to Pins over a year old. But for this year’s sales, the next few weeks are the window.
The catch is that the holidays are also your busiest time. So the rest of this guide is about getting your Pinterest presence running with as little ongoing effort as possible — while you still choose what goes out.
SmartPin creates fresh Pins from the pages on your site — product pages, collection pages, gift guides, roundups — and keeps making new ones on a schedule you set. Each new Pin lands as a draft for you to review. Nothing publishes until you choose it. It’s the fastest and easiest way to build a weekly pipeline of new Pins to publish that can keep running through the holiday spike.
Start from New Post → Create SmartPin in the left menu.
You don’t have to set it up one page at a time. Two ways to do it in bulk:
On the SmartPin dashboard, New SmartPin gives you From Site Pages and Import a CSV.
Pick the pages you want, then continue to activate your SmartPins.
If Tailwind can’t find your sitemap, check whether your site’s firewall is blocking it; Site Pages will tell you when that’s the problem.
For ecommerce sellers: activate your best-selling products, your giftable items, and any collection pages built around who the gift is for (“gifts for him,” “gifts for teachers”). Those pages match the way people search on Pinterest this time of year. Our guide to Pinterest for ecommerce covers the bigger picture.
For affiliate marketers: activate your gift guides and product roundups. Pointing Pins at your own roundup page, rather than straight at a single product, gives the shopper a curated set to choose from and keeps the click on your site. If you’re an Amazon affiliate, here’s more on using Pinterest for affiliate income. Roundup keywords are also more likely to show Pins that point to content, while product-focused keywords will generally show Pins that point to product pages, favoring sellers’ own Pins over affiliate Pins. Tailwind’s keyword research feature can help you see exactly which keywords are best for pointing to products vs content pages.
By default, SmartPin designs a Pin around the photos on your page. That works well for most content. But if you sell products, you may want shoppers to see exactly what they’ll get, with no design or text layered on top.
That’s what the Photo only design style is for. When you create or edit a SmartPin, choose Photo only as the design option, and SmartPin uses your own product photo as the Pin image. You can change the option on an existing SmartPin at any time, and it applies to every Pin it makes from then on.
For affiliates: Premium and Basic templates will be better bets for your round-up and collection style posts.
Choose Photo only to post your own product photo as-is.
One practical tip: Photo only uses your photo as it is, without cropping it to Pinterest’s vertical shape. Use vertical images — 2:3, like 1000×1500 pixels — on the pages you activate, or your Pins will publish in whatever shape the photo is. Our Pinterest image size guide covers the details.
SmartPin gets better when you tell it what each page should rank for. In Keyword Research, search the gift terms in your niche, then save the ones with real demand and attach them to the pages you’re activating. Saved keywords fill in automatically when you set up SmartPin, so your Pin titles and descriptions target what people actually search. (Not using Tailwind yet? Try the free Pinterest keyword tool for a first look.)
Use the shopping-intent filter here. Terms with high shopping intent show mostly products in Pinterest search, so they belong on product and collection pages. Lower-intent terms show mostly articles and ideas, so they’re the right match for gift guides and roundups. If you’re new to this, our complete guide to Pinterest SEO explains how keywords get your Pins found, and how to write Pinterest descriptions covers the copy.
Getting Pins published is half the job. The other half is helping them gain traction early, so they’re already circulating when gift searches surge.
That’s what Tailwind Turbo is for. When you add a Pin to Turbo, it’s shared with thousands of Tailwind members who collaborate to support each other’s growth on Pinterest. That helps teach Pinterest’s algorithm to show your content to more people — without paying for ads.
Find Turbo in Tailwind’s left menu.
Turbo Groups take this a step further. A group brings together creators and sellers who Pin about the same topics you do, so your Pins are in front of people with related interests. And thought Turbo Groups just launched recently, we’re already seeing that Pins shared through Groups are getting 71% more engagement than other Turbo Pins. Both give you a boost, but Groups give you a bigger boost, faster, and at no added fees!
