Pinterest Shopping Ads: What's in It for Advertisers?

The Art of Pinterest by mkhmarketing Licensed under (CC BY 2.0)

Pinterest has been gaining massive attention from thousands of advertisers wanting to leverage on the platform for exposure to the platform’s users. Dubbed as Promoted Pins, Pinterest Ads was launched in 2017 with just a few major brands as ad partners on beta such as Venus, Overstock, IKEA Canada, eBay, Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, and Lowe's. Pinterest will allow businesses to promote pins directly from their business profile.

Why advertise on Pinterest?

Pinterest offers a range of marketing solutions whether your goal is to build awareness of your brand, drive the consideration of your products or grow your sales.

Convenience from Creative Support

Pinterest will complete and deliver custom-made pins that are ready to promote - that’s less work. Shopping Ads will also allow brands to utilise their product catalogue into “visual, actionable ads” according to Pinterest. They can pull pins from an existing product feed which makes them very useful in extending their audience reach and scaling up their advertising efforts.

Non-disruptive ads

Pinterest ads look and feel natural. They do not disrupt users’ experience and activities while viewing ads. In fact, they add products and ideas to discover and add to users’ existing pins. That makes it useful to users.

Receptive Audience

People use Pinterest to discover ideas and products before they shop or plan. An example is creating a pinboard before going on a mountain trek or island hopping adventure. When you promote your pins, you put them in front of people who are excited and ready to shop for fantastic products. According to study, 61% of pinners were prompted to purchase after seeing a business post on Pinterest.

Continuous Promotion

Even if pinners aren’t ready to purchase now, they save your promoted pins on their boards and come back to them later. Their followers will see your pins in their feed and act depending on their appetite - they either save the pin, or if you’re in luck, they may just purchase. The brand discovery goes on for as long as there are people in the same interest that aligns with your brand.

Performance

Early yet to say, but major ad partners who participated in the beta test noticed significant benefits during the program. Pinterest said that Shopping Ads drove an increase in basket sizes, increased acquisition of new customers, and quick conversion. For example, IKEA Canada experienced 25% lower overall cost per order; Lowe’s gained 76% higher return on ad spend than they’ve projected; while, Ultra Beauty also said it saw positive results from the Shopping Ads. By way of non-branded, search they saw their way and connected with beauty enthusiasts early in the consideration stage of their buying journey. Thus, increasing awareness and consequently, purchases as well.

How to sign up for the Shopping Ads program

Advertisers need to complete the Pinterest Propel Program. Propel is Pinterest’s 30-day program that will give advertisers access to training, phone support and customised tips, creative resources such as custom-built pins, and support for their campaigns such as Pinterest Guide to best practices. The program will also enable businesses to learn from experts how to analyse Pinterest traffic, track sales and online conversions free of charge.