Pinterest Now Offers 5,000 Interest Categories

To the best targeter go the ad spoils. Pinterest is now inviting brands to target users based on more than 5,000 interest categories. That’s up from 400, according to Pinterest product manager John Milinovich.

Milinovich says Pinterest developed its so-called “Taste Graph” -- which encompasses users’ unique interests -- by analyzing roughly 100 billion posted pins and the trillions of interactions they attract.

“Whenever someone searches with us or saves a pin, we refine our understanding of what they’re into,” Milinovich notes in a new blog post.

With the expanded targeting options, Milinovich said some advertisers are seeing increases in click-through rates of up to 50%, and reductions in their cost per click of around 20%.

Brands without a presence on Pinterest are doing themselves a disservice, recent research suggested.   

Pinners who actively engaged with an advertiser’s content on the network had a 40% larger shopping cart at checkout, according to analysis of three brand clients by real-time information provider Neustar.

Paid impressions were 30% more effective at driving in-store or ecommerce sales than the next best-performing channel -- which happens to be online display ads.

In addition, Neustar found that Pinterest ads delivered an impressive 28:1 return on ad spend.

Beating out impressions, image close-ups and re-pins, the analytics firm determined that “clicks” were the best indicator of a future sale. Indeed, clicks provided retailers with 500% lift in sales.

Pinterest reportedly expects to rake in $3 billion in revenue in 2018. If accurate, that would be dramatically higher than the roughly $100 million in revenue Pinterest reportedly took in last year. 

Investors continue to watch for signs that Pinterest is preparing to go public. Fueling their interest, the company recently brought on Todd Morgenfeld -- formerly VP of finance at Twitter -- as its first CFO.

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