We’ve all heard the old saying about searching for a needle in a haystack. In today’s world, searching the internet can feel just like that! We know what we’re looking for must be there somewhere, but it can seem to elude us. However, if you are looking for a Pin rather than a needle, then life is just about to get better!
Pinterest has recently launched its own ad offering. Ads are inserted as Pins into the Pinterest search results page. The way it works is that when a user enters a search query into Pinterest, they receive a search results page consisting of around 55 Pins that match the query. These search pages now also include advertiser Pins which are marked as being promoted.
The new ad offering has been tested extensively with major retail brands, such as, ASOS and Made.com, and has proved itself to be a credible revenue-driver. Many retailers are now making it a key plank of their digital marketing strategy. The visual nature of Pinterest fits incredibly well with the retail sector. Check out the promotional video below about how it all works:
The opportunity has major potential! Pinterest currently has over 75 billion Pins which are created by people all over the world saving images from the web. For many people browsing Pinterest, is an online and visual equivalent of browsing in a store. There are 2 billion searches a month on Pinterest, and the majority of these are for products and services people want to buy.
Moreover, according to Pinterest, 97% of these searches don’t include a brand name. This gives advertisers the opening to reach those consumers who are interested in a particular product or service, but who have not yet committed to a specific brand.
According to Jon Kaplan – Pinterest’s global head of partnerships – this has produced “new demand” for advertisers who participated in early testing of search ads.
So how can you start making the most of this opportunity?
Similar to Google, Pinterest sells search ads via an auction-based system in which advertisers specify how much they are willing to pay for each click on their ads. Advertising campaigns on Pinterest can either be keyword campaigns or shopping campaigns.
- Keyword campaigns
These are designed for advertisers to target their ads using the keywords that Pinterest users are most likely to use – which may be different from those used by other search engines due to the visual nature of the service. - Shopping campaigns
These auto-generate ads from the product feeds that advertisers supply to Pinterest via FTP, enabling campaigns to be quickly created at scale. Advertisers are able to dynamically update these campaigns as inventory changes.
Another interesting thing about Pinterest searching and saving is the timescales. According to Pinterest, people can start searching up to three months before they purchase, so in terms of business reach there is a lot of fertile ground to be ploughed! It will be possible to engage with customers earlier in the buying journey, when they are more open to new ideas.
Pinterest have also announced a new partnership with digital advertiser, Kenshoo to enable them to bring their search ads to more leading brands, agencies and search marketers. New ad features are currently being tested with several partners, including Barilla, eBay, Garnier, Target, The Home Depot and Walgreens.
In today’s visual world, these new developments from Pinterest are very exciting! Although still in the relatively early stages, the potential is enormous and it would be short-sighted not to include advertising on Pinterest in your digital marketing strategy for 2017!
Author: Emily Williams
