Pinterest Begins Testing “Promoted Pins”

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Pinterest Sticker Icon by DesignBoltPinterest may only be the fourth most popular social media platform out there, but it may become a significant part of your online marketing strategy in the near future. Last Thursday, Pinterest CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann announced the company is beginning testing promoted pins, their version of paid advertising.

The site is primarily popular with females, but it is well loved by social media marketers because its users have shown time and time again that they are more willing to purchase than the demographics using any other social media platform. Facebook may have over eight times the traffic of Pinterest, but they aren’t purchasing at anywhere close to the same rate of the Pinners. However, in the almost four years since its creation, Pinterest has never included any paid advertising.

Silbermann discussed the decision to finally venture into paid advertising in a post titled “Planning for the Future” on the Pinterest blog. He also lays out a clear idea of exactly what this monetization will look like. They haven’t established all of the details, but Silbermann does say ads will be:

  • Tasteful –No flashy banners or pop-up ads
  • Transparent – Pinterest will “always let you know if someone paid for what you see.”
  • Relevant – Pinterest is aiming to ensure the ads you’re seeing are relevant to the content you are actually looking for.
  • Improved based on feedback – The company plans to take user feedback into heavy consideration while rolling out paid advertising, as well as working to improve the experience.

The first promoted pins are being tested in search results and category feeds. If you search for “Halloween” you might get promoted pins for costumes.

Pinterest definitely isn’t leaping into the advertising options, but they are beginning a change which could be very lucrative for enterprising social media marketers in relevant fields.

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