Pinterest Testing Paid Ads Promoted Pins with Big Brands
This week Pinterest announced it has begun testing a paid version of its advertising service Promoted Pins. The paid pins highlight featured retailers and businesses on Pinterest.
Pinterest has been testing Promoted Pins since October, and is expanding the program with paid ads for select retailers including Target, Banana Republic, Expedia, Kraft, Old Navy, and Lulemon.
Right now the paid pin program is limited to specific brands, but interested online merchants can sign up for Pinterest Promoted Pins. Pinterest notes that the paid ads test is intentionally small so that Pinterest can “… collect as much feedback as possible…”
Paid Pins on Pinterest
Here are the major things you should know about paid pins on Pinterest
- Pinterest launch of paid ads is only with a few major brands
- Paid ad pins feature CPM rates of ($30-40).
- Paid pins appear much like any other pin, not just on category pages and search like Promoted Pins.
- Sign up here for paid Promoted Pins
Paid Pins on Pinterest for Retailers
For online merchants and retailers looking to build on branding and conversions using social, Pinterest ads is a new avenue for growth.
Paid promoted tweets are an opportunity for online retailers to:
- Increase visibility on social
- Utilize a whole new social audience, or build on your existing Pinterest campaign
- Build branding
- Match Pinterest purchasing intent
“This is great news for eCommerce businesses, whose products are more visual because you will be able to get in front of people who are using other sources to shop around.
We have been testing out the buying intent for consumers on Pinterest for a while now and it seems that there is some buying intent when people are cruising on Pinterest. Pinterest has been reinforcing these results by rolling out more avenues, like rich pins and promoted pins, to help ecommerce businesses use the platform to generate revenue.
Time will only tell how promoted pins will perform, but if our results our any indication of buyer intent, promoted pins could be a win for Pinterest and ecommerce merchants.”
–Stephen Kerner, Social Strategist
Get Ready for Paid Promoted Pins on Pinterest
Although paid pins are only available to select retailers, Pinterest does emphasize they are testing the feature, which means it will ultimately be available to a larger range of merchants.
If you’re not already using Pinterest, a good way to prepare for promoted pins would be to start building a brand presence (if possible) on Pinterest.
If Pinterest becomes anything like Facebook, your existing audience (followers) will be the ones seeing most of your ads, and are more likely to purchase from you.Since Pinterest is a “discovery” platform, many of those followers may be people that like the brand’s products, but haven’t bought yet.
Retailers should get more acquainted with the Pinterest social platform, how it works, and building a legitimate audience organically. That way when and if you decide to promote pins, you can speak to an existing, engaged audience.
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