Pinterest steps up ad-targeting

Pinterest is becoming content marketers’ favourite platform.

This is welcome news to brands and marketers. As a content discovery platform, 55% of users reportedly use Pinterest to find a product or a shop, but thus far its promoted Pins and Ad Manager have not allowed brands to leverage their existing customer data, or reach new customers in a targeted way.

Whereas previously brands and content marketers have only been able to target Pinterest users based on interests, location or the type of device they use, these new features allow for a more sophisticated approach, as brands can input their own user data to match up with Pinterest users.

Customer list targeting

In a similar vein to Facebook's custom audiences, Pinterest’s ad manager will now allow brands to engage with users by inputing their mobile phone numbers or email addresses, allowing brands to tap into their existing user databases via Pinterest.

Visitor retargeting

Visitor retargeting allows brands to reach consumers that have previously visited their site, enabling marketers to seamlessly follow users on their journey around the internet, from e-commerce site to social media channel.

Lookalike targeting

Perhaps the most useful of the three, lookalike targeting allows brands to put their ads in front of users whose profiles are similar to their established customer base, and who are most likely to be interested in their products.

What does it mean?

Having previously trialled these features, Pinterest reported that clickthrough rates increased by 63%, an impressive stat and one that's likely to make Pinterest much more attractive to marketers looking to ‘pin’ their campaigns to a more specific audience, not to mention brands wanting to engage with their existing audience on a new platform.