Pinterest to get ads

http://blog.pinterest.com/post/61688351103/planning-for-the-future

by samspenc • 13 years ago

100 62 13 years ago

blog.pinterest.com

JimmaDaRustla3• 13 years ago

Every social media site is turning into a customized personal advertising machine.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter...now Pinterest.

clone1018• 13 years ago

What's your idea on monetizing these websites?

ghostdiver• 13 years ago

I'm sure there is some good idea, just like becoming a prostitute is not the only way of making a living.

Perhaps it does not make much sense to make such websites if "advertising" is the only viable option?

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

Pintrest is mostly made up of (1) images/photos and (2) real world merchandise of some kind. They could create a platform for selling printed copies of images/photos on pintrest and they could take a cut of the revenues, and maybe even go into easy distribution and scale of physical products shown on pintrest with a cut of revenues as well. Probably other services they could combine with the content as well in other ways with some creativity.

ameoba• 13 years ago

Unless you can convince people to pay for your service, you can either openly use them as advertising platforms or you can be sneaky and sell your data to advertisers behind the scenes.

JimmaDaRustla3• 13 years ago

I cannot imply that advertising should be removed, unless the customer financially pays for the service - any company (especially public) will use advertising in some form, or else it is just lost revenue.

I guess the only other option would be to build paid services, like app.net, but that is a completely different revenue model.

richardlblair2• 13 years ago

Stop Rustlin ma Jimma!

asabjorn2• 13 years ago

This seems like a natural move for Pinterest, and due to the nature of its content I think the ads have the potential to be highly relevant to the user. Maybe long-tail products could get an even better channel to reach interested customers?

sp3322• 13 years ago

How about reversing it? Help users search through various products, using what you know they like as a guide. Find deals for them. Instead of collecting data on users and using it for advertisers, make vendors give you tons of data and use it for your users.

mikeg8• 13 years ago

Obiously this was going to happen sooner or later... can they make it work or will they flounder? TBD

spullara• 13 years ago

I think Pinterest is basically all ads already. Now they will just get money for them.

johnward4• 13 years ago

this is why they had to squash affiliate links.

richardlblair2• 13 years ago

Why the hell is this news? Srsly guis.

They were going to become an advertising machine eventually. I think they would have been better off turning all those amazon links into referral links.

quarterto• 13 years ago

Fun fact: new thing, supposed by some, still news. "Apple brought out a new iPhone? How is that news? We knew it was going to happen!"

jerf2• 13 years ago

Pinterest, I'm not a direct user, but my wife is, and it's had a better impact on my life, even indirectly, than any of the other social networks. It's our cookbook, craftbook, and misc idea book. I am willing to give you money. Probably far more than you'll get from serving us ads.

Are you willing to take it?

connerbryan• 13 years ago

I'm in a similar situation. I'd much prefer a subscription model to ads.

Or at the very least, a subscription with the single benefit of "no ads."

robryan• 13 years ago

Premium accounts could work for Pinterest. I think ads will make them a lot more, their model is well suited towards ads. Not to say they couldn't do both.

jerf2• 13 years ago

Yes, I expect ads will make them more on average, but they could certainly make more from me (well... my household) if we could just pay them to remove the ads, and perhaps have some other premium features.

My wife is a normal computer user. A savvy one, but still a normal one. She's a bit behind me on the curve of getting pissed off about ads, but not as far behind me as Pinterest et al might hope. If Pinterest fills up with ads, I'm not sure she'll stay.

droidist2• 13 years ago

I am willing to give you money.

You may be, but only a sliver of people who say they would rather pay than see ads would actually do it if presented with that chance.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

Pinterest should sell internal data on which items get pinned the most from which retailer in which time period.

IE: This necklace got pinned the most from Macys.com during the week before Valentine's Day. I'm sure JCPenny, BlueNile etc would find that data useful.

Nowyouknow2• 13 years ago

I'm already seeing Pinterest tags on clothes at Nordstrom's. Your idea would definitely help move that along. They have a unique opportunity here to help a lot of retailers. I'd like to see the company do more than just advertising.

austenallred8• 13 years ago

This info is already available for free (pinterest.com/source/yoursite.com then click on metrics). They would have to turn it off first.

austenallred8• 13 years ago

Pinterest's monetization will do great. Seriously, Pinterest could and should IPO in coming years.

