Pinterest has announced a new ad partnership with Google as it looks to increase and diversify its advertising revenue. 

The partnership will let brands running Google Ads campaigns to broaden reach and engage with high-value consumers without doing too much extra leg work in the process. It will also let marketers tap into Pinterest’s engaged userbase and could lead to increased conversions and more profitable return on investment.

As the new ad format is controlled via Google Ads, it also represents an easy and efficient way for marketers to access new audiences using a tool they feel comfortable with.

How the partnership will work

Marketers can set up ads on Pinterest using Google Ads Manager, which will direct users to their website once they click on the ad. Once on the website, whether that’s on a landing page or a product page, the user has an opportunity to convert.

A platform going from strength to strength

Despite being a platform that doesn’t get as much airtime as the other big players (Meta, TikTok and X), Pinterest is quietly doing very well. It has 498 million global monthly active users, a record for the platform, and has increased revenues for Q4 2023 by 12%. To top it all off, its YoY growth is to be 15-17% for 2024, reports Insider Intelligence.

The Google collaboration is the second third-party hook-up for Pinterest, after the social media platform announced one with Amazon.

When it was announced, Pinterest used a blog post to argue the integration would “provide more comprehensiveness, shoppability, and a best-in-class buying experience for users, along with greater performance for brands and advertisers.” Latest user and revenue figures would support that statement.

Much like the Google Ads partnership, which lets users click on an ad and be directed to a seller’s website, once a user clicks on an Amazon ad, they will be directed to Amazon’s website to complete the sale.

Its relationship with Amazon has been a success. According to a report by Bezinga, around 30% of Pinterest’s search ads feature Amazon – while feed ads feature significantly more Amazon content than that.

In total, Amazon has provided an extra $120m to Pinterest’s coffers, estimates the report, which makes up around 4% of its revenue growth.

Expected to have a good year

Pinterest’s U.S. users do a lot of economic heavy lifting for the platform, as they generate 80% of the revenue despite accounting for just 20% of the users. Pinterest bosses hope partnerships with third-parties will help it increase revenue across the rest of its market.

Bill Ready, CEO, Pinterest

“This partnership will focus on monetizing several of our currently unmonetized international markets by enabling ads to be served on Pinterest via Google’s Ad Manager. 

 

“We went live a couple of weeks ago, and this is starting to ramp up. Third-party ad demand is scaling as we anticipated.”

Pinterest is in a pretty strong position and has been able to grow users and revenue in the last 12 months. With a new third-party ad integration available, it should have no problem doing the latter. The former is up to how enjoyable the platform is to be on – which seems to be well in control.

The sheer number of people browsing Meta-based apps, TikTok and Twitter every day means that Pinterest probably won’t ever threaten their dominance – but it can carve a niche for itself and the brands which find an audience on the platform. As the numbers suggest, it is doing that very well.