What you need to know:

• Pinterest has commissioned new research from IPG Mediabrands’ Magna to demonstrate the impact a positive advertising environment has on performance.
• Findings include that users were 20 per cent more emotionally engaged with content on platforms they perceived as positive and spent 15 per cent more time looking at ads – and the same ads were seen as twice as trustworthy, twice as interesting and 1.5 times more likeable compared to when they were viewed on other platforms.
• The study also linked platform positivity to purchase intent and tapped market mix modelling (MMM) to show that brands which embed viewability and positivity into their media buying strategy could generate up to 24 per cent more sales with the same creative and budget.
• It follows on from 2023 research conducted by UC Berkley in the US that helped lay the groundwork for Pinterest’s ‘positive platform’ positioning, which Australian MD Melinda Petrunoff says is backed by strong foundation of safety and wellbeing policies – including a ban on advertising from categories like online gambling and weight loss products. That, she says, is what sets Pinterest apart from other positivity-oriented platforms like Snap.
• The research is part of a bigger strategic effort by Pinterest to position as an alternative as advertisers look to diversify spend away from Meta and Google, who together receive 70 per cent of digital advertising dollars – and where price inflation is forcing some marketers to rethink their strategies.
• To that end, the platform has spent the last few years expanding its full funnel advertising to convince the market it can deliver at the pointy end of performance as well as build awareness.
• It's a pitch that seems to be landing, with Pinterest's ad impressions surging 43 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year – it also happened to be the platform's first ever billion dollar revenue quarter.

Pinterest is doubling down on the wellbeing positioning it landed at last year’s annual showcase – and beefing up its play for greater share of lower funnel ad dollars while at it.

It's a timely push, given sustained performance ad price hikes on Google and Meta in Australia and globally, leading marketers to seek out alternatives.

The platform has spent the last six weeks touring agencies with new global advertising effectiveness research commissioned from IPG Mediabrands intelligence and investment unit Magna to demonstrate how positive ad environments are driving stronger engagement and more sales.

The study evaluated responses from 6,200 participants who viewed social media ads across four platforms, as well as in-lab testing that used eye-trackers and EEG sensors to track neuro-metric responses of 120 participants.

It found users were 20 per cent more emotionally engaged with content on platforms they perceived as positive and spent 15 per cent more time looking at ads. When the same ad was shown on different platforms, it was twice as trustworthy, twice as interesting and 1.5 times more likeable on a platform the user viewed as positive, per the data.

Platform environment also influenced purchase intent across verticals, with positive platforms to 94 per cent more impactful in driving purchase intent for high-cost products, 78 per cent for medium-cost products and 82 per cent for low-cost products.

Magna also used market mix modelling (MMM) simulations to quantify how the incorporation of viewability and positivity into a brand’s media buying strategy would impact sales. Here, viewable impressions alone drove 3 per cent sales uplift – and that turned into a 24 per cent gain when the strategy also targeted more positive environments.

Shift happening

The findings put numbers behind what Pinterest Australia MD Melinda Petrunoff says is already an “intuitive” link between positivity and performance.

“We've been out in market sharing the research with agencies for the last four weeks and the most common feedback that we've had from the agency community is it was pretty intuitive for them – this is what everybody believed,” Petrunoff tells Mi3.

For Pinterest, it’s the latest proof point in the platform’s campaign for a cut of the circa 70 per cent share of global digital advertising spend that’s currently split between Meta and Google. Earlier efforts include an Amplified Intelligence study that found Pinterest drove 1.70 time more total attention than competitors and 1.5 times slower scroll past ads.   

“I have heard for my last three and a half years working at Pinterest, from both direct advertisers and agencies, that everybody wants to diversify their investment away from the duopoly, and I think the research that Magna has helped us produce really allows us to demonstrate that we are a very viable platform for advertisers to feel very confident about [doing so],” says Petrunoff.

While marketers and media buyers have long talked about media diversity, Meta and Google's revenues suggest it's not been backed by action. Though that might be starting to shift.

"We are certainly seeing people diversify,” Cameron Bryant, co-founder at Sparro by Brainlabs told Mi3 in March. “We’re seeing big increases into Pinterest where it makes sense, huge increases into TikTok, with brands building specific creative in the platform and seeing some unbelievable results. Snap [investment] is increasing as well for certain audiences.”

Performance push

Historically acknowledged for its strengths in brand awareness, Pinterest has spent the past few years finessing its full funnel offering in a bid for greater share of advertiser’s performance dollars. Last year’s Performance+ launch signalled the new era, introducing a suite of AI-powered creative and advertising optimisation tools to make it easier for advertisers to drive conversions.

Petrunuff shared several local case studies of how that uptake is looking when she spoke to Mi3 last year. She can now add Adore Beauty to that list, with the Australian beauty retailer using Performance+ automations to promote its Beauty IQ content – it drove a 13 per cent increase in outbound click volume and 15 per cent improvement to outbound cost-per-click (CPC) efficiency, with the click-through rate up 4 per cent.

Monday Swimwear, an Australian brand looking to expand its reach at home and in the US, is also making gains, using Pinterest’s dