Brief:
- Pinterest unveiled several updates to boost shopping on its visual-discovery platform, including Shop the Look ads in a collections format for mobile platforms, more dynamic business profiles and a global expansion of catalogs and shopping ads, per a blog post shared with Mobile Marketer.
- Shop the Look ads let marketers show multiple products in a single ad, like its Shop the Look Pins for organic posts from retailers and influencers. Advertisers can tag as many as 25 items in an image, while shoppers will see a preview showcase of four items. Pinterest users can click through to see more product information and check out at a retailer's site. Shop the Look ads are available in the U.S., and for select advertisers in the U.K., Brazil, Germany, France and Japan, the company said.
- Updated business profiles let brands showcase their Pins and products, and make direct sales with a dedicated Shop tab that points to a retailer website. Catalogs and shopping ads are now available in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, per Pinterest.
Insight:
Pinterest's Shop the Look ads, dynamic business profiles and global expansion of catalogs and shopping ads give mobile marketers another chance to reach consumers when they're ready to shop. Consumers use Pinterest to collect images of things they like, including aspirational ideas for fashion, cosmetics, home décor, travel, weddings and other interests. By making ads transactional, Pinterest can support social commerce, grow its ad business and draw more brands and users to its platform. More than half (57%) of weekly Pinterest users, or Pinners, use its app while they're shopping in stores, according to a study by market researcher GfK.
Pinterest's expanded features are another sign that the image-pinning platform considers social commerce a key growth strategy. The platform has added advertising and shopping features in recent months to attract more marketing dollars, particularly in categories like retail, fashion and food. The company in July first rolled out browseable digital catalogs that offer users personalized shopping ideas. In June, Pinterest created a social commerce partner program to recommend approved vendors of advertising, content marketing, measurement, creative and shopping services.
Pinterest is among the social media platforms that are boosting their ecommerce efforts to diversify revenue. Facebook this month reportedly started testing two ad formats to support direct sales for marketers, while Facebook-owned Instagram has announced several initiatives in the past year to give users more in-app shopping options. Social commerce is the top new retail technology among U.S. internet users, ahead of visual search, augmented or virtual realty (AR/VR) and voice commerce through smart speakers, per a Bizrate Insights survey cited by eMarketer. More than one-third (34%) of adults said they had made a purchase through social media, up from 29% last year, while another 27% said they were interested in social shopping, the survey found.
Pinterest's broader selection of ad formats and global expansion likely will help the company to maintain sales momentum. The company's revenue jumped 62% to $261.2 million in Q2 from a year earlier as its user base surpassed 300 million. Pinterest said the international expansion of its ad business, the simplification of its ad systems for smaller businesses and improvements to media spending measurements helped to drive growth. The platform also gets high marks among social media users. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) in July announced that Pinterest delivered the best customer experience, leading the social media industry for a second straight year.