Turbo Groups are now on for every Tailwind account. You don’t need to go looking for them: as you schedule Pins, Tailwind suggests groups that match your content, right in your Turbo dashboard. Join the ones that fit your niche. Every group also has a shareable invite link, so if you know other sellers or bloggers in your niche, invite them.
How to time it for the holidays: Add your strongest holiday Pins to Turbo now, while they’re new, rather than waiting until December. The goal is for your best gift Pins to have weeks of momentum behind them before the steep part of the curve, not to start from zero in the middle of it.
This is where holiday Pinterest plans usually stall. SmartPin keeps making new drafts every week, but drafts don’t publish until you approve them. If you’re slammed with orders in November, the drafts pile up, and your Pinterest goes quiet right when it should be busiest.
Put a recurring weekly reminder on your calendar — say, Monday morning, 15 minutes — to review your SmartPin drafts and schedule the ones you like. In each session:
Set it up in one click: add a weekly SmartPin review to your Google Calendar. It opens a pre-filled event that repeats every Monday morning; change the day or time before you save.
Don’t skip weeks, even in December. SmartPins that go a long stretch without activity switch themselves off, so a weekly check-in is also how you catch that.
If you already use ChatGPT or Claude, you can connect it to Tailwind and do your weekly review in a conversation. Tailwind’s app is live in ChatGPT, and Claude can connect to Tailwind’s MCP server as a custom connector. Setup for both is on the Tailwind MCP page.
Once it’s connected, you can ask things like “Show me this week’s Pin drafts” or “Schedule these three to my holiday gifts board in my next open slots.” The assistant pulls up your drafts, you pick the ones that go out, and it schedules them. You can also ask it what’s queued for the week. More on how it works in our post introducing Tailwind’s MCP server.
One thing stays the same either way: you choose each Pin that publishes. Pinterest’s rules require it, and it’s what keeps your account safe. Tools that promise to auto-publish everything with no human review put your account at risk. This is what we mean by AI-assisted Pinterest marketing: AI does the busywork, and you keep the judgment.
| When | What to do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| This week | Research and save your holiday gift keywords; attach them to your product and gift-guide pages | Keyword Research |
| This week | Bulk-activate SmartPins for your holiday products and guides (Photo only for exact product images) | SmartPin → From Site Pages or Import a CSV |
| This week | Activate Turbo and join the Turbo Groups Tailwind suggests for your niche as your Pins start to publish | Turbo |
| Every week through December | 15-minute review: approve drafts, schedule, add your best new Pins to Turbo | Calendar reminder, or your AI assistant |
| Early November | Check which Pins are gaining saves and clicks, and make more like them | Your Pinterest analytics |
| After the holidays | Leave your holiday Pins live; they can keep earning saves next season | — |
Save this guide for later. Pin whichever of these fits your boards best.
Earlier than most people think. In Pinterest Trends data for 2025, US searches for terms like “christmas gift basket ideas” and “christmas gifts for him” started rising in September, climbed steeply from the second week of November, and peaked in the two weeks before Christmas. In 2026, the same searches are already climbing: Pinterest Trends shows “christmas gift basket ideas” up 100% and “christmas gift ideas for mom” up 200% month over month (week of October 5).
No. Mid-October is good timing. Pins need a few weeks to be found and start gaining saves, and last year the steep climb in gift searches started around the second week of November. Pins published now have time to settle in before then. Pins published in December will mostly pay off next season.
Yes. Choose the Photo only option when you create or edit a SmartPin, and it uses your page’s product photo as the Pin image instead of designing a new one. Use vertical photos (2:3), because Photo only doesn’t crop your image.
Tailwind does the time-consuming parts automatically: SmartPin creates new Pin drafts from your pages every week, and SmartSchedule picks the best times to post. You still approve which Pins go out, which Pinterest requires. A weekly 15-minute review, or a quick conversation with ChatGPT or Claude connected to Tailwind, is enough to keep your Pins flowing.
Turbo Groups are communities inside Tailwind Turbo where creators and sellers who Pin about the same topics collaborate to support each other’s growth on Pinterest. They’re on for every Tailwind account. Tailwind suggests groups that match your Pins as you schedule, and each group has an invite link you can share.
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