How to A/B Test Your Pinterest Pin It Button for More Clicks

You've installed a Pin It button on your WordPress site. It's visible on all devices (if you followed my advice about not using hover-only buttons). Images are getting pinned. Pinterest is sending traffic. Great.

But is the button optimized? Is the default Pinterest red the best color for your site's dark theme? Is the top-left corner really better than top-right? Would a round button get more clicks than a rectangular one?

Most site owners never test these variables. They install the plugin, pick whatever looks reasonable, and move on. But button design significantly affects click rates, and small improvements compound across thousands of page views. A 1% improvement in pin rate on a page with 10,000 monthly visitors means 100 more pins per month — each one a potential traffic source that lives forever on Pinterest.

Here's how to A/B test your Pin It button systematically, what variables to test, and what I've learned from testing across my sites.

Why A/B Test a Button?

It seems like a small detail, and it is — that's exactly why most people don't bother. But conversion optimization is built on small details. The entire A/B testing industry exists because assumptions about what works are frequently wrong.

Here's a real example from my testing. On Acuario Pets (aquarium care site), I assumed the standard Pinterest red button would perform best because it's recognizable — users associate that red with Pinterest. I was wrong. A white button on the darker aquarium photography images had a 23% higher click rate because the red button blended into the warm-toned fish and coral images.

You can't know what works best for your specific site, your specific images, and your specific audience without testing. Intuition fails more often than you'd think.

What to Test

Variable 1: Button Color

The Pin It button color needs to contrast with your images. If your site features dark photography, a light button stands out. If your site has bright, colorful images, a dark button might work better.

Always Visible Pin It Button Pro offers 5 color presets with live preview:

• Pinterest Red: The default. High brand recognition. Works well on light, neutral-toned images.
• Black: Sleek and unobtrusive. Works on bright images and colorful backgrounds. Popular on fashion and food blogs.
• White: Maximum contrast on dark images. Works well on photography-heavy sites, nature sites, and dark-themed blogs.
• Blue: An alternative that stands out without the Pinterest branding. Some audiences respond better to blue because it feels less like an advertisement.
• Green: Good for nature, garden, and sustainability niches where green feels contextually appropriate.

Test color first — it typically has the largest impact on click rates because it directly affects visibility and visual contrast.

Variable 2: Button Position

The four corners produce different results depending on your site layout and reading patterns:

• Top-left: First place the eye lands in left-to-right reading. Highest natural visibility. My default choice.
• Top-right: Second place the eye scans to. Can work better if your images have important content in the top-left (like text overlays that start from the left).
• Bottom-left: Less immediately visible but doesn't compete with image content. Can work if your images frequently have titles or watermarks at the top.
• Bottom-right: Least visible position in reading order. Not recommended for mobile because of scrolling thumb interference. But some sites find it works because it's "out of the way" and doesn't feel intrusive.

Position matters more on mobile than desktop. On mobile, screen real estate is limited, and the button position relative to the thumb zone affects tap rates. Test with mobile traffic specifically in mind.

Variable 3: Button Shape

Round vs. rectangular. Round buttons feel more modern and less intrusive. Rectangular buttons are more traditional and recognizable as action buttons. The difference is usually smaller than color or position, but on high-traffic pages it's worth testing.

Variable 4: Button Size

Larger buttons are more visible and easier to tap on mobile, but they also cover more of the image. Smaller buttons are less obtrusive but harder to notice and harder to tap accurately. The sweet spot depends on your average image size and your audience's device distribution.

How to Run the Test

Always Visible Pin It Button Pro has built-in A/B testing. Here's how it works:

• Step 1: Choose your variants. Select two configurations to test. For example, Variant A might be a red round button in the top-left corner, and Variant B might be a white round button in the top-left corner. Only change one variable at a time — if you change color AND position simultaneously, you won't know which change caused the difference.
• Step 2: Set the test duration. The plugin offers 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day test periods. For sites with 1,000+ daily pageviews, 7 days is usually enough to reach statistical significance. For smaller sites, use 14 or 30 days.
• Step 3: Let it run. The plugin automatically shows Variant A to 50% of visitors and Variant B to the other 50%. Assignment is random and cookie-based so returning visitors see the same variant consistently.
• Step 4: Review results. The plugin tracks clicks for each variant and calculates the click rate (clicks / impressions). After the test period, it automatically declares a winner based on click rate. You can then apply the winning variant permanently.

