Shoptalk: Pinterest’s New Tools

By Hannah Kim

Pinterest released a group of new tools to find real-world objects and trends on the digital catalogue

Pinterest’s "visual discovery”

“Lens” ToolAllows "pinners" use their phone camera to search on Pinterest

It can be a photo of a clock to generate room decor ideas with similar clocks and different arrangements

Helps search for specific photos quickly and more conveniently

“Shop the Look” Tool

This is a new button on home

Fashion "pins" bring up related items users can buy directly on Pinterest

Makes online shopping more convenient

Allows “pinners” to buy exactly what they want from the pictures they find

“Instant Ideas” ToolA new button in the home feed that will surface new, personalized pin recommendations in real-time while users scroll

For example, tapping this button on a cake will surface similar desert images and recipes

Allows easier search and brings up more content in a convenient way

Pinterest Stats150 million monthly active users serves more than 10 billion pin recommendations every day Generated about $100 million in revenue in 2015 and about $300 million last year Been pushing into more immersive content formats and expanding its ad offerings Pinterest launched its first video ads in 2016, which will be key to their business Marketers are expected to spend $12.82 billion on digital-video ads in 2018, up from $7.7 billion last year, according to the research firm L2

Tools to SuccessIn testing the “Instant Ideas” tool, saw a 2x- 3x increase in users' engagement with real-time recommendations

Users engage with "Shop the Look" three to four times more than pins without the feature

Currently users make more than 250 million visual searches monthly in addition to 2 billion text searches

"Lens" is launching on Feb. 8 as a test on iOs and Android

"Instant Ideas" is launching for all users on iOS and Android

"Shop the Look" is rolling out on iOS, Android and the web