If you haven’t thought of Pinterest as a possible site for marketing, you may be missing a whole untapped market. Although it’s often thought of as a social media site, Pinterest is actually more of a search engine for shoppers.

That’s because Pinterest is the top platform used to discover new products.

  • Pinterest is now the second-fastest-growing social media site among millennials (after TikTok), with now more than 454 million monthly active users (MAU) every month.

 

  • Two-thirds of all pins saved on Pinterest are from businesses. And to date, Pinterest users (called “Pinners”) have saved over 240 billion pins, or an average of 528 pins per month per MAU.

 

  • Research shows that 87 percent of pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest, and 93 percent have used Pinterest to plan a future purchase.

 

  • Pinterest can convert to sales faster than any other social media website.

 

  • Ninety-seven percent of the top searches on Pinterest are not for a specific brand; which means you can use the site to catch Pinners’ interest before they’ve made up their mind.

 

Change in focus

The platform has taken notice of this and has made numerous changes to make buying (and selling) easier on the site. Pinterest recognizes its unique nature among other eCommerce–focused social media platforms as a place to “shop” rather than “buy.” Those who go to Instagram or Meta are typically looking for a single item, whereas Pinterest users are more apt to be seeking general ideas in broader categories.

Pinterest CRO Bill Watkins told AdExchanger the plan is to make Pinterest “a personalized shopping destination with more ways for brands to tap into trends and creators and develop meaningful connections with our high-intent users.

“Our investments are focused on making shopping as inspirational as possible, like flipping through the pages of our favorite catalog or walking through the aisles of a store that feels hand-picked for you,” he said.

Watkins says the platform aims to help small- and medium-sized retail partners grow their business with a host of new helpful features.

 

Newest features

Toward that end, at its annual Pinterest Presents advertiser summit this month Pinterest announced it is beta testing an in-app checkout feature for some Shopify sellers in the U.S. It plans to expand the feature to more U.S.-based retailers throughout 2022. Instagram and Meta have offered this feature since 2022, so many shoppers have come to expect it whenever they shop from a social media platform.

It’s also rolling out a feature it calls a “personal shopping concierge, powered by a taste-driven algorithm” called Your Shop at Pinterest Presents. This feature will provide users with their own personalized shopping pages that will recommend various products, brands, and creators based on shopping history and preferences.

Idea Ads is another feature meant to help small- and medium-sized businesses. Also in beta testing, it capitalizes on one of Pinterest’s top drivers of engagement, Idea Pins. When Idea Ads is available, it will allow creators to tag products promoted by their advertiser partners.

Finally, the platform introduced a Trends tool in the U.S., U.K., and Canada that will allow sellers to upload catalogs and more easily update prices, view real-time search data, see trend recommendations, and learn more about how their audiences go from browsing and research to purchase.

 

Making shopping easier

This is in addition to the augmented reality (AR) technology introduced in January. Called Try On for Home Decor, it allows Pinners to virtually place items from U.S. retailers in their homes using the Pinterest Lens camera to “try before they buy.”

All these new features are meant to move shoppers from what Watkins calls the “impulse buying” common on other social media sites that support eCommerce businesses to “intentional buying” on Pinterest.

“We found that shoppers actually spend 50 percent more when they take a week to make a decision,” he told AdExchanger. “And, in general, Pinners spend two times more than people on other platforms and have 85 percent bigger baskets at checkout.”

 

So if you haven’t thought of using Pinterest to boost your business, why not let the social media management experts at 101 Management show you how to take advantage of this effective site for marketing? Contact us today to learn more.