Recently, Pinterest gave business-orientated users the long awaited insights they’ve been looking for by rolling out “Pinterest Web Analytics.” The Pinterest facelift (which is still slowly revealing itself to users – Mark Zuckerberg style) was generated with users in mind and to differentiate businesses from individuals. Pinterest first introduced business accounts at the end of last year, along with tools to help expand their pinning presence outside of Pinterest (i.e. the “Pin It” button). The most notable changes in the “new look” are the larger pins and the greater accessibility to older pins. Pinterest already generates a large amount of traffic (see “Fast Facts” below), there is substantial room for growth, and the referral ratio is any advertiser’s dream.
Fast Facts: According to Pinterest Insider, as of April 2013, Pinterest has a total of 48.7 million users. In addition, Pinterest hit an independent site milestone, reaching 10 million unique monthly visitors in record time.
Pinterest Web Analytics to the Rescue
It’s clear that companies have long felt the need to be on this particular social media network, but never knew precisely why it was beneficial. Many questions remained unanswered: How do we measure the performance? How does this help my business? What’s the ROI? While there are already some third party sites and tools available to help facilitate insight, the recent launch of Pinterest’s reporting tool was highly anticipated (and is free for users). Google Analytics can provide insight in regards to referral traffic from the channel, but couldn’t offer any details as to how people were interacting on the social channel itself. Pinterest Web Analytics yields a better understanding on how the users, aka pinners, are interacting with the pins that originated on your website. Not only will you have a clearer understanding of the amount of traffic being driven to to your site, you will know what pins on Pinterest are driving the most traffic. This new tool is an eye opener to companies, helping them to comprehend the type of content that is generating the most interaction and showing how many times a photo was clicked.
Not Just Numbers
Your results aren’t displayed in spreadsheets or tables; Pinterest, of course, ensured that their data was as visually fascinating as your “Places I’d Love to Travel to Board,” by providing engaging graphics pertaining to your content. If you are more interested in the numbers themselves and less in the flashy graphs, Pinterest’s new tool gives you the option to export the data into a CSV file.
The Freeway to Pinterest Web Analytics: Verification Lane
In order to take advantage of the renovations, you must (a) have Pinterest’s “new look,” and (b) a verified business account. In order to be considered a business on Pinterest, you must verify your website. Once your site has been verified, you’ll notice a white check mark in a red circle on your account (next to your URL). After you’ve verified your account, you can find the analytics tool in the menu on the top right of your account, or by visiting pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com. If you’d like users to be able to pin items directly from your site, be sure to add the “Pin It” button to applicable areas onto your website itself. Before diving head first into analytics, it’s a good idea to make sure your profile is optimized as well.
One Small Step For Pinterest, One Giant Leap for Marketers Everywhere
Analytics is a big step for Pinterest and adds additional value to your presence on the network. Still questioning why this matters to you? Instead of just pinning for the sake of pinning and appearing “active,” you can now pin according to what your target market interacts with the most. Get inside the heads of pinners who are likely to stay at your hotel! Which of your pins was repinned the most? Which pins are being clicked on? Was it the picture of the wedding you hosted last weekend? The beach located next to your hotel? That picture of the beautifully decorated tuna appetizer? Plan your Pinterest strategy appropriately. Web analytics allows you to choose timeframes you want to see too. If pictures of the sunny hotel pool are re-pinned more in the winter when people are day-dreaming of warmer weather, then you can tailor your content during that time accordingly. If you have the opportunity to tailor the content of your boards to what pinners love most – you should take the opportunity and run with it!
“But I don’t have a business account…”
No problem. Here’s how to set up your Pinterest business account today:
- The first step is making sure you are switched to the new look. If you are not, this can be done by hovering over your account information in the upper right hand corner and selecting, “Switch to the new look,” then click “Get it now.”
- In the bottom right corner of your Profile box, click on the gray pencil icon.
- If your website is not in there already, type in the URL and click “verify website.”
- There are two ways to verify your website (you will need access to your site to verify the account).
- Option 1: Pinterest will prompt you to “verify by upload,” download the verification file, and then upload the file to your website.
- Option 2: Pinterest will provide you with a meta tag that you will then add to theof your index.html file.
- Hit “Complete Verification” and you should see the check mark next to your URL on your Pinterest page!
Now that Pinterest has given us the tools to answer many of our questions users, we can’t help but ask ourselves, “What’s next?” Will Pinterest come up with ways for the site to create more revenue-generated opportunities? Paid advertisements? Sponsored pins? Stay tuned!
