Pinterest is a social media platform with a lot of potential and possibilities. Now that they have launched their newest feature, shopping on Pinterest, they must be on every marketer's radar, using the tools provided to increase sales and visibility. Pinterest is after all the platform where people discover - learn with Kolsquare how users are going to discover your brand’s products.
In 2021, Pinterest has increased 51% in revenue. The platform’s plan for this year is to launch Pinterest Shopping which shall develop Pinterest into “a personalized shopping destination with more ways for brands to tap into trends and creators and develop meaningful connections with our high-intent users.”
At their global advertiser summit in March 2022, which took place in six countries – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. – the platform unveiled several new products. Among others, they introduced Your Shop, which the company characterizes as “a new personal shopping concierge, powered by a taste-driven algorithm.”
Users will see a customized shopping surface with brands and products that they can discover through their activity and according to their preferences on the platform. Your Shop is currently in beta in the U.S., the roll out is planned there later this year, with more countries to follow.
Visha Kudhail, Pinterest director of business marketing for Europe, told Adweek: “Because of the very nature of the inspiration to action that people have on the platform, it was quite natural for us to launch shopping ads on Pinterest … Video ads are becoming more shoppable, too, and over the course of this year, we’re going to actually see a preview of some of the new launches that we’re going to be looking at, such as Your Shop, which is your personal shopping concierge, driven by a taste-driven algorithm.”
The plan is the development of a personalized shopping destination with more ways for brands to tap into trends and creators. What sounds like a sales pitch, is framed as their differentiation from other platforms. CRO and Head of Partnerships, Bill Watkins told AdExchanger: “Our investments are focused on making shopping as inspirational as possible, like flipping through the pages of your favorite catalog or walking through the aisles of a store that feels handpicked for you.”
Personalization, focus on automation and reporting capabilities are the keywords for advertising partners to get more out of Pinterest’s user data. Pinterest aims to provide retailers with a better sense of how consumers go from research to intent to purchase.
Checkout is now in beta with select U.S. Shopify merchants and allows shoppers to purchase products without being redirected from Pinterest. These innovations are especially interesting for small- and medium-sized retail partners to grow their business. They are also meant to highlight Pinterest as a destination for “shopping” instead of “buying”.
Merchant details were already introduced last October. They enable brands to display values such as “inclusive” or “responsibly sourced” on their profiles. Additionally, they can show which community they belong to. 16% of the profiles are more likely to make a sale, when they choose merchant details, according to Pinterest. The Platform states: “Shopping’s more fun when it’s personal. That’s why we’re also investing in values-based shopping, guiding people to brands that share their sense of purpose or interests.”
The Verified Merchant Program is also expanded to Austria, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. It helps users to find vetted brands. Those again will get enhanced distribution and a “verified” will be displayed on their profile.
A new idea that Pinterest tests is “Idea Ads with paid partnership”. This feature is a joint partnership between creators and advertisers. Accordingly, while creators post an Idea Pin, they tag a brand partner. This is another possibility for businesses and creators to reach a broader audience. The Idea Pins aim to improve the paid partnership processes, which should facilitate branded content deals. For creators, this will provide more avenues to make money.
Marketers are especially interested in the announcement of improvements for “Pinterest Trends”. This key update gives insights into the popularity of any topic on the platform. “Businesses in the US, Canada and the UK will see new features added to the Pinterest trends tool, including real time search data, more trend types, more granular audience tools and personalized trend recommendations for your business. And later this year, we’ll launch the tool to additional countries all over the world.”
Users have also shown interest in their TikTok-style Watch tab, which is a promotional option for brands to maximize their Pin efforts.
Although Pinterest is actually losing users, 431 million shoppers still use the social media platform. That is of course a significant audience to reach, while the dedicated shopping focus makes them an even more valuable group for your brand. Thus, Marketers should definitely have a closer look into these tools and elements to further think about how they fit into their brand’s processes. As for any decision, you have to keep in mind: what you need for your business, for your product, and how you can make use of the key Pinterest trends.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare has built the largest community of influencer marketing experts in the world, and offers hundreds of customers (Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, El Corte Inglés, Lacoste, …) the latest Big Data, AI and Machine Learning technologies to drive inspiring partnerships, tapping into an exhaustive network covering 100% of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers in 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As a Benefit Company, Kolsquare has been pioneering Responsible Influence by championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations to inspire change.
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