The platform that began as a place for people to collect images of kitchen renovations they would never undertake and weddings they would never plan has, over the years, become something rather more commercially minded.
Pinterest, which now counts 640 million monthly active users, released guidance this week for marketers seeking to make better use of its shopping promotion tools — a four-step framework that the company said would help brands align with audience trends and interests in the app.
The advice, while presented as fresh thinking, reads largely as a checklist of fundamentals. Step one: establish a presence before advertising. (What, you were expecting them to say, "Start running ads before anyone knows you exist"?) Step two: launch campaigns using Pinterest's own artificial intelligence-powered tools, including what the company calls Performance+ campaigns, which automate targeting, bidding, and creative delivery. Step three: measure results. Step four: take Pinterest's own training courses.
The guidance arrives as brands prepare for the end-of-year shopping push, a period when digital platforms traditionally compete for advertising dollars with the fervor of department stores on the day after Thanksgiving. Pinterest has been positioning itself as a discovery platform — a place where users arrive with intent to browse and, increasingly, to buy — rather than the social network it never quite wanted to be called.
For marketers already versed in the app's tools, the recommendations may feel like being told to remember one's coat in winter. But Pinterest, like most platforms, has learned that providing official best practices gives advertisers something to point to when the results disappoint and someone asks whether the proper steps were followed.
The company also reminded marketers that additional training materials are available through Pinterest Academy, for those who prefer their instruction credentialed.
Original story published in Social Media Today | A business community for the web's best thinkers on Social Media: "Pinterest offers advice on creating effective shopping promotions"