Pinterest launches Visual Search Ads in all ad markets.
Pinterest announced Visual Search Ads, Priority Products, self-serve A/B testing and an app-install objective at Pinterest Presents on 17 September.
Pinterest has announced Visual Search Ads, an ad format that places advertisers prominently in search results and Pin closeups, at its Pinterest Presents advertiser summit on 17 September.
The format pairs keyword relevance with a new ad unit, advertisers can bid for the top response, and it links people straight to the advertiser’s site. It goes into beta for eligible advertisers in all Pinterest ad markets in the coming weeks and works with Performance+, the platform’s automated performance suite.
Pinterest says its users run more than 80 billion searches a month, most of them visual and more than half of them commercial. Bill Ready, Pinterest’s chief executive, framed the format as a way to reach people at the points where they see, save and decide, powered by what Pinterest calls Pinterest Intelligence, its visual understanding of images, products, taste and intent.
Performance+ gets three more controls
Priority Products lets an advertiser choose which products Performance+ should push in a given moment, such as a seasonal launch or a promotion, while keeping the automation. Self-serve A/B testing lets advertisers test creative and targeting inside Performance+ without a Pinterest team running it. App Promotion, an objective for app installs, is in global beta with qualified advertisers; Pinterest cites one advertiser seeing up to an 85% improvement in cost per install against earlier workarounds, with no window or sample given.
Restyle and a second series
On the consumer side, Restyle, launching in beta in the US and Canada, lets a person use a photo to reimagine a space and compare options at home. Bring My Pinterest to Life, the platform’s CTV series pairing users with creators and brands to turn boards into real spaces and looks, returns for a second season with Tay BeepBoop Nakamoto and Caroline Vazzana among the returning creators. The announcement names no change to organic accounts or to how Pins are distributed.
What it means for brands
Everything in this announcement is paid, so the operating change for a social team is in the questions that arrive from whoever owns the media budget, not in the content calendar. Visual Search Ads put a paid unit at the top of a visual search, which is where Pinterest says people are comparing before they decide, and Priority Products means the products featured in a seasonal push can be set by the brand rather than left to the automation.
This week, if Pinterest is in your channel mix, ask your ads owner whether the account qualifies for the Visual Search Ads beta and what the organic Pins for the next seasonal push look like next to it, so the answer is ready before someone senior reads the press coverage and asks.
Sources
The NBK Social briefing
Our Pinterest coverage, and everything else we publish, by email.