Pinterest has quietly and steadily grown not only its audience but also its business prospects over the past few years. As Pinterest rolls out its own native advertising unit , market research firm ComScore looks at how the social scrapbooking site can compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter as a viable ad option […]
Pinterest has quietly and steadily grown not only its audience but also its business prospects over the past few years. As Pinterest rolls out its own native advertising unit , market research firm ComScore looks at how the social scrapbooking site can compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter as a viable ad option for brands.
Very similar in concept to native units on Facebook and Twitter where advertisers can pay for additional impressions of organic content, Promoted Pins are now moving beyond the pilot phase into an expanded roll-out.
Delivering Attractive Audiences to Marketers
ComScore data shows a sizeable majority of its monthly audience and engagement comes from females. This demographic composition can be especially valuable to marketers trying to reach audiences such as Females Age 18-49, where Pinterest has 53% overall reach (including 42% reach on mobile alone).
And while Pinterest’s current skew towards Females can be valuable for marketers, the platform is also quickly making headway among Males.
Over the past year, the male audience has grown 41% and their average time spent on Pinterest tripled to more than 75 minutes per visitor. So while Pinterest may be one of the better platforms for reaching the female audience, new opportunities are emerging to reach their growing and more engaged male audience.
From Discovery to Intent: A Unique Application for Social Commerce
Pinterest also offers benefits beyond the ability to deliver target reach and frequency. It is a key driver of social commerce by promoting product discovery and capturing intent among consumers.
With Pinterest users so actively engaged with exploring ideas or projects that may lead to purchase, it is not surprising that Pinterest users are among the heaviest online spenders.
Their online buying power index of 211 means that they spend more than 2x as much online as the average U.S. internet user. On that metric alone, they are an especially valuable audience.
There are unique aspects of Pinterest as a social commerce channel that suggest its ads might be very effective at driving purchase.
When social mentions of brands occur on large-scale social media platforms like Facebook, they tend to activate consumers at the top of the purchase funnel by driving awareness and interest for something they were not otherwise actively considering. At the opposite extreme of the funnel, consumers may find themselves actively in market for a specific purchase and they consult socially-driven reviews on sites like Amazon, Yelp or TripAdvisor.
Ultimately marketers will need to test their ads on the platform to see how well they can reach their target and drive purchase behaviour, but at this moment it is a platform worth exploring for its advertising potential.
Source: www.comScore.com
