Pinterest Rolls Out Suite Of Commerce-Friendly Features For Advertisers

Pinterest launched new commerce-friendly features for advertisers and brands to promote their products. In this latest initiative, the company aims to expand online shopping and advertising on its platform.

Pinterest continues to grow big in social commerce. It added many shopping-focused features such as a new twist to shoppable ads, merchant details, and Idea Ads with paid partnerships to name a few. 

What Do These New Features Offer The Shoppers and Advertisers?

Pinterest’s latest step comes as no surprise! The digital pinboard company positions itself as an inspiration tool that eventually leads to online purchases. Here’s more about the new shopping features.

Twist To Shoppable Ads:

Brands can upload their product catalog and Pinterest will automatically pull the items into a slideshow advertisement via Slideshow For Collections. This feature will help advertisers create shoppable videos tailored to individual users based on their interests.

According to the company, Pinterest shoppers have 85% larger baskets than shoppers through other social media platforms. Additionally, they spend twice as much per month. Consequently, buyers can browse more than one product at a time using Slideshare, which encourages them to purchase additional products.

Interesting Read: LinkedIn Rolls Out New Features – All Marketers Assemble!

Merchant Details

Another feature is called ‘Merchant details’ where brands are allowed to feature their brand values on their profile such as “responsibly sourced”, and “inclusive.” They can also showcase the community affiliations like “Black-owned” or “Women-owned”.

Idea Ads with paid partnership

Pinterest is testing the new feature “Idea Ads with the paid partnership”. It is a joint partnership between a creator and a brand. The creator makes an idea pin and tags a brand partner. The brand can then promote the idea as an ad via the paid partnership feature.

(Note: Pinterest is testing this feature in 15 countries with selective creators and is not shoppable yet.)

Verified Merchant Program

The company is expanding its Verified Merchant Program to other countries where users can find their vetted brands. Sellers under this program are allowed to showcase their brand values and community affiliations like ‘eco-friendly”, “disability-owned” and likewise.

That’s What They Said!

In their blog post, the company said,

“People who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey, compared to social media platforms. That’s why, as of today, we’re dramatically expanding our suite of shopping solutions for advertisers.”

Related Read: Pinterest Report BlockBuster Q3 Earnings As Brand Advertising Rebounds

Difference Between Buying And Shopping

Pinterest is the latest to join the bandwagon with other platforms like Facebook, Snap, and TikTok to launch new shopping features. The online eCommerce market is booming and lucrative and the tech giants are competing with in-app shopping or virtual clothing try-outs.

What distinguishes Pinterest from other platforms is the focus on discovery and latent intent then facilitating the transaction. 97% of billions of searches on Pinterest are for products not belonging to any specific brand. This gives retailers a chance to reach out to users before they decide what to purchase. Attracting those prospects is the difference between “buying” and “shopping”.    

As quoted by Ad Exchanger, Pinterest CRO Jon Kaplan said, buying is purely transactional, whereas shopping is part of an experience. She added, that they are trying to bring the missing joy and inspiration into the shopping experience.

“These are things that are missing from the digital economy right now because so much of eCommerce is focused on purchases and transactions.”

Also Read: The New World Of TikTok Marketing, Everything You Need To Know!