Pinterest is adding more programmatic CTV inventory to its board.
The social image-sharing platform expanded tvScientific CEO and Co-Founder Jason Fairchild’s title to general manager of programmatic and affiliate. The title upgrade comes less than a year after Pinterest acquired the performance-focused CTV ad startup. Fairchild also remains CEO of tvScientific, which still operates as an independent business.
One of Pinterest’s most lucrative assets is its high-intent audience, Fairchild told AdExchanger. Pinners, as Pinterest fans are called, use the platform to compile or “pin” ideas, interests and items, and those data points serve as behavioral and interest-based signals for targeting ads.
Fairchild’s new title at Pinterest also indicates the parent company’s increased focus on performance. When the company reported quarterly earnings earlier this month, it shared plans to fully fold tvScientific’s capabilities into Performance+, its AI-driven ad platform that launched in 2024.
Put a pin in that
For Pinterest, connecting latent consumer intent to clear purchase behavior is not a straightforward task. The vast majority of product searches on the platform aren’t associated with specific brands. For brands and retailers, the opportunity lies in reaching Pinners with relevant items, including off platform.
To capitalize on that opportunity, Pinterest wants to make its audiences more readily available through programmatic and affiliate buying channels, too, Fairchild said, not just through tvScientific’s platform. And, naturally, streaming TV is an enticing target for Pinterest due to the high value of that inventory.
Recent tests of Pinterest’s targeting performance beyond its site and app indicated that “scaling the availability of those audiences off-platform would be a big business,” Fairchild said.
Ultimately, Fairchild said, Pinterest wants to help brands deliver and prove outcomes on cross-channel campaigns that target Pinterest users. Especially when it comes to streaming TV, where it’s harder to attribute commercials to real-world actions. People just don’t click around on smart TVs looking for things to buy the way they do on other devices (and on Pinterest, of course).
Pining for performance
Advertisers are clamoring for demonstrable campaign performance at reasonable rates, and Pinterest says it’s listening to those demands.
Ecommerce-native brands that are adept at search and social marketing are “very performance-oriented” and “flock to CTV” when they see the proof of its efficacy, Fairchild said.
Generally speaking, these performance-focused brands may make fewer upper-funnel bets on connected TV, which is still largely considered a reach vehicle. But they are open to investing more in streaming if the channel can prove that it drives online traffic and conversions like other digital marketing channels.
The pool of CTV advertisers “is going to increase dramatically,” Fairchild said, as these marketers with a data-driven performance mindset navigate the channel and better understand how those ads generate results – and, most importantly, how to prove those results.
“There’s a massive opportunity there,” Fairchild said of the burgeoning streaming TV media category. But for digital-native and performance-focused marketers, the shift to CTV is “still in the early innings.”
