Pinterest Advertising Arrives for Brands

Ding, ding, ding! That’s the sound of Pinterest hopping in the advertising ring, ready to compete for ad dollars with the other big dogs of social media. While you may have noticed beta testing in Summer 2014 in the form of a scattered, strictly selected promoted pins, the gates opened on January 1 to all potential advertisers.

How does Pinterest advertising work?

The Pinterest algorithm works to introduce you to new experiences, new things to buy, essentially discovering for you by targeting age, sex, location, and interests. It is the very definition of right time marketing, serving the right content to the right people at the right time. I’ve noticed this in my own feed with suggested pins labeled “Picked for You”:

pickedforyou

The algorithm serves advertising the same way – ads look much like organic content, inserted seamlessly into user feeds based on previous pins, with only a small note at the bottom claiming sponsorship.

How Can I Use Promoted Pins for my brand?

Target was the first Promoted Pin I noticed in my own personal feed. It was beautiful, on-brand for both Target and Pinterest, and I didn’t initially realize it was an advertisement. Even better, clicking through the Pin took me to Target.com, directly to a catalog of products shown in the Pin:

promotedpins

This is the perfect way for retail to showcase multiple products, while travel brands could utilize promoted Place Pins for restaurants and hotels to target users who are planning specifics of an upcoming trip.

Still worried about targeting audiences correctly? Pinterest will soon be launching the Pinstitute, a place to guide marketers through Promoted Pins.

Are Promoted Pins really worth it?

Pinterest claims that Promoted Pins are being “re-pinned” an average of 11 times per advertisement. Thanks to the snowball effect of Pinterest, this means that on average, 30% more people see the paid advertisement via organic sharing. Coupled with Pinterest’s impressive stats of 4x the conversion per click of Twitter and a 27% higher conversion rate than Facebook, Promoted Pins could potentially see a high social media ROI.

Additionally, consider the virality and long shelf life of Pins when weighing the value of Promoted Pins — 50% of visits driven by pins take place after 3.5 months and 50% of orders are placed after a pin has been active for 2.5 months.

As always, be sure to follow Pinterest best practices for brands!