In advance of Small Business Saturday (Nov. 30) and the holiday shopping season, Pinterest has launched Pinterest Shop – a new dashboard curated by Pinterest that showcases the profiles and products of small businesses in an Etsy-style fashion.
Shop currently includes 17 different small businesses that make and sell unique goods and have uploaded their product catalogs to Pinterest. The products are then automatically turned into Product Pins. Pinterest said it will continue updating the Pinterest Shop with products from select businesses.
Why we should care
Social platforms are jumping on board to launch shopping experiences based on audience interests in unique products and curated collections. Instagram, for example, launched a curated collection of products inspired by this year’s top trends on the app.
From personalized product recommendations to curated shopping hubs, platforms like the Pinterest Shop, Etsy, Instagram and Amazon are giving SMBs opportunities to be found on their platforms.
Pinterest’s native visual platform acts as a discovery engine for users to generate ideas, which translates seamlessly to users who view a pin and decide to make a purchase. With Pinterest Shop, users can browse a selection of curated products from small businesses within the same environment they’re already familiar with. For small businesses, the ability to showcase a profile and connect with audiences in a personal and familiar way could help drive sales in time for the holiday rush.
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Pinterest Shop marks another move by the company to continue building out its e-commerce platform. In August, Pinterest launched a personalized “shopping hub” to give retailers the opportunity to expand their reach on the platform outside of ad campaigns.
Pinterest said retail brands selling on the platform have seen 2x higher return on ad spend, and 1.3x higher return than from traditional search.
Taylor Peterson is Third Door Media’s Deputy Editor, managing industry-leading coverage that informs and inspires marketers. Based in New York, Taylor brings marketing expertise grounded in creative production and agency advertising for global brands. Taylor’s editorial focus blends digital marketing and creative strategy with topics like campaign management, emerging formats, and display advertising.
Pinterest launched a new “Home Feed Tuner” on Tuesday that gives users more insight into what factors impact the content being surfaced in their home feeds and more control over what they see. The tool shows the boards, topics, followed accounts and recent history activity that determine recommendations in a user’s feed, and allows the user to remove these signals using an on/off toggle switch: “Flip on if you want to see more ideas, flip off if you’d rather not, whether because the content is sensitive or irrelevant.”
The tool can be accessed via a user’s settings or at pinterest.com/edit. There is also an option that lets users adjust their recommendations at the Pin-level.
Why we should care
Giving users more control over content recommendations could lead to higher engagement for brands on the platform. If users are able to adjust the signals that impact their home feed recommendations, Pinterest’s algorithm will more accurately surface content users want to see.
A better user experience could also result in more time spent on the platform and more branded and promoted content saved to boards.
“We approached this in the same way our engineers build recommendations on the backend, by handing a control panel over to the Pinner so she can tune her home feed and have the most relevant and inspirational experience possible,” said Pinterest’s head of Pinner Products Omar Seyal.
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Pinterest’s “Home Feed Tuner” controls also give users the option to receive recommendations for their secret boards as well, which previously were excluded from recommendations.
Users can turn on the feature by going directly to the pinterest.com/edit link or access it under the three-dots icon at the top of their home page on desktop. It is also available on Android and iOS.
The feature will show why Pins showed up in feeds and allow users to give feedback if they don’t want to see them.
About The Author
Amy Gesenhues is a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.
Pinterest announced on Monday it would soon be releasing Shop the Look ads in a new collections format for mobile. The ads will roll out in the U.S. over the coming months. The company is also redesigning the layout for Business Profiles on its platform and extending its Catalogs and Shopping Ads to more countries.
Shop the Look collection ads. The soon-to-be-released Shop the Look mobile collections ads for mobile will allow brands to showcase up to four products that users can then click through to purchase on the brand’s website.
“It’s the easiest way for retailers to feature multiple products in a single ad so Pinners can discover great products in the context of a Pin’s image and click to checkout on the retailer’s website,” writes Pinterest on its newsroom blog.
The company said the ad format was inspired by its organic Shop the Look pins businesses can use which allow them to tag up to 25 items in a single image.
Business Profiles: now with Shop tabs. Pinterest is also refreshing its Business Profile design, aiming to bring a brand’s “Pins and products front and center.” Businesses can now customize their profile cover with a video or image, and the platform has added a dedicated Shop tab so that users can browse products directly from Business Profile pages.
getting access to Shopping Ads.
Why we should care. Pinterest has long been recognized as a valuable product discovery platform, but it’s continued focus to expand ad opportunities and ecommerce features creates real potential for brands on the platform.
A recent study conducted by Neustar, looking at social and search campaigns for five U.S. retail brands, found that even though Pinterest ads accounted for only 11% of the media spend for the five brands, the platform was responsible for 18% of their incremental sales and revenue — making Pinterest ads 2.3-times more efficient compared to other social platforms.
With the steady rollout of more ad products, Pinterest is positioning itself to win over a larger chunk of advertising dollars. How much it actually earns will depend on campaign performance — and how well Pinterest can compete with other social ad platforms.
Pinterest announced on Tuesday it has advanced its Lens capabilities, making it possible for the visual search tool to now identify more than 2.5 billion fashion and home products. With this latest advancement, the company is adding fashion and home related Shoppable Pins to visual search results.
“Now, when you use Lens within a fashion or home Pin to hone in on a specific product or object, you’ll see shoppable Product Pins (Pins with the current price and a direct link to checkout on the retailer’s site) along with visually similar ideas to try or buy,” write Pinterest on its newsroom blog.
Users will also now be able to save photos from their Lens searches and turn them into a Pin that they can save to a board. Pinterest will then use the “Lens’ed” photos to power future recommendations for the user.
