Pinterest Releases New Features To Help Shopify Merchants Sell More

More than 450 million people use Pinterest to discover new products, save ideas they love and find inspiration for their everyday lives. It’s one part scrapbook, one part search engine, and a whopping 97% of searches on the platform consist of short queries that don’t include a brand name. 

Why is that relevant? For merchants, it means businesses of all sizes have an equal chance of being discovered by Pinterest’s massive audience. This is a far cry from Google, where the portion of unbranded searches is a much lower 82%, according to industry reports. 

For D2C brands, Pinterest presents a valuable opportunity to gain visibility with an audience that’s in a shopping mindset. The platform recently announced an expanded partnership with Shopify that will make it even easier for merchants to connect their product catalogs and make their pins shoppable. 

What’s New With Pinterest and Shopify?

First and foremost, the Pinterest Shopify app will expand availability to 27 new countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. That’s a big step up from the initial pool that it first launched to in May of 2020.

In addition to expanding geographically, the update will make it faster and easier for brands using the platform to upload product catalogs, publish pins for items on sale, track performance and reach users with paid campaigns. Essentially, the update simplifies the process of connecting your inventory to Pinterest and creating shoppable pins from it, and all of it can be done from directly within your Shopify interface. 

For the first time, merchants who use Pinterest to run ad campaigns will have access to dynamic retargeting, which will allow them to re-engage with users who have already expressed interest in their products on the platform. This is a huge opportunity; retargeting is one of the most lucrative types of advertising on other platforms, and we expect it will show similar ROI on Pinterest. 

Finally, the update adds multi-feed support for catalogs, which means merchants can upload different product feeds for different audiences. This might mean showing one feed to shoppers in the U.S. and a different one to users in Canada, or differing feeds between new and repeat viewers. This type of personalization further boosts the effectiveness of your paid campaigns. 

Why Should Brands Use Pinterest Now?

If you’re not already a player in the Pinterest game, you might feel like you’ve missed the boat on it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if you’re brand new to the platform, here are three reasons now is a great time to add Pinterest to your marketing strategy.

1. It Recreates the In-Store Shopping Experience‍

It’s no secret that consumers have dramatically changed their shopping habits over the past year. 

According to Shopify’s 2021 Future of Commerce study, 84% of global consumers have shopped online since the start of the pandemic, compared to just 65% who have shopped in stores. Even as Covid restrictions loosen around the country, just 57% of respondents said they planned to shop in brick and mortar stores regularly in the next six months. 

As a result, it’s more important than ever for D2C brands to have a compelling online presence. The catalog-style layout of Pinterest helps merchants mimic the in-store experience of browsing casually through aisles, seeing curated collections and comparing prices between similar items. 

2. It Helps You Get Discovered Organically

Social commerce--where consumers make purchases directly through their social media channels--has been on the rise for several years now. This is at a time when the eCommerce market is growing ever more crowded and it’s getting harder to win one of Google’s coveted top three search result slots. In light of this, social media is an important channel for brands to reach new customers organically. 

Shopify says installs of its social commerce channels grew 76% within the last year, proving there’s a high demand among consumers looking for new and engaging shopping experiences. 

3. Setup Doesn’t Require Heavy Lifting ‍

The beauty of Shopify’s Pinterest app is that it makes installation and setup a breeze, even for non-developers. 

The direct integration between your Shopify account and your brand’s Pinterest profile makes it simple to connect your catalog and choose which products you want to display on Pinterest. Automatic daily catalog updates ensure users always see your most current inventory and pricing, while performance tracking is easy via the Pinterest Tag.

Accelerate Growth By Selling on Pinterest 

Is your brand positioned to reach the hundreds of millions of users looking for new ideas on Pinterest? Our eCommerce experts can help you dive into the world of social selling or fine-tune your Pinterest strategy to maximize ROI.

‍Book your free consultation today to start the conversation.

Images courtesy Pinterest Newsroom.