When you think of social media advertising, Pinterest won’t be the first that comes to mind. Instead, you’d probably think of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. There is potential in a lot of forgotten platforms, like TikTok, Snapchat, Tumblr, Reddit, Wattpad, Discord, and more – and Pinterest isn’t about to be left on the bargain bin pile.
Their latest move is a big one. Where they previously dripped new features, such as their launch of short-form video content, now they are launching a range of features in one go, all aimed towards making Pinterest an attractive platform for retailers and marketers.
In a Pinterest Presents event, the second annual global advertiser summit for Pinterest, they announced a lot of new ideas, including in-stream shopping features, promoted Idea Pins, Pinterest Trends tool improvements, and more.
We’re taking a look at the biggest features that landed at the Pinterest Presents event and walking you through how they can be useful to affiliate marketers.
Your Shop
The biggest addition to the app will be the launch of Your Shop for customers. You can set up your shop on your profile and add items to it that you intend to buy, like a visual wish list, which let’s face it, Pinterest is already often used as.
“[Your Shop] is a place for people on Pinterest to browse, shop and buy – and it’s completely tailored to every single person’s individual tastes. That’s right. People on Pinterest will see a customized shopping surface, with brands and products based on their own activity and preferences.”
It isn’t the most innovative move, but it is one step in the push to make Pinterest retail. And in partnership with its in-app shopping features, marketers can see the outline of a business plan form.
In-app shopping
Pinterest is partnering with Shopify to allow in-app checkouts when buying their items. Shopify merchants can add their items to their Shopify accounts, post them on Pinterest with a price where the customer can discover them and check out without even having left the Pinterest platform.
It should close the gap between inspiration and purchasing, all from one place. Plus, with the addition of Shopify, you will be likely to find a lot more merchants hitting the Shopify app, seeing an opportunity to market on Pinterest, creating more opportunities for affiliate marketing.
Shopping API
Another feature is Pinterest’s new Shopping API, which should make things easier for merchants to upload their product catalogues. They can work as Instagram shops do and provide a product listing of Pins for sellers. With shoppable Pins a lot easier to add, retailers will put in the effort to expand their stores on the site, where it was previously too tedious to do for long.
Idea Pins
Seeing the effect affiliate marketing has on a campaign, Pinterest is finally encouraging influencers with their paid partnership process. They will offer more areas for creators to expand in the app and better experiences on the app to facilitate brand deals.
Idea pins are a big part of this. Idea Pins are multi-page video pins, akin to Stories on Instagram in format but are limited to business accounts and made for the sake of marketing.
As explained by Pinterest: “Already, creators can tag your products in their Idea Pins, and disclose a paid partnership. Starting later this year, you’ll be able to promote those Pins as Idea ads to celebrate the partnership with a wider audience.”
Informative data
Pinterest also explained that there will be a lot of extra features to aid research data and analytics in its Pinterest Trends feature.
“Businesses in the US, Canada, and the UK will see new features added to the Pinterest trends tool, including real-time search data, more trend types, more granular audience tools, and personalized trend recommendations for your business. And later this year, we’ll launch the tool to additional countries all over the world.”
So, will it be of any use?
Well, Pinterest recently released the results of what they called an “experiment” where they tested static ads against video ads on Pinterest. They ultimately came to the conclusion that video ads are reaching more users than static ads, however, static ads bring in more qualitative traffic, meaning that users will engage more with it, rather than just absorb it, and move on.
This is interesting for a traditionally photo-based platform to uncover. It seems like Pinterest is re-evaluating its place on the platform landscape. Having always been compared to Instagram, it is now playing catch up. In fact, at its summit, Pinterest repeatedly enforces that it is different from all the rest.
That can only be good for affiliate marketers. This new but not new platform can hopefully spur on another generation of influencers, or micro-influencers, with niche content, dedicated audiences, and a lot more marketing opportunities for affiliates.
If you are looking for more affiliate marketing advice, take a look at our blog, or for a more personalised approach, book a free call with a member of our team.
