The drive to monetize has pushed more than one social media site to add to their advertising offerings.
The latest embellishment? Multi-image ads, often referred to as “carousel” ads, which offer marketers a way to showcase either more than one product, or a variety of views of one piece of merchandise.
Pinterest is the latest company to get aboard the carousel. Facebook also recently announced its own multi-image ad offering.
“Although Pinterest is actively pitching the ad to agencies, it’s unclear when the ad will hit the market,” noted Digiday after it contacted ad honchos at Pinterest. “The new ad is just one aspect of Pinterest’s aggressive monetization push. It comes amid the company’s effort to raise $500 million in venture capital funding at a $11 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. Further, Pinterest faces skepticism about how well its existing ads perform.”
Not everyone is optimistic about the feature.
“Jeanne Bright, director of paid social at digital agency DigitasLBi, said that Facebook and Twitter have similar ad products — Facebook’s multiproduct ad and a Twitter feature that allows for multiple photos in one tweet,” according to Digiday. “But so far, the formats have been underutilized by marketers, and she suspects that will be the same for Pinterest.”
Reportedly, Pinterest is also designing a “Buy” button to let users to purchase items directly from its pages, rather than direct them to another e-commerce site.
Another change: Pinterest will ban affiliate links.
“Affiliate links allow individual account holders to be compensated for sending traffic to brands’ websites or e-commerce destinations, and some speculated Pinterest made the decision so as to prevent influential users from competing with its forthcoming e-commerce business,” according to Digiday.
Pinterest is definitely tightening all the pins and looking to make good on its claims of delivering real value to marketers and brand partners. From promoted pins to its new carousel plan, Pinterest wants to make sure that what goes around (ads) comes around (profit).