Pinterest rolls out new shopping features for advertisers

Pinterest is rolling out new features for advertisers and brands to promote their products to users on its site. The launch marks the company’s latest initiative to grow online shopping and advertising on its platform.

A new “slideshow for collections” feature pulls products from brands’ catalogues and automatically turns them into a “collections ad.” Pinterest notes that this new feature will help advertisers easily produce video-like content tailored to individual users. The aim is to encourage shoppers to purchase more items at once, as the company notes that shoppers on Pinterest have 85% bigger baskets than shoppers on other platforms and spend twice as much per month. Since shoppers will be browsing more than one product at a time through the slideshow feature, they’re more likely to purchase additional items.

Pinterest is launching another new feature called “merchant details” to allow brands to showcase their values on their profile. Brands can showcase values such as “responsibly sourced” and “inclusive.” Further, companies can also highlight communities that they are a part of, such as “Women-owned” and “Black-owned.”

The company is also expanding its Verified Merchant Program, which helps users find vetted brands, to Austria, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. Brands who have been vetted get enhanced distribution and a “verified” badge on their profiles.

Pinterest is also testing a new “Idea Ads with paid partnership” feature that is a joint partnership between creators and advertisers. As part of the feature, the creator makes an Idea Pin and tags a brand partner. The advertiser can then promote the Idea Pin as an Idea Ad. The company notes that this kind of partnership helps businesses and creators reach more users on the platform. Idea Ads are currently being tested with select creators and brands in 15 countries.

“People who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey, compared to social media platforms. That’s why, as of today, we’re dramatically expanding our suite of shopping solutions for advertisers,” the company said in a blog post.

These new features come as no surprise, as Pinterest has long positioned itself as a source for inspiration that could ultimately lead to online purchases. Earlier this year, the company rolled out a new “Shopping List” feature aimed at turning users’ saved Pins into purchases.

It’s worth noting Pinterest is among several other platforms competing within the e-commerce market with a push toward online shopping, as Facebook, TikTok and Snap have all launched shopping features over the past few months.