Retail Week takes a closer look at Pinterest for business, the next big social media for business that brands and retailers should keep an eye on.
Picture this: you’re looking for a statement lamp to brighten up that one dark corner in your living room. You envision a lamp of your dreams in your head – one which is the perfect shade of beige to go with the rest of the room, one which is big but not too big and round but not too round.
Before you hunt for this lamp on the high street, you need to know whether something like this even exists or if it’s only a figment of your imagination.
So, you open Pinterest and search ‘beige lamps’. Before you know it, you can filter through thousands of variations of beige lamps and pin them to your mood board. One particular pin catches your eye, so you click on it which takes you straight to the John Lewis website and add it to your cart.
That is the typical user’s journey on Pinterest – which may be the next big social media platform for business after TikTok, Meta and Instagram.
Away from unpredictable algorithms and influencer culture, Pinterest’s visual discovery platform is where one goes for inspiration. From weeknight dinner ideas and the latest interior design colour palettes to autumn workwear outfits and wedding inspiration, Pinterest has it all.
In simple words, users get to ‘pin’ images and create mood boards, according to their interests and tastes. But it doesn’t just stop at inspiration. Businesses and brands can now insert direct shopping links to pins, allowing users to convert their mood boards into reality.
Here, Retail Week takes a closer look at Pinterest for business, what makes it different from other social ecommerce sites and the UK retailers taking advantage of it.
What is Pinterest for business?
Pinterest attracts over 522 million monthly active users globally, with Gen Z being its largest and fastest-growing audience, making up 42% of its global user base.
In the UK, Pinterest reaches 39% of people aged 18 to 24, with roughly 70% of its user base being female and above the age of 18.
As a social media platform, Pinterest has been around since 2012. But it only introduced a shopping and seller feature on the platform in 2022.
UK retailers that advertise on Pinterest include Asos, John Lewis, Gymshark, Next, Michael Kors, Uniqlo, Sweaty Betty, Waitrose, M&S, Aldi and Ikea.
But what makes the platform different from TikTok and Instagram, and is it worth spending precious advertising money on?
Patrick Janedri, paid media specialist at creative agency Pace Communications, says unlike other social media platforms, retailers on Pinterest don’t have to worry about keeping up ever-changing algorithms and trends to stay relevant.
Janedri says: “As a visual platform, videos and images get the maximum engagement. Unlike TikTok Shop and Instagram Shop, Pinterest works as a visual search engine, which means content has a longer shelf life and can gain views based on search intent rather than when it was posted.
“In other words, on Pinterest, content tends to be more evergreen and can drive leads to e-commerce sites faster than Google – and creating pins is often simpler than blog posts.”
And as the platform’s B2B division only grows bigger, Richard Hartigan, part of the Retail Team at Pinterest, says the end goal is to make everything on Pinterest shoppable.
“People have always come to Pinterest to shop. Previously it felt more like a window shopping and discovery experience, but in recent years we have supercharged our efforts and investment to make the shopping experience on Pinterest as seamless as possible. Our vision is to make everything on Pinterest shoppable.
“We have over half a billion monthly active users globally, with Gen-Z being our largest and most engaged audience. Over half of Pinners tell us they come to Pinterest to shop and we’ve seen both clicks and saves of shoppable Pins double year over year.”
Does the visual platform give results?
Pinterest may be in the early stages of its new strategy shift and journey of becoming a go-to destination for shopping, but it may be a more attractive and economical option than other offerings.
Activewear retailer Sweaty Betty analysed its activewear trend data on the app to identify the types of products and exercises that resonated most with its core demographic of women aged 18 to 54.
Hartigan said the end-to-end brand campaign, which featured a seamless transition from discovery on Pinterest directly to the shopping basket on Sweaty Betty’s website, resulted in the platform emerging as the top-performing channel for the brand.
“Pinterest emerged as the top-performing channel for the brand, with a 34% lower CPA (cost per acquisition) compared to other channels and a 39% increase in return on ad spend year over year. This always-on approach allowed for continual optimisation, to ensure results could be maximised.”
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