Months after its introduction at Cannes Lion, Pinterest officially released its suite of AI-powered tools designed to help advertisers streamline and automate their campaigns. Branded as Performance+, this offering promises to aid marketers in “[driving] lower-funnel performance by optimizing targeting, managing budgets or deciding how much to bid.” Pinterest boasts that its technology can save advertisers significant time when creating ads because it requires 50 percent fewer inputs.
“Ad innovation on Pinterest has been at an all-time high. We’re still the place for brands to drive discovery, but we’re now delivering on lower funnel and creative too,” Pinterest Chief Revenue Officer Bill Watkins said in a statement. “Brands are increasing Pinterest in their media mix and they no longer need to choose between awareness or lower funnel performance. Now they can have both.”
Though first mentioned this past summer, Pinterest kept a lid on what Performance+ can specifically do. Now, the content discovery platform is touting what it can do, thanks to artificial intelligence, though the capabilities probably shouldn’t surprise marketers. Performance+ will enhance ad creative, optimize budget management, and use Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) bidding to determine ideal spending levels. It also streamlines A/B testing for more effective campaign performance.
Pinterest claims that in early testing, most advertisers saw at least a 10 percent improvement in cost per acquisition (CPA) for Conversion and Catalog sales campaigns and a similar percentage in cost-per-click (CPC) for Consideration campaigns.
Advertisers can elect to use the tools provided by Performance+ as a whole or individually to suit their needs. Of course, Pinterest believes the best results are from bundling AI and automation together to achieve multiple goals.
“Advertisers are seeing a significant increase in performance on Pinterest,” Watkins remarked. “We have doubled outbound clicks to advertisers year-over-year. Both conversions and measurability are improving dramatically on our platform. And we’ve cut cost-per-clicks in half—and advertisers are telling us that this is having a positive impact on their return on ad spend. Thanks to this momentum, they’re consistently increasing the role of Pinterest in their media mix. That’s because, on Pinterest, brands don’t have to choose between aiming for awareness or lower funnel performance. Now they can have both.”
This announcement brings Pinterest more on par with its platform counterparts, which have implemented AI tools to help advertisers create, optimize and automate ad campaigns. Google has AI-powered search ads and Performance Max, Meta uses AI for audience targeting, ad placement and performance optimization for Facebook and Instagram, Amazon deployed AI to help create video ads, and numerous others are doing the same.
Many believe AI will transform how advertising campaigns are created and executed in the workplace. And if it will eliminate this tedious task for marketers, why not have the capability on many popular social platforms?
While it may seem that Pinterest is playing catch-up, the timing of its AI rollout is deliberate. For Pinterest, the goal was to create AI tools like Performance+ that are “additive, not addictive.” Chief executive Bill Ready has been vocal about this approach, previously challenging Big Tech to address social media’s negative impact. A company spokesperson shared that under Ready’s leadership, Pinterest retrained its AI to prioritize inspiring content, positivity, and greater user control. This philosophy extends across its platform, including its feed, body type technology, and advertising tools.
But while Performance+ looks impressive on the surface, is it compelling enough for media buyers who are concerned about the placement of these AI-generated ads? Pinterest hopes early results will prove that its new offering can generate performance gains advertisers will find impressive and help assuage any fears they might have.
Pinterest’s Performance+ is now available to advertisers globally, with ROAS bidding also accessible to eligible markets worldwide.
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