I see a lot of people saying Pinterest traffic doesn't pay well. And honestly, they're not wrong — it used to be pretty bad for me too. My RPM was sitting around $8-10 for months and I couldn't figure out how to push it higher without switching to a completely different traffic source.
But I didn't want to abandon Pinterest. It's where all my traffic comes from and it converts well for recipe content. So instead of trying to replace it, I focused on two things that ended up making a bigger difference than I expected.
First thing — I submitted my sitemap to Google.
I know it sounds basic. But I was so focused on Pinterest that I never even bothered setting up Google Search Console properly. My site wasn't indexed on half its pages. So I submitted the sitemap and let Google do its thing.
Now, Google traffic is still small for me. Less than 10% of my total. But here's what most people don't realize — even a small percentage of Google traffic changes how ad networks see your site. Google visitors tend to have higher intent. They searched for something specific, landed on your page, and they engage longer. That bumps up your overall site quality signals. Advertisers bid more on sites that have a mix of traffic sources because it looks more natural and the engagement data is better. Even that little slice of search traffic lifted my overall RPM across all visitors — including the Pinterest ones.
Second thing — I added a recipe card to every post using HTML schema.
This one had the biggest impact on actual ad revenue per page. When you add a proper recipe card — the kind that displays ingredients, steps, cook time, all formatted with structured data — a few things happen at once.
The card itself creates a section on the page where users actually interact. They scroll through the ingredients list, they check the steps, they adjust servings, they hit the print button. Every one of those actions counts as engagement on the page. And when a user engages, two things trigger: the page session gets longer, and the ads refresh.
Ad refresh is the thing nobody talks about. Most ad networks — Ezoic included — refresh ads when a user takes meaningful actions on the page. Scrolling through a recipe card, clicking on tabs, interacting with the content — all of that triggers ad refreshes which load new ads in existing placements. More refreshes per session means more ad impressions per visitor without adding more ad slots. Your RPM goes up because you're earning more from the same amount of traffic.
On top of that, the recipe schema makes your posts eligible for Google rich results. So even your Pinterest visitors land on a page that looks more authoritative and keeps them around longer. The longer they stay and interact, the more ad impressions you generate, the higher your session RPM.
My RPM went from around $10 to consistently hitting $20. Same niche, same volume, same content style. I just gave ad networks more reasons to pay me more per visitor.
These aren't revolutionary hacks. Submit your sitemap. Use a proper recipe card with schema markup. Let the engagement do the work.