Pinterest will soon open for business by allowing brands to advertise on its curation network beginning first thing next year, reports The New York Times.
Come New Year’s Day, Pinterest will allow marketers to pay for and place ads across its site in the form of ‘Promoted Pins’ – posts that look identical to those created by users who collect images of products, destinations, DIY projects and more. Pinners will be able to save and share these ads that will appear in search results, just like they do with standard pins.
So what kinds of pins will you soon see from brands? Let’s say you’re looking up recipes for soups. Among a sea of search results, you’re likely to come across one from Swanson’s, that features the company’s meat or vegetable stock as a base.
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Pinterest has been testing its monetization strategy for a good while now. The company began experimenting with promoted pins in September 2013, opened up a paid trial for brands this May and enabled ad performance tracking this September. When the full service rolls out, brands will only pay for the clicks their ads receive.
In addition to opening up its ads platform, the company will help marketers understand how to create effective ads for its network at quarterly ‘Pinstitute’ sessions. It may also roll out online courses for small and midsize businesses looking to make their presence felt.
With over 70 million users across its Web and mobile apps, Pinterest is strongly poised to finally begin chasing ad revenue. Given that most of its users are on the network to find things to do, products to buy, and places to visit, it could be a space where relevant ads are more welcome than on other online destinations.
It’ll be interesting to see how Pinterest evolves once they see how users respond to advertising. You can be sure that we’ll be watching closely.
➤ Pinterest Pushing Deeper Into Ads [The New York Times]
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