After a raft of new ad formats and tools for advertisers and brands were unveiled at Pinterest’s annual global advertiser summit, Melinda Petrunoff, Pinterest’s country manager for Australia & New Zealand, has told AdNews that the innovation at Pinterest is at an all-time high.
“The amount of advertising products we're launching this year is three times greater than last year and the goal right now is to make sure that everything on Pinterest is actionable for our advertising partners,” she said.
Some of those advertising products include the likes of Showcase Ads, allowing users to preview and explore a brand's content by swiping through branded images and discovering things like seasonal looks, mini recipe books or a car's unique features, while the likes of Creative Studio give brands a speedy way to generate lifestyle imagery for product Pins.
Petrunoff said strong demand for the platform has resulted in a meaningful increase in performance that advertisers are seeing.
“Engagements and impression volume is growing and what that means for our advertisers is they're able to tap into that engagement and get lower CPMs,” she said.
“What we know is that 55% of our current users are coming to the platform to shop and our goal is to make everything you see on Pinterest shoppable and to make that shopping journey seamless. We also know in Q2 this year, we saw a 50% increase in shopping on platform, so it's a growing behaviour and obviously creates an opportunity for all of our advertisers to tap into.”
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For agencies, Pinterest revealed improvements to its automated business tools to help manage their clients' presence on Pinterest, and Petrunoff said the platform is similarly seeing strong demand from agencies and a growing comprehension and appreciation of what makes Pinterest so different.
“I think that's what's really helping us to continue to grow and be successful,” she told AdNews.
“We know that the majority of social media platforms are all about being entertained, so people are laying back being entertained. What makes Pinterest so different is that our users are leaning forward. They come with high intent, they're coming to find inspiration and take action.”
The company also introduced a new body type technology to its suite of inclusive AI innovations — a first-of-its-kind technology that uses shape, size, and form to identify various body types in over 5 billion images on the platform.
Pinterest is leveraging this body type technology, and previously launched skin tone technology, to shape how its algorithms increase representation across related feeds and search results for women’s fashion and wedding-related content.
Inspired by user behavior and the culturally critical discussion around body representation, Pinterest’s Inclusive Product Team partnered with experts inside and outside of Pinterest to develop the body type technology. Now, if a user searches for date night outfit inspiration for example, they will see results inclusive of various body types and skin tone ranges.
Petrunoff said that Pinterest is “really proud” of the development and focused on making sure that it continues to build not only a safe platform, but an inclusive platform.
“We've been very focused on creating products and solutions that deliver on that mission,” she said.
“We know that it pays to be positive and we know that consumers agree that if they trust a brand, they want to buy from that brand, so being in a positive environment is good for advertisers as well.”
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