Forrester sees marketing potential in Pinterest - but it’s not there yet
Market research firm Forrester has completed a study of social media site Pinterest, finding that the visual sharing tool is visited by 21 per cent of online adults in the US every month - but is not yet a valuable social marketing channel.
Nevertheless with 84 per cent of its user base having made a purchase in the past three months there is light at the end of the tunnel with Forrester analyst Nate Elliott predicting that it could ultimately drive more sales than Facebook or Twitter data.
Pinterest currently has nearly as many users as Twitter and more than Instagram or Google+ in the US but only 56 per cent of brands have created custom boards on the platform, with those that have finding little value in the platform with limited engagement from users.
Defending their bold claim however Forrester point out that the rich data set afforded by Pinterest offers huge scope for ad targeting, offering a more attractive proposition (if it fully shares its customer insights) than either Facebook or Twitter.
Elliott explained: “People don’t only share historical affinities with Pinterest; they share future aspirations. In that way, Pinterest’s data looks more like the intention data collected by Google and other search engines. And just as ads targeted with Google’s data generate outstanding direct response, so will ads targeted with Pinterest’s data.”
Forrester also found that the vast majority of Pinterest’s user base, 81 per cent, are women with the median user age currently sitting at 35.