Pinterest expands Shopping Ads program with new lifestyle ad formats

Pinterest has announced a significant expansion of its Shopping Ads program, adding hundreds of advertisers to its list of partners and beginning testing of new lifestyle ad formats. The program was launched last year with a dozen early test partners including eBay, Dorothy Perkins, Samsung and Made.com.

“At eBay, were focused on being present and relevantto customers wherever they start their shopping journey,” said Sadie Daryan, senior manager of global social performance marketing at eBay. “As an early adopter of Pinterests ad products, weve been able to effectively reach both current and potential customers at all stages of their purchase process, especially at the moment when inspiration strikes.”

Shopping Ads automatically create Promoted Pins from a retailers existing product feed, seamlessly turning a product catalog into a series of actionable ads. The new formats will aim to give Pinterest users even more visual shopping cues, enabling them to view products from multiple angles, or combining a mix of product and lifestyle shots for a more impactful ad.

A recent study by Pinterest found that 90 per cent of users made purchasing decisions on the platform, and 70 per cent found it useful for finding new products. The expansion will also bring Pinterests Shop the Look pins to advertisers and brands in France, Germany, Japan and the UK, adding product tags within fashion and home decor Pins so that people can shop directly from the image.

“Pinterest has proven to be a great match for Ulta Beauty, offering a platform for guest education, exploration and fun that is very similar to the experiential nature of our stores,” said Prama Bhatt, senior vice president of digital and eCommerce at Ulta Beauty. “Very early on in our partnership, we were able to efficiently scale our entire product portfolio onto Pinterest and capitalise on the visual nature of both their platform and our products and services.”