Pinterest Promoted Pins Will Soon Be Available To All Partners

Pinterest has big plans to provide new opportunities for marketers in 2015, with the announcement that the company will be bringing its reservation-based (CPM) Promoted Pins out of beta for all partners. Although this release won’t include the auction-based pins purchased on a CPC basis, the company explains that it is “making tweaks to the product and want to make sure we get it just right” before rolling out the auction-based ads.

The popular website, which has raised in excess of 500 million dollars in funding, allows users to “pin” images of clothing, food and other products that they enjoy. As Pinterest started to ramp up its revenue possibilities, it began to test a Promoted Pins program where brands were invited to pay for pins that appear on the search and category pages.

While making the announcement of the forthcoming release, Pinterest provided some very promising initial data about the effectiveness of its Promoted Pin program, which the company launched in beta eight months ago for its brand advertisers.

The following findings were posted by Pinterest on its blog:

• Promoted Pins perform just as good and sometimes better than organic Pins. Brand advertisers achieved about a 30% bump in earned media (free impressions!) from their campaigns. That’s from people who saw a Promoted Pin and thought it was good enough to save to one of their own boards. Engagement is strong – the average Pin is repinned 11 times, and that remains true for Promoted Pins (if not higher).
• Promoted Pins perform long after a campaign ends. Since Pins are evergreen and last forever, we often saw an extra 5% bump in earned media in the month following the end of a campaign.
• Brands both in and out of our core categories found success. From financial services to food and auto, brands from a wide array of industries saw results.
• Auction-based Promoted Pins (CPC) are seeing success, too. Many of our self-serve beta partners are seeing major gains in traffic and impressions. We’re still making tweaks to the product and want to make sure we get it just right before we roll it out to all businesses.

The above findings from Pinterest’s beta test certainly show great promise, and marketers will be examining the paid options to see how they can work best to promote brands, products and businesses in the future.

Additionally, Pinterest has announced the launch of the “Pinstitute” for brands, which is intended to provide education on two different proficiencies –creative and measurement. Participants will learn what kind of Pins perform well and what Pinners actually care about most. The company will choose a select group of brands and agencies to join at first, however, a series of webinars and online learning tools are planned to be accessible to SMBs in the near future.