Paying to Pin – Pinterest Advertising?
The social scrapbooking site, Pinterest, has recently launched web analytics to help brands & bloggers shed some light on how their shared images resonate with users.
Pinterest Analytics can measure how many people have visited their site from Pinterest and how many impressions their content has generated. Knowing what content users are pinning allows marketers’ to tailor their web branding strategy for an overall increased engagement across all platforms. Using the insight gained by the Analytics tool users can now gauge what content being pinned promotes engagement and what content they should shy away from deemed less relevant. The transparency of the analytics tool also allows brands to know what specific target audiences are reacting to their content.
Could this latest enhancement from Pinterest mean sponsored or paid pins are on their way? Just recently toward the end of September our paid marketing wishes came true! Pinterest announced that they will start experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of business. While they have not figured out all the details they have made the following statement, “For our first test, we’ll promote a few pins in search results and category feeds. For example, a pin for a Darth Vader outfit from a costume shop might be promoted in a search for “halloween.” Nobody’s paying for anything yet—we want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think.”
According to a statement made by Pinterest, they will not serve your average banner ads. “Promoted pins will be:
- Tasteful – no flashy banners
- Transparent—We’ll always let you know if someone paid for what you see, or where you see it.
- Relevant—These pins should be about stuff you’re actually interested in, like a delicious recipe, or a jacket that’s your style.
- Improved based on your feedback—Keep letting us know what you think, and we’ll keep working to make things better.
There have already been a handful of social media analytic companies that have emerged in the last year to help gauge what a “pin” means to marketers and how to determine a practical KPI. Pinbooster is a platform that works on the sponsored content similar to Sponsored Tweets. It connects advertisers to users by compensating their pinners to endorse their brand or business through the use of pins. According to the Pinbooster site they describe themselves as, “…understands the unique advertising potential for Pinterest & bridges the gap between great Pinterest users and advertisers. Advertisers pay users to pin specific images, driving traffic directly to their site.”
A few of retailers have gotten on board already with the new service. The announcement that Pinterest is developing ads may surprise some users but won’t shock anyone who’s kept an eye on the company over the last year.
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