I'm bullish on Pinterest not only because my wife and I use Pinterest for everything from planning our wedding to finding outfits and meals, but because I market on Pinterest for a few clients all day long. It consistently brings in more traffic than other sources when you do it right, even for clients that are ranked in the top 5 in high-traffic Google SERPs.

The crazy thing about Pinterest traffic is that it never dies off. If you get a bunch of repins today, traffic will be showing up from those pins months later; it's kind of absurd, and very unlike Adsense or other discovery advertising platforms in that way.

The difficult aspect for Pinterest will be getting the worth of Pinterest ads down to a final cost per action since it is such a long wait before you see how much each pin is truly worth. And that really is the goal for any advertiser: If I know this click will bring me $2 I'll pay up to $1.99 for it. A lot of Pinterest users are in hardcore discovery mode, and as such Pinterest traffic doesn't convert as well as search traffic immediately, but in the long run it always seems to be worth it.

Nowyouknow2• 13 years ago

It consistently brings in more traffic than anything combined when you do it right,

How do you do Pinterest "right"? Just curious.

You're absolutely right about the traffic trend. When Pinterest was first getting a major buzz, I was pinning regularly and those pins are still getting actively repinned.

After a period of no pinning, now when I do pin things, I hardly see any activity.

austenallred8• 13 years ago

It's a long process that took me forever to figure out, but here are the basics. I'll probably write a blog post about it.

Pin something, get a couple of repins, then repin that to a very popular community board (it takes work to get invites to those with followings of 150,000+). Follow, like, and comment (sincerely) on the pins of people who repinned your pin.

Rinse and repeat. On the average day for a newer site/account I'll drive between 1,000 and 2,000 visits and get about 100-150 new followers. The average product I pin will get 20-50 repins on day 1. But the crazy part is, as you mentioned, that all compounds over time.

The most important piece of information I'm willing to share is that if I could advertise on Pinterest I would switch all of my clients' ad spend from Adsense to Pinterest today. Promoted pins are going to be worth mad cash.

ojbyrne• 13 years ago

Your first sentence is ambiguous. I'm still not entirely sure you mean it in the startup world usage of "killing it" - i.e. doing really well (though I think you do), or the more mainstream usage of "destroy it."

austenallred8• 13 years ago

Thank you. I edited it (doing really well).

LukeShu2• 13 years ago

While I agree that the usage is unclear, "killing it" as "doing really well" is very mainstream.

It still means "destroy it", but "it"="the competition/obstacles".

onedev• 13 years ago

I'm also very optimistic about Pinterest; especially their discovery and advertising. I think much like Twitter did, the platform will sneak up on us.

irishcoffee• 13 years ago

I have always wondered, how do they generate revenue now? Or do they not?

cshenoy• 13 years ago

They mostly don't. I recall they used to make some money off of affiliate links on products people posted. They abandoned it for various reasons. They've survived off of VC money.

elorant• 13 years ago

Pinterest's users are mostly women. Women click on ads far more often than men do. Combine that with the added appeal of pictures and you realize that the efficiency of ads on Pinterest could dwarf anything offered by Adsense and the likes.

Bottom line, for the next couple of years there are some serious bucks to be made from ads on Pinterest. After that, spam will take over.

taopao• 13 years ago

They do?

Women be shoppin'?

hack_edu• 13 years ago

More than that, planning a Dream Wedding. That's Pinterest's real bread and butter.

atacrawl• 13 years ago

Pinterest's users are mostly women.

In the US, this is true. In the UK, it's more of a 50/50 split. (I can't remember where I read that; otherwise, I'd provide a source link.)

applecore• 13 years ago

Women click on ads far more often than men do.

Is this actually true?

droopyEyelids• 13 years ago

I've also heard that women purchase over 85% of all goods sold in the USA. Let that sink in for a minute!

http://www.inc.com/articles/2003/01/25019.html

dudus• 13 years ago

I love the very first comment:

AJay Hubbard: - I'll allow it

DanBC• 13 years ago

I'm happy for Pinterest to skimlink my pins. There's no option for me to give them that permission.

I guess they're nervous after the earlier backlash against skimlinking?

gourneau• 13 years ago

Anyone in here know who I can talk to to join as an early advertiser? I am a co-founder at a beauty startup. We wanna give Pintrest our money. - josh@nyla.us

Pinterest to get ads

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