Pinterest released its Q4 2023 financial results, and it is good news. Today on the podcast, Kate is breaking down the nitty gritty of what that good news is, what it means for you as a marketer, and why this is important for the strength and longevity of the platform.
Pinterest Q4 Financial Report
All right, so let’s talk numbers. Kate loves to look at these financial quarterly investor reports because it tells her about the health of the company. These reports also give a sneak peek into what Pinterest has been working on, what their objectives are going forward, and how outside investors view the platform. It’s important to know if they see it as viable, and healthy and strong. Plus, it’s always good to know what the CEO, Bill Ready, has to say about the state of the company.
Ready previously worked for Google and Paypal. Since he took over the roll of CEO about 18 months ago, things are moving forward on the platform faster than they ever were before.
“In Q4, our team executed well against our strategic priorities, growing user engagement, gaining further traction with our lower funnel advertising offerings, and delivering on operational efficiency. Our efforts to grow users and deepen engagement, continue to yield strong results.”
– Bill Ready, Pinterest CEO
Below you’ll find 13 things from the Pinterest financial report that our team found worth noting…
- Monthly active users grew to 498 million – This is an 11% increase from the previous quarter; the strongest quarterly growth Pinterest has seen since Q1 of 2021. What was going on in Q1 of 2021? The platform was growing like crazy coming off the pandemic. Pinterest says that it wants to call people back to the platform more often than they are currently visiting. The Pinterest user usually visits the platform three to four times a week, as opposed to an Instagram user that visits the platform four times in an hour.
- Revenue grew to 981 million dollars – A 12% increase since the previous quarter. This has continued double digit revenue growth in the second half of this year.
- New users are being given reasons to stick around and engage – The platform’s user engagement grew by enhancing human curation and investing in some unique features. They are specifically focused on catering to the Gen Z audience, and providing a positive platform experience in contrast to Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and X.
- Significant advancements have been made on the shopability of the platform – The shopability was enhanced by featuring shopping content more. Pinners can see shopping content more readily, which has increased engagement.
- Improvements were made to search capabilities – Core search capabilities were improved by testing generative AI-based search guides. These guides help users refine their searches from broad queries to more specific topics, enhancing the user experience and guiding them closer to their desired content or purchase.
- Collage pins peaked engagement and enhanced shopability – Users find collages highly engaging on Pinterest, with a 3x higher likelihood of saving collage Pins compared to other Pins. Additionally, about 75% of collages feature product Pins, indicating user intent towards shoppable content creation and engagement.
- They added a new organization feature – Pinterest introduced its first auto organization feature using AI to suggest boards by grouping similar pins based on users past saves. This feature increased the rate of board creation by 30%. We haven’t seen any emphasis on board creation in the past, but by implementing this feature they can really drill down on what people are interested in.
- Video content is driving increased engagement and monetization – In looking at a few of our clients data, this is true. Pinterest says, “video remains a significant revenue source, comprising over 30% of Pinterest’s revenue”. Bottom line is if you aren’t creating video content, you should be.
- The Gen Z user base continues to grow as they view Pinterest as a positive online oasis – More people are choosing to be done with Instagram. Gen Z now represents over 40% of the Pinterest user base. The platform’s success with this demographic is attributed to its focus on helping users discover and act on their interests in a positive, non-toxic environment.
- The platform is less ad-driven and more performance-driven – Pinterest has prioritized improving monetization per user by introducing lower funnel tools for advertisers, such as mobile deep linking, API for conversions, and direct links. Those who’ve adopted these tools have seen an average revenue growth increase from 2% to 23%.
- Traffic and engagement driven to advertisers has grown substantially – The number of clicks driven to advertisers more than doubled year-over-year. Quarter four ad impressions grew by 33%, making it the sixth consecutive quarter of growth for ad impressions.
- API for conversions is showing great success – Retailers who adopted API for conversions are seeing year-over-year growth in the 30% range compared to non-adopters of API for conversions who are declining.
- A new ad partnership with Google – Pinterest has partnered with Google to integrate third party ads, aiming to monetize currently unmonetized international markets. This integration has been live for a few weeks now, and is beginning to scale as anticipated.
All in all, Pinterest is healthy and growing. The platform is very focused on being a positive environment, particularly for Gen Z. They’re getting smart about their ads, and they want to be strategic with how they help advertisers get what they need from what they’re investing. They’re finding new ways to help their users find what they’re interested in, create boards, and find more content.
Related: Pinterest Predicts 2024: What You Need To Know
What does this mean for you as a marketer?
This means a few really great things for you as a marketer.
- Paying attention to what types of boards are being created can point you in the direction of keywords you should be using in your content to reach more people. Go into your Pinterest Analytics, look at the pins that are being saved, and see what boards they are being saved to.
- By marketing on Pinterest, you are continuing to support the positive online environment by creating great content that supports people looking for things that make their life better and add value.
The biggest takeaway of all today is that Pinterest isn’t going anywhere. Nothing in the Q4 report indicates that Pinterest is on a downward spiral. This means now is the time to invest in the platform!
We love helping our clients, and helping our community leverage Pinterest as a really great marketing option for their business. Things are just heating up for Pinterest in 2024.
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