Pinterest and Shopify have globally expanded a social commerce partnership that launched last year.
The partnership began in the United States and Canada with the Pinterest Shopify app, which allows businesses to quickly upload their product catalogs to Pinterest and convert them into shoppable Product Pins.
The app is now available in 27 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, allowing more than 1.7 million Shopify merchants to make their products discoverable across Pinterest.
“What we’re really aiming to do in the simplest way is to set up these merchants for success to reach our pinners, and then to drive sales and growth by way of how we’re onboarding those merchants onto the platform,” Bill Watkins, Pinterest’s global head of mid-market and small business sales, told AdExchanger. “It’s seamless for them to light up our shopping ads capability.”
The expansion also includes new features such as dynamic retargeting, which will allow merchants to re-engage with “Pinners” who have already expressed interest in their products.
Watkins said that 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded and consist of two- to three-word queries – most consumers don’t search for brand names.
He added that Pinterest has a massive data set that includes more than 300 billion pins that organize into six billion boards.
For Rothy’s, a San Francisco-based direct-to-consumer fashion brand known for its shoes, handbags and accessories, the partnership is an important avenue for growth, said Kate Barrows, Rothy’s senior director of growth, in an email.
The company’s Shopify catalog includes extensive information on product names, descriptions, color, inventory level and more, which is modified and fed into Pinterest.
Pinterest then uses the information to publish paid ads, building “an always-on Rothy’s storefront that reflects real-time product updates.”
When running shopping campaigns, the Shopify integration automates the creation of shoppable pins. One of the biggest benefits, Barrows said, is that Rothy’s data in Pinterest is automatically updated as information changes in Shopify.
“If a product goes out of stock in Shopify, Pinterest’s feed automatically updates and stops serving ads for that product,” she said. “Rothy’s Pinterest Shopping campaigns have helped us scale our advertising program efficiently.”