Statistical Significance: Don't Jump to Conclusions

The biggest mistake in A/B testing is ending the test too early. If Variant B has a 10% higher click rate after 2 days, that might be noise — random variation in a small sample. You need enough data points for the result to be reliable.

General guidelines:

• Minimum sample size: Each variant should have at least 100 clicks before you draw conclusions. With a 3% click rate, that means each variant needs about 3,300 impressions — or about 6,600 total page views across both variants.
• Don't peek at results daily. It's tempting to check the dashboard every day, but early results are volatile. Set the test duration and check at the end.
• Account for weekly patterns. Web traffic varies by day of week. Always run tests for at least 7 days to include all days of the week. Weekend vs. weekday visitors might behave differently.
• Consider seasonality. If you're running a test during a holiday traffic spike, the results might not reflect normal behavior. Test during typical traffic periods when possible.

My Testing Results Across 4 Sites

Here's what I found from testing on my sites. Your results will vary — that's the whole point of testing — but these patterns might give you a starting hypothesis.

The Turtle Hub (dark nature photography)

Winner: White button, top-left, round, medium size.

The white button had 27% more clicks than the red button. The dark, natural tones of turtle and reptile photography made the red button blend in, while white popped against every image. Top-left outperformed top-right by about 12%.

Acuario Pets (colorful aquarium images)

Winner: White button, top-left, round, medium size.

Same result as The Turtle Hub. Aquarium images are vibrant — blues, oranges, reds of tropical fish. The red button disappeared against clownfish and coral photos. White maintained contrast across the full range of underwater photography.

Giftlytic (product photography on white backgrounds)

Winner: Pinterest red button, top-left, rectangular, small size.

Opposite of the nature sites. Gift guide images are mostly product photos on white or light backgrounds. The white button was invisible here. Classic Pinterest red provided the best contrast. Rectangular shape felt more appropriate for the commercial context. Small size worked because product images are typically smaller than nature photography.

Classic Fork (food/recipe photography)

Winner: Black button, top-right, round, medium size.

Food photography has warm tones — browns, oranges, reds from ingredients and plating. Red blended in (again). White worked but felt clinical against food imagery. Black was visible without feeling out of place. Top-right won over top-left here because many food photos have the dish positioned left-center, and a top-left button covered the focal point.

The Pattern

The consistent lesson: contrast with your dominant image palette matters more than Pinterest brand recognition. Don't assume red is best because it's "the Pinterest color." Test against your actual images.

Advanced Testing: UTM Tracking

Beyond button design, you should track which pins drive the most traffic back to your site. Always Visible Pin It Button Pro supports custom UTM parameters on pin URLs.

When someone pins your image, the pin URL can include UTM tags like ?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=pin&utm_campaign=always-visible. This lets you see in Google Analytics exactly how much traffic comes from pins created via the button, separate from organic Pinterest discovery or manual pins.

This data closes the feedback loop. You can see not just how many people click the Pin It button, but how much actual traffic those pins generate downstream. Some images get pinned a lot but drive little click-through traffic (because the pin isn't compelling enough to click). Other images get pinned less but each pin drives significant traffic (because the image and description are highly clickable).

What to Test Next

Once you've optimized the button itself, the next level is optimizing what happens when people click it:

• Pin descriptions. The text that pre-fills when someone creates a pin from your image. Keyword-rich, specific descriptions outperform generic ones. I cover this in detail in my Pinterest SEO guide.
• Image selection. Which images on your page get the most pins? Use the analytics dashboard to find your highest-performing images and create more content in that style.
• Vertical vs. horizontal images. Create dedicated pin-optimized images (1000x1500, 2:3 ratio) for your top articles and see how they compare to your standard content images.

The full Pinterest strategy — from images to button to descriptions to board strategy — is covered in my WordPress Pinterest traffic guide.

Start Testing

You can configure and preview button appearance with the free version of Always Visible Pin It Button. The A/B testing feature requires Pro ($29/year), which also includes pin analytics, custom colors, UTM tracking, and advanced exclusion rules.

Start with a color test — it has the highest impact and is the easiest to understand. Run it for 14 days, check the results, apply the winner, then test position. Incremental optimization beats guessing every time.