Why we should care
Pinterest’s visual platform is a naturally fit for home and fashion marketers, and the company’s push to wed its visual search technology with shoppable pins makes it even more so. By bringing shoppable pins to Lens search results and recommendations, the company is giving branded Pins more exposure and helping to shorten the customer journey by bridging the gap between product discovery and purchase.
“We see significant value for brands to tap into visual search on Pinterest as it will allow wider discovery by tastemakers and drive meaningful consumer engagements online and off,” said GroupM’s Global Head of Social Kieley Taylor.
According to a CSpace Visual Search survey, 80% of Pinterest users start with a visual search when shopping, and 85% of the survey respondents reported they put more importance on visuals versus text information. Forty-nine percent of the Pinterest users surveyed said they develop better relationships with brands via visual search. All more reason for brands to take advantage of Pinterest’s image-focused platform and visual search technology.
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The latest updates to Pinterest’s camera Lens search technology were released on its Android app on Tuesday and will launch on iOS in the coming weeks.
Pinterest launched its “Complete the Look” visual search tool in June, a feature that recommends relevant home and fashion products to users based on the context of a scene within an image.
personalized “shopping hub” last week that displays at the top of users’ feeds with product recommendations pulled from retailers’ organic Product Pins and Catalog feeds.
According to a Pinterest spokesperson, retailers can upload Pins via Catalogs and their products will be distributed across Pinterest’s shopping surfaces which include this new “shopping hub” feature, as well as other recommendation spaces and shopping feeds.
Pinterest also rolled out an updated shopping section that will display below Product Pins, highlighting Catalog content from the respective brand. “Making it easy to browse into the catalogs of brands of all sizes, like Target, Birdies Slippers, Joybird, The Tie Bar and Parachute,” Pinterest wrote on its business blog.
Why we should care
Pinterest is continuing to build out e-commerce features for its discovery platform to connect users to more branded product recommendations. This personalized “shopping hub” gives retailers the opportunity to expand their reach on the platform outside of ad campaigns.
Pinterest’s customized recommendations should give brands more exposure and more opportunities to move users through the customer journey, from discovery to purchase.
“We’ve found that people increasingly use Pinterest to search for specific types of products and vignettes, and Pinterest’s growing suite of Shopping tools helps us meet that customer demand, providing those shoppers with relevant options from Parachute,” said Parachute CEO Ariel Kaye.
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Pinterest said its rolling out the new e-commerce features across U.S. brands for now, with global to come.
second earnings report since going public in April, generating $261 million in revenue during the second quarter of this year — up 62% year-over-year, and nearly $60 million more than it earned during the first quarter of 2019. Of the $261 million it earned, $238 million came from the U.S.
The site’s monthly active users (MAUs) were also up, seeing a 30% increase year-over-year.
Despite the revenue gains, Pinterest reported a net loss of $1.16 billion for the quarter, which it says was impacted by, “RSU [restricted stock unit] expense recorded in connection with our initial public offering.” The company expects to surpass $1 billion in revenue, according to its full-year outlook for 2019, reaching between $1.095 billion and $1.115 billion.
Pinterest’s international reach. Pinterest’s global MAUs reached 300 million during the second quarter of the year, nine million more than it reported during the first quarter of the year. The bulk of Pinterest’s MAUs are international users: 215 million global MAUs compared to 85 million in the U.S.
Pinterest introduced mobile ad tools that let advertisers create and manage campaigns from their phone, and launched new video capabilities for brands, including an updated video uploader, scheduling capabilities and a dedicated video tab within business profiles.
Why we should care. As a discovery platform, Pinterest provides a wide range of opportunities to showcase products. Now that it is fine-tuning its e-commerce capabilities, the image-heavy social network is aiming to attract more retail brands and pull more ad dollars.
introduced new Mobile Ads Tools that allow advertisers to create campaign on their mobile devices. Advertisers can choose a Pin from their business profile, and create a campaign for it by selecting automated or custom targeting options, daily budget rules and the duration of the campaign.
Advertisers will also be able to complete billing information to run the ad without having to access their account from a desktop.
Why we should care
Being able to create ad campaigns from a mobile device makes it easier for smaller advertisers and SMBs to create ads — especially those who may not have the resources to support a full-on social media marketing team.
It also provides an added level of flexibility for advertisers that want to create campaigns “on the go,” making it possible to seize a timely ad opportunity should it present itself.
In addition to creating campaigns, the new mobile ad tools allow advertisers to adjust budgets and targeting, and pause campaigns. They can also edit the URL destination within the ad and campaign name.
Fount, a leather goods company, reported a 4,430% increase in daily engagement with their Pins since using Mobile Ads Tools. “Pinterest is bringing more traffic to our site than Facebook and Instagram, where we also run ads,” said Fount CEO Phillip Wachter.
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Mobile Ads Tools are available to all U.S. business accounts and currently rolling out globally.
Promoted Pins created with Mobile Ads Tools can include video, carousel and standard Pin formats.
Advertisers will be able to track ad spend, remaining campaign duration, impressions, clicks, CTRs and saves on mobile.
getting access to Shopping Ads.
personalized “shopping hub” last week that displays at the top of users’ feeds with product recommendations pulled from retailers’ organic Product Pins and Catalog feeds.
second earnings report since going public in April, generating $261 million in revenue during the second quarter of this year — up 62% year-over-year, and nearly $60 million more than it earned during the first quarter of 2019. Of the $261 million it earned, $238 million came from the U.S.
Pinterest introduced mobile ad tools that let advertisers create and manage campaigns from their phone, and 
introduced new Mobile Ads Tools that allow advertisers to create