Yesterday, Pinterest’s Presents show revealed a series of smarter new initiatives and products to deliver advertisers better performance at the bottom end of the funnel — as well as a forthright announcement to the market about advertisers and agencies’ responsibility to the wellbeing of users.
Pinterest, of course, has been the digital channel par excellence at delivering top-of-funnel results for years. However, two years ago, it set out on a mission to deliver as compelling a product as possible at the other end of the funnel.
Pinterest’s Australian managing director, Melinda Petrunoff, told B&T that the show was the culmination of months of work and that the results advertisers have gleaned from testing the new tools “speak for themselves”.
“I feel really confident that our advertisers are looking at Pinterest and saying, ‘I can actually deliver on a full-funnel campaign. We’ve tested with multiple local brands across many different objectives and we’ve got some really significant results,” Petrunoff explained.
“Advertisers are starting to adopt more and more products and they’re increasing their investment.”
Promotions & Performance+
During the show, Pinterest announced that every advertiser around the world has access to its Performance+ campaigns for Consideration, Conversions or Catalog Sales objectives.
Those advertisers include some of the country’s largest brands: Mecca, Adidas and Pandora — which had been testing the tools prior to their release.
Mecca and Pandora ran conversion campaigns using Pinterest’s Performance+ suite of tools. Pandora saw a 73 per cent increase in ROAS with Performance+, enabling it to scale performance, driving an increase in ROAS and checkout volume and more efficient CPAs. Mecca, meanwhile, was able to unlock new customers by using machine learning and smart AI optimisations, driving seven per cent higher ROAS compared to its business-as-usual targeting.
Adidas, on the other hand, used Performance+ Shopping campaigns and drove 40 per cent higher revenue compared to its Control campaign, as well as improving key efficiency metrics including average order value, conversion rate and ROAS.
Pinterest also announced that Performance+ bidding for ROAS was available in all markets. This, it said, would help capture the largest shopping carts from users that are most likely to purchase and it suits large retailers best. In alpha testing, it said most advertisers saw “at least” a 15 per cent bump in ROAS.
Pinterest also announced that its AI tools could help in campaign setup. In fact, they could halve the time needed to create a campaign.
Bill Watkins, the company’s chief revenue officer, added that the vision for Pinterest was to have every ad personalised for every user — whether through unique product photo backgrounds or through personalised promotional targeting.
For Daniel Hill, director of media and marketing science at Hello Social, the new tools were very welcome — but perhaps not complete game-changers.
“The level of sophistication across advertisers is vast. There are small brands who have marketing in-house for whom a small amount of their job is jumping in there and doing the performance work all the way up to integrated agencies who have people dedicating all their time,” he told B&T.
“I find that when they’re showing these tools, it’s bringing the baseline up so that everyone has a higher standard. It makes it easier to test the platform and get a good result. But for the brands that are already getting great results, they will continue to have to get technical… If the standard of creative across all advertisers has increased your creative has to be even more innovative and exciting [to stand out].”
Laura Henry, account executive at The Pistol added that “Any improvement in operational efficiency is welcome but never to the detriment of performance”.
“This reduction in campaign setup time can be beneficial and the ability to tailor based on how much control the client or agency is willing to hand off is really helpful in finding the balance between being more efficient, without giving away all of the control. There’s also the chance to test the effectiveness of automated Performance+ campaigns against manually controlled selections which will help build trust in the technology before committing to using it consistently,” she told B&T.
The other major announcement was Promotions, a new feature that allows advertisers in Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and Japan the ability to surface whatever’s on sale.
Pinterest said its early results indicate that advertisers who included a Promotion saw a 12.7 per cent increase in conversions compared to the same ads that didn’t use Promotions. Plus, Personalised Promotions serve shoppers promotions and sales based on what they’ve searched and pinned. Through it Deals ads modules, Pinterest is also making ads more visible for consumers across the Home Feed, helping brands stand out during sale moments.
“Everything we’ve been doing for the last two years in rebuilding at Pinterest to deliver on what users want is in aid of making it a much more efficient and more personalised experience,” added Petrunoff.
“We know that half of users coming to Pinterest are there to shop. We know that as we’re heading into the holiday season, people are increasingly interested in planning what they’re going to buy. People are very cost-conscious, and the opportunity for them to see that products they’re interested in with their holiday boards go on promotion… is delivering on a user need.
“Advertisers are leaning in, testing all of those new products. They’re seeing a fit for them as part of their own strategies and goals and we’re increasing and deepening our partnerships across the market.”
Petrunoff added that while beauty, fashion, home decor and other retail advertisers had been “endemic” to Pinterest, it was also starting to broaden its repertoire — pointing to the recent Transformers launch on the platform.
“Unconscionable”
Closing the show, Andréa Mallard, Pinterest’s chief marketing and communications officer made a bold proclamation to viewers.
“Our economy thrives on competition,” she said.
“Advertisers increase their risk when they rely on the duopoly [of digital channels]… Advertisers have told me ‘We’re rooting for Pinterest to win.”
According to recent research from WARC, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta control 43.6 per cent of advertising spend — set to rise to 46 per cent by 2026. In total, almost nine in every ten (88.5 per cent) incremental dollars spent on advertising this year will go to online-only businesses, with half (52.9 per cent) being paid to Alphabet, Amazon and Meta.
However, Pinterest doubled down on its proposition of being the kindest and most inclusive place on the internet. In Cannes, the company’s chief revenue officer, Bill Watkins, told us that “Advertising on Pinterest is advertising for good.”
During Presents, Mallard went even further. Noting that its rival platforms have faced court battles for creating dark patterns and “manipulating” users, she said:
“It is unconscionable to sacrifice emotional wellbeing for ROAS”.
“Some pretty bold claims,” said Hill.
“The reality of marketing is that there will always be actors who will chase ROI and, ultimately, most brands are held to quarterly earnings reports. I think the industry will continue to use the duopoly. There’s definitely an argument to be had about extending beyond that and trialling creative in these more friendly ecosystems like Pinterest where you can build some of those more positive associations with the brand… We could be in for a bit of a shake-up.”
However, for Hill, the statements and changes were not a complete game-changer.
“The short answer of where investment goes, no. It has definitely spurred a lot of discussions and future planning. It has started to have a fairly large effect in terms of where brands are looking long-term and what they need to learn to get there. But in terms of where money’s going today, not so much. It comes down to where we’re seeing results and the distribution that we need and want for our brands. There are a lot of questions on the horizons that smart brands are looking at now.”
Henry, meanwhile said that while marketers can “significantly impact consumers” and “with that power comes responsibility,” Pinterest’s overture doesn’t tick all the boxes.
“The responsibility for agencies is to both consumers and clients so there needs to be a balance between ensuring we are meeting client targets, while also doing right by consumers. Doing right by consumers can also have a positive effect on a brand longer term as well, with consumers more likely to connect with brands that align to their values or add value beyond the product or service they offer,” she explained.
Pinterest Presents was a slick, entertaining presentation — especially considering that it was online-only. The new Performance+ and AI tools will certainly tick boxes for marketers at both ends of the funnel. But the fact remains that Pinterest is picking a fight with the biggest players in the market. How Pinterest comes out of that fight remains to be seen — but taking to see a platform so openly taking the moral high ground should certainly be commended.
