Pinterest is partnering with Oracle Data Cloud to see how effective Promoted Pins are when its 100 million-plus users shop offline.
The news of a partnership also comes with a new study in which Pinterest had Oracle measure return on investment for 29 consumer packaged-good campaigns that ran on the social media platform between the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2015. Oracle leveraged its DataLogix technology to see how each campaign performed with households who saw it on Pinterest versus results among similar demographic users who did not see the campaign.
The study found that Promoted Pins drive 5-times more incremental in-store sales per impression when compared to other campaigns measured by Oracle Data Cloud, which include social media platforms as well as programmatic vendors and publisher websites, said Jon Kaplan, head of global sales at Pinterest.
Previously, Pinterest was not able to provide in-store measurement to its ad partners. But a different study that focuses on retail is forthcoming and, in the future, Pinterest said it plans to make similar data available to its largest, most strategic advertisers, Mr. Kaplan said.
The new partnership gives the image bookmarking service the ability to scale its efforts at measuring in-store sales based off ads seen on its platforms. That is especially useful for a company like Pinterest, because 55% of its user base uses Pinterest to find or shop for a product, according to Mary Meeker's 2016 Internet Trends report.
According to the Oracle study funded by Pinterest, CPG brands are 3-times more likely to reach existing customers on Pinterest. Mr. Kaplan said that's a good thing, because Pinterest users spend about 16% more compared to the average consumer. "A lot of these companies are focusing on organic growth and reaching existing customers," Mr. Kaplan said. "The fact they can introduce new use cases for the products is the differentiator."
Hidden Valley, for example, focused on using its products in unexpected ways, like how to make a ranch spaghetti pie. Pinterest said the company saw a "significant" increase in the number of household that purchased its products following the campaign, but declined to share specific numbers.
Pinterest has been making moves to attract revenue since the start of 2015, when it officially began selling ads to marketers. The company has been aggressively ramping up its efforts to generate revenue as it gears up for a widely expected IPO. Last month, the company announced a partnership with Millward Brown Digital with the goal of telling many U.S. advertisers how their Promoted Pin campaigns will affect objectives such as brand awareness, favorability and purchase intent.
