Inside Pinterest and its ad sales operation
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
the review process is much more careful than facebook or google. they only really want content that would make sense organically on pinterest.
facebook and google are pretty loose about the "salesy-ness" of ads, but pinterest is pretty strict in comparison.
obviously with all these restrictions, agencies don't like it because they have to cater their message to pinterest instead copy and pasting the same noise on every platform.
pinterest probably won't kill google proper, but I could easily see pinterest killing google images.
When is the last time a company seriously decided to take on image search at google scale? Google doesn't even show ads in it's image search.
another reason agencies probably don't like pinterest is the high fixed-floor bids of 10 cents.
you could have lower effective cpcs, but your ads actually have to be engaging, and they have to get repins and shares.
bottom line: Pinterest simply demands more effort from advertisers, and they're pretty picky. Consequently, users don't mind their ads as much.
The best case scenario for pinterest's investors (in my mind) is an acquisition by facebook as part of a strategy to take on the web search market.
Not with their annoying interstitial it won't. And pinterest isn't great for finding images of things that aren't "products".
This is my main gripe with Pinterest: the hostile and intrusive block on viewing the site unless you register first. This wasn't always the case. I'm guessing the permanent prompt to register turns many users away (I'm sure they're tracking this this to see how it's faring).
And pinterest isn't great for finding images of things that aren't "products".
Pinterest is a great resource for finding visual design inspiration, not just products. You'll find plenty of design examples no matter how broad or narrow your search: typography, graphic design, illustration, web design, mobile app design, book covers, comic book design, calligraphy, geometric patterns, packaging design, paper sculpture, origami - the list is endless. In fact, the site deliberately overwhelms you with related pins and pages that scroll forever to keep you browsing as long as possible.
If you are a designer or developer creating a web site or a mobile app, then you are missing out on lots of visual inspiration if you don't use Pinterest.
As long as I'm forced to make an account to see anything this will absolutely not happen.
if they were serious about beating google images, i think they would do it.
Do people really click ads and buy? Is there data of the whole from click to the buy revenue? Are your products US centric? If yes what part of the US do people click on your ads and buy the most?
2) as much as any old ad platform. conversion tracking is pretty simplistic on pinterest but it exists.
3) yes, but keep in mind pinterest doesn't let you target outside of US using their self-serve ads
4) the distribution is fairly normal compared to other platforms. i have not looked for pinterest specific outliers.
And their nag screen to login/signup is as annoying as on Quora. Btw: Has Quora completed their pivot already, they joined YC like a year ago? http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/09/meet-the-oldest-y-combinat...
Glad to see pg doesn't like the nag screen either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217449 (full context: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Quora-join-the-2014-Y-Combinat... )
This part is really interesting considering how other tech companies put a huge amount of effort into acquiring that exact female crowd from their mostly male mid-to-upper crowd.
Exactly this.
Pinterest caters to a niche. You can advertise to your target directly and probably spending less money
Much better than FB or Google "targeting"
It seems to be getting behind Instagram, that's for sure http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-s...
I don't know why you linked to that adweek article. It's about demogprahics and usage, not adspend efficiency.
It may come as a surprise to some, but making money is not important. That's why so many people lost their shirts shorting the 'unprofitable' Amazon.com
Rather, it's the the demonstrated ability to make money, which is more important. Should the time come to turn on the advertising money printing press, Pinterest and Snapchat, like Facebook, should have no difficulty making money. There's already a huge line of advertisers ready to plow hundreds of millions of dollars into Pinterest ads. Investors are patient, knowing that Pinterest will start printing money when the time is right. But right now, Pinterest is still building the userbase and perfecting their ad platform. Like Facebook, Pinterest's profit margins will be extremely high, and it would not surprise me if this company is worth $50 billion soon. But right now, Pinterest, like many web successful web 2.0 companies, is more interested in taking its time to build positive user and advertiser experience, than milking every user for every last dime.
Amazon told investors they'd have to wait because the internet was in its infancy, and profits would taken even longer because they were reinvested in building logistics operations but they were doing a billion in revenue by their sixth year, even as the rest of the dotcom world crashed around them because not enough people were online yet. Facebook's management were decidedly unfocused on revenue, in an era where the idea of socially targeted advertising was a relative novelty, but it was also fast approaching a billion in revenue by its sixth year.
Pinterest's entry into a much more mature market should in theory mean fewer problems to solve, it's probably maxed out the "US women" niche that's the core of its value proposition to advertisers, and those advertisers are not impressed with its attempts to "build positive experience" for them. Seems a bit optimistic to compare it with other companies that achieved much higher revenue after six years in more difficult circumstances.
Someone isn't patient, otherwise this article wouldn't have been written.
It seems short-sighted and aimed only at huge payouts for the early investors- no consideration or thought of building a brand that people will love 50 years from now. They want their payout NOW!
1. Limited number of advertising options that reach a broad audience - especially women. There just isn't a lot of inventory out of there that isn't cats and dogs. You've got Google and Facebook (Tier 1), Buzzfeed/Twitter/Yahoo/Bing (Tier 2/3) and then individual media properties (Business Insider et al) - the tiering here is fairly arbitrary. My point is that if you are a larger purchaser of advertising, there aren't that many top properties to go to - so Pinterest, with it's very good audience, is particularly interesting.
2. User information from Pinterest is very different from other venues. Google can show purchase intent based on search criteria - excellent for immediate purchases. Facebook can show ads based on demographics, location and behavior. Pinterest can show what users are interested in buying in the future, or what their wants are - a very unique dataset and one that is very interesting to a lot of advertisers.
Pinterest tried skimlinking, but the some of the userbase hated that, claiming it was hurting their business.
