Pinterest is a social platform that enables users to collect ideas by “pinning” images, articles, or even recipes to themed boards.
Similar in size to Snapchat, Pinterest has over 150 million active users worldwide — about half of which are outside of the US — and users spend an average of a little over an hour and a half per month on the platform.
Like Snapchat, Pinterest’s audience is mostly women, with just over 70% of users being female. However, the age demographic for Pinterest skews higher than Instagram; nearly two-thirds of users are over 30. Pinterest gives brands the opportunity to be discovered by audiences that are actively seeking ideas. Pinterest users are eager to connect with brands. Approximately two-thirds of content pinned comes from brands and businesses. And users report being more likely to follow brands than individuals like celebrities or experts.
What makes Pinterest interesting for media buyers?
What really makes Pinterest stand out is the way that users interact with content. Pins don’t ever go away, so marketers can make the most of quality content for their programmatic advertising campaigns. On other channels, feeds drive content placed in front of the user, making recency key. On Pinterest, users are exposed to content via discovery and search, ideal for contextual tactics in a media buying plan.
And Pinterest drives purchasing!
- 87% of Pinners purchase a product because of Pinterest and
- 93% of Pinners are pinning to plan a future purchase
Pinterest also drives web traffic – up to 5% of all website traffic is coming from Pinterest, that’s second only to Facebook, which drives up to 25% of website traffic. But Pinterest is surprisingly leading in one category over Facebook: Pinners average order value from referral traffic is around $59, compared to $55 from Facebook.
Pinterest is a clear cut marketing tool and source of inventory for programmatic advertisers. For a business like the fictional Heart and Sole Shoes that are looking to promote very visually appealing physical products it is more obvious, but for B2B brands like Dave’s Data Storage it might be a less obvious advertising option since their products are more conceptual and therefore demanding more thought and creativity from the marketer.
Marketing best practices for Pinterest
Marketers can make it a best practice to include some visual element in any blog they’d like to share, or create infographics packed with valuable information worth sharing. Data charts are equally visual and eye catching – users know that there is info to be discovered. Some service-orientated businesses do well with showing pictures of their happy customers– imagine how interesting and fun Penny’s Pet Grooming Pins could be showing well-groomed pets reuniting with their happy
owners?
Pinterest offers plenty of opportunities, if marketers can rise to the challenge of creating visually engaging and high quality content that can match the staying power of Pins.
Summary
- Pinterest stands out among other social media platforms with permanent Pins driven by user discovery and search.
- Pinners are purchasers – and they spend an average of almost $60, higher than Facebook’s $55 average.
- Businesses and brands can use their Pinterest page to engage and build relationships by Pinning their own and others’ content – or even inviting guest Pins from brand fans.
- Businesses and brands need to create visually compelling, high quality content to get the most from permanent, long-term Pins.