Pinterest continues to separate itself from its social platform peers by doubling down on its ability to connect consumers with commerce.
Just weeks after reportedly filing for a confidential IPO, visual search engine Pinterest is rolling out new shopping features in a bid to strengthen the brand and retailer ecosystem on a platform that serves as an inspiration destination for more than 250 million active users each month.
Levi’s and home furnishings company Room & Board are the first retailers to trial the shopping enhancements, Pinterest said. The denim icon worked with Pinterest on a program dubbed “Styled by Levis®” that draws on someone’s individual taste to develop personalized boards around Levi’s products they might like, based on data from a questionnaire, plus what that person searched for and pinned on the platform.
Pinterest described the Levi’s initiative as the very first time a fashion brand has created a style finder powered by the Pinterest API, with support from promoted, shoppable pins. People visiting the Levi’s board will see complete, shoppable outfits accompanied by lifestyle photography inspired by each user’s style and preferences, Pinterest said. The style finder will serve as a learning tool to give Levi’s insight into how people interact with this shoppable content on the platform.
For its part, Room & Board exceeded its advertising goals by 127 percent between February and June 2018, according to Pinterest, as its campaign using promoted pins drove a 51x return on ad spend and shopping ads drove a 33x return.
As it gears up to go public, Pinterest is giving merchants more ways to expose their products to potential customers. Now brands can put their complete product catalogues on the visual site and turn each item into a shoppable pin, using a business-oriented dashboard to promote individual products into a user’s feed.
Another change on the horizon: people on Pinterest will start to see new ways to discover more of a retailer’s assortment. For example, when they’re looking at a style from Levi’s—which is among Pinterest’s first partners—they’ll spot a “more from [this brand]” button that takes them into the company’s full catalogue.
And Pinterest is trying to get even more personal with its user base. The company said it will start displaying recommendations tailored to someone’s interests—noting that these personalized pins will only include in stock items. Consumers can save the recommendation to one of their boards or click through to purchase the product.
Pinterest said a user’s home feed will begin to reflect their search history—as long as the query was for a product that was tagged for shopping. Ideas related and inspired by these shopping searches will appear at the top of a user’s feed, the company added, showing people more of what interests them.
With a new self-service ad manager tool, brands can create ads from the products they’ve uploaded onto the platform.
Additional updates are in the pipeline, Pinterest added.