The real estate business has always been about location, but increasingly it is also about data — specifically, the kind that tells advertisers when someone might be about to buy a refrigerator, a sofa, or several hundred dollars' worth of bath towels.

Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, has struck a deal with Pinterest that allows advertisers to target Zillow's audiences through Pinterest's advertising system. The arrangement opens up 34 audience segments — buyers, renters, sellers, and owners — to brands that wish to reach people at what the industry likes to call "life moments."

(What the industry does not like to call them is "moments when people are stressed and susceptible to advertising," though that would also be accurate.)

Brent Rosso, vice president of media ad strategy at Zillow, said in a statement that "moving is one of the most significant life moments people experience, and it comes with a lot of planning and decision-making, much of which happens on Pinterest." Kristin Patterson, vice president of omnichannel retail at Pinterest, said Zillow could sell those audiences to advertisers through targeted campaigns on the platform.

The partnership was tested by Kohler, the plumbing fixtures company, which reported that Zillow's data helped reach 82 percent more Pinterest users than a standard Pinterest campaign using search targeting. Whether those users were in the market for a new faucet or simply admiring photographs of other people's kitchens was not specified.

The deal reflects a broader shift in how media companies and platforms think about the value of their audiences. Zillow, which knows when people are browsing listings in a particular ZIP code, can now package that knowledge for sale to brands that make the things those people will need once they arrive. It is a tidy arrangement, if not an especially surprising one.

Moving, after all, has always meant buying things. Now it also means being bought.

Original story published in adweek.com: "Zillow Is Selling Advertisers On Its Data With Pinterest Ads"