When I used Pinterest I would not have cared if they had used skimlinks for anything I posted, but it doesn't seem to be an option I can turn on. And I want Pinterest to protect me from people posting their own affiliate links. A bunch of people post low quality content and stuff it full of affiliate links. Pinterest is worse with those people on the platform. One thing it could do is skimlink everything, and charge for people who want to use their own affiliate links. Most services provided to businesses are charged for, and allowing someone to run an affiliate marketing business on Pinterest is a service that Pinterest should charge for.
> You have a lot of lower-income, middle-America people on Pinterest than you do on other sites, and it's very female-centric. So if you're a marketer with a budget, where do you allocate it? Put it on Google or Facebook, where there are tons and tons of users where you can target very well? Or on Pinterest, which is a much smaller audience, female, lower-income, where you can't target well? It's just not as efficient."
Wait what? I see people pinning stuff for weddings (average cost of US wedding is $26k) or home redecoration (average cost of US kitchen remodeling is over $15k) so these may be lower income people, but they have something that they're saving up for and are prepared to spend considerable amounts of money on.
Carefully placed ads could be amazing for that market.
The real problems with Pinterest are the awful awful awful mobile experience which is very hostile to the user. Almost embarrassing. I don't post any links to Pinterest anywhere because of that hateful experience.
I like your suggestion that Pinterest develop a direct businesses relationship with affiliate linkers, but I think it should be broader. If you force people to pay for the right to post affiliate links, volune will be low. It would be much better to simply add a money layer on top of the existing inspiration network.
Here's the idea: Every heavy Pinterest user is an affiliate partner
User joins the site, uses it normally. Pinterest skimlinks all their posts, creating revenue when the ser posts something high quality yhat drives purchase behavior. When the user hit a certain level of posts / views, they are invited to opt-in to a revenue sharing deal. The user gets 50% of the skinlink revenue. This incentives more sharing and creates a path for fir-profit pintresting.
The biggest challenge here is brand accounts. Brands who don't develop a direct relationship with Pinterest are skimlinked like everyone else, and basically wind up paying Pinterest for revenue-creating links to their own sites.
This would probably drive straight affiliate linking clickbaiters off the site, because they can't make as much as they would with a direct affiliate relationship with the target site. I think you'd makr up for the lost posts in higher posting rates by newly incentived power users though. It would encourage people to share actionable links, increasing the overall value of the platform.
What's awful about it?
Only on the internet does this seem to be a best practice.
(Furthermore there's nothing inherent to the experience's design that prevents it from being delivered to non logged-in users, the block is artificial, not a design constraint)
F#ck the CPM sales "community", focus on the product.
Why do you think CPM-people pay him? He might as well work in a company that does not rely on marketing/advertising industry. Those do exist.
Even if he was paid by CPM-people - so what? A lot of people work for money, not because they like their employers or share same views.
> The "you" he's referring to is Pinterest, not the commenter.
It is a commenter that said: "F#ck the CPM sales "community", focus on the product.". Don't see where is he trying to portray the words as if they were coming from Pinterest.
Reminds be of the Uber California court report they hyped last year, which predictably didn't really anywhere http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/business/uber-contests-cal...
That was seven months ago and Uber didn't die as many predicted it would
Some people so badly want for this to be 2000 all over again they they have to make things up. They have to turn molehills into mountains.
Why do you think this is the case?
and it's not all good
Well.. now I've read the article I'd agree. But there was nothing in that article that I found particularly concerning - indeed, the fact they are focused on product at the expense of monetisation makes me even more bullish.
The thing that does concern me wasn't mentioned though. Their growth seems to have leveled off, albeit after very fast initial growth[1][2].
[1] https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=pinterest%2C%20sn...
[2] https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=pinterest%2C%20sn...
Clicking ads, comparing to viewing them, is rare enough, with a lot of are done by mistakes, so what makes those people think their users could make a decision of purchase, which often takes several rounds of researching, comparing ,hesitating to make the final stride, by randomly scrolling through something might bot even be relevant, is totally beyond me.
Even if the user happens to like the item in the ads, the actual action would come after several hours, do they expect user to come back to app, find the ad, then click the buy button?
"Most notably, Kendall also led the move to narrow Pinterest's ad focus on just two categories, retailers and consumer-packaged-goods brands, as The Wall Street Journal first reported in December."
Smallish purchases (music, books, household items, some aspects of holiday spending): I tend to go with the first thing I find that looks right. I could imagine using a 'buy' button next to an entry in a discovery system such as Pinterest, although I'm not in their majority demographic.
Larger purchases (stage piano, new laptop &c): yes, I research and have a bias towards places where I can try stuff out (I'm old).
This organisation seems to want to specialise.
What amazed me is the number of professional women who use Pinterest very regularly. Often, it's not casual use either. They will get on, and use it hard for a good long time. Lunch, burning a little time at the end of the day, various casual times...
The whole thing works a lot like window shopping with friends, and the lists of things they want and like keeps building. These people want stuff, and they use Pinterest to refine that want down to a science, at which point they will be willing to pay easily for things at the top of those lists.
Because it has that shopping, but not really shopping look and feel combined with the essence of scrapbook creating and sharing activity, careful analysis and great care is going to be needed to keep it light and as immersive as it is.
Right now, most users I've had a chance to observe and talk to about Pinterest, love it. It meets some basic need they have and they will be willing to help Pinterest make money, so long as that need gets met with a great experience.
Otherwise, may as well go shopping elsewhere...
http://qz.com/581191/why-2016-is-poised-to-be-the-year-that-...
http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-worth-11-billion-va...
Dang or someone, could you update the link to this URL?