Monday, March 19, 2018

One of the Few Places I Am Pinterested in Ads

I do not claim to be a social media maven. Nor do I claim to be an advertising genius. But from a user perspective, one social media platform does ads right. Pinterest classifies itself as a visual search technology and it utilizes ads by playing them in the feeds of its users that it likely would be interested in purchasing.

Shopping Ads was rolled out this past summer in a pilot with a few companies to include Lowe's, Ulta, and Wayfair. My husband and I had just completed a move and I had been looking up shelving (to be fair, I was aggressively looking up shelving). In my feed, some options from Lowe's came up that looked almost identical to the aesthetic I was going for. To be fully transparent, I didn't end up buying it (Pottery Barn won, sorry), BUT I did end up buying storage options they had put in front of me. Unlike Facebook, which at times has a forced feel, Shopping Ads are seamlessly placed in front of me that are visually appealing and actionable.

With these ads being available to more retailers, it's going to be extremely exciting to see the platform evolve. It's doing something different in search that Google can't get its hands on as of yet. With these ads, the user doesn't feel attacked or stalked... it's a crisp, easy option to showcase product. And with it at the fingertips of hundreds of companies, I am eager to see its utilization.

http://adage.com/article/digital/pinterest-expands-shopping-ads/312780/

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