Starting on January 1, marketers will be able to add Pinterest to their social media marketing strategies, as the website will make their Promoted Pins available to everyone.
The Promoted Pins program was in beta testing for a group of brand advertisers for the past eight months. Results of that program were promising, with advertisers seeing an increase of about 30% in their earned media, according to a blog post on Pinterest.
Promoted Pins had strong levels of engagement and continued to perform after a campaign would end, with advertising sometimes seeing a 5% increase in earned media the month after a campaign ended.
Marketers who pay for Promoted Pins can target their ads based on specific demographics, topics of interest and location.
So if someone is shopping for groceries and browsing for recipes on Pinterest using a cell phone, a Promoted Pin featuring a recipe from Kraft Foods may come up.
“We’re aiming for the holy grail here: trying to provide the right content to the right people, at the right time,” Dana Shank, associate director at Kraft Foods told The New York Times. “To be on a platform where people are actively looking for that content? That’s invaluable to us.”
In addition to the analytics dashboard that already existed, Pinterest is also unveiling the Pinstitute, a program that will help businesses connect with the Pinterest audience and get a good return on investment for their efforts.
The Pinstitute plans to focus on measurement and creative, teaching about what strategies work well and what topics the audience is interested in.
Some brands will be invited to quarterly workshops hosted by the Pinterest team. Small businesses will have access to online learning opportunities and webinars.
Though Pinterest had success with its Promoted Pins beta program, they have a lot of competition for companies’ marketing budgets. Last quarter, Facebook made $3.2 billion in revenue and Google made $16.5 billion.
