Pinterest says the aim of its video ad format is not to drive views but sales. Because users visit Pinterest in a shopping mind-set, the video ads should have more impact, Bigdoli argued.
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US and United Kingdom businesses that already work with Pinterest will initially have access to the promoted video. Advertisers are projected to spend $12.82 billion on digital-video ads in 2018, up from $7.7 billion a year ago, according to research firm L2.
Pinterest will present the ads differently than on Facebook FB, -0.48% and Twitter TWTR, -2.21% where the ads automatically start playing without sound as users encounter them within their news feeds.
While Facebook and Twitter have honed their video-advertising offerings for years, Pinterest pursued other priorities, like building its business model, improving search and making it possible to buy some items directly from the site.
Pinterest’s virtual pin-up board is now open for ad videos.
“At the macro level, there’s a huge demand for video”, Mike Bidgoli, a product manager at Pinterest, told Fortune. The ad would typically appear in the fourth slot in the user’s home feed as well as when users are scrolling through category feeds. Advertisers are projected to spend $12.82 billion on digital-video ads in 2018, up from $7.7 billion previous year, according to research firm L2.
The most popular fare includes workout classes, DIY projects and beauty tutorials, the company says. Video ads are only available to Pinterest’s biggest advertisers that work with reps to organize their ad buys.
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The launch comes just a week after Pinterest announced that it is allowing marketers to bid on ads through an auction process, and to specify the maximum times a person can see an ad. Unlike you do with Snapchat or YouTube, for example, you don’t go to Pinterest to watch videos, which means video ads may stick out (and not in a good way). The video player supports any length of video, and completion rates in the pilot were “high”, according to Pinterest, though it didn’t provide exact percentages. Before diving into video, more generally speaking, Pinterest experimented with a format called Cinematic Pins – where short videos would essentially play tied to the scrolling of the page.
