Pinterest rarely appears in Gulf media plans, partly because it was hard to buy here. That is changing. In October 2024 Pinterest said it was open for business in 30 new countries, naming the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In March 2026 it made its first hire in the region, a head of sales partnerships for the Middle East and North Africa based in Dubai. In July Saudia became the first Middle East airline to advertise on it.
How Gulf advertisers buy
Pinterest's help centre lists the countries where businesses can open ad accounts directly. No Gulf country is on it. The same page names DMS, part of the Choueiri Group, as Pinterest's partner for Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and DMS has been Pinterest's regional sales partner since July 2024. In practice, an advertiser or agency based in the Gulf works through DMS rather than opening an account on its own.
Targeting is a separate question. Pinterest's premium Premiere Spotlight format lists the UAE and Saudi Arabia among its markets, and its Red Sea Global case study targeted both, so audiences in the Gulf can be reached.
What you can run
- At a Dubai summit in 2024, Pinterest and DMS listed direct links, Performance+, shopping, carousel and product Pins among the formats offered in the region.
- Premiere Spotlight, full-width video in premium positions, is reserved through a sales representative and priced per day, running for one or three days outside the US.
- Pinterest does not publish clearly which countries its shopping ads run in, so confirm catalogue and shopping formats with DMS before planning around them.
What the region's campaigns show
- Saudia, July 2026: a campaign using full-width video, with trade reports of cost per thousand impressions 30 percent below benchmark, cost per click 25 percent below and click-through 75 percent above.
- Red Sea Global, targeting Saudi Arabia and the UAE: Pinterest reports a 74 percent higher engagement rate, 67 percent lower cost per outbound click and 1.1 times higher outbound click-through than travel benchmarks.
- Search trends Pinterest shared for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in autumn 2025 included classy hijabi outfits, up 176 percent, workplace design, up 1,209 percent, and home office setups, up 398 percent.
Pinterest's then chief revenue officer told Arab News in October 2025 that Saudi Arabia had more than a billion searches on Pinterest in the previous year and that Pinterest reached more than 30 percent of the Middle East's online population. Those figures come from a single interview. Pinterest does not publish user numbers for Gulf countries.
Audience and Arabic
Pinterest has been available in Arabic on iPhone, Android and the web since July 2021. Its results group the Gulf under Rest of World, which had 377 million monthly users in the second quarter of 2026, up 15 percent. Pinterest earns far less per user there than in North America: 23 US cents a quarter, against 8.30 dollars. Its finance chief said in May that the conflict in the region had only a small effect on revenue. We could not confirm that Arabic can be used as a targeting language.
Country ad rules
- UAE: alcohol, physical casinos, physical pharmacies, medical devices and over-the-counter drugs are banned, as is formula for babies under 24 months. Education, financial services, real estate and energy drinks are allowed with licences or approvals.
- Saudi Arabia: alcohol and physical casinos are banned. Financial services, food, infant formula, medical devices and over-the-counter drugs need registration or a licence.
- Kuwait: alcohol, casinos and pork are banned.
- Qatar: alcohol and casinos are banned; financial services need approval.
- Bahrain: alcohol, casinos, infant formula and CBD brand content are banned, as is off-plan real estate.
- Oman: alcohol, casinos, pharmacies, medical devices, over-the-counter drugs, financial services, lingerie and swimwear, and pork are banned.
Pinterest's updated ad guidelines, in force from 12 November 2026, carry these country rules over without substantive change. Political ads are banned everywhere.
When Pinterest fits a Gulf client
Pinterest is where people plan: 96 percent of text searches are unbranded, according to Pinterest, so people arrive undecided. That suits categories where Gulf audiences plan ahead, such as home and interiors, weddings and events, fashion and modest fashion, beauty, travel and food. Pinterest's own advice is to plan seasonal content 45 to 60 days ahead, which for Ramadan and Eid means starting early.
The ad mockup generator on this site shows an ad in Pinterest's feed and close-up views, and the social media image resizer crops a picture to Pinterest's 2:3 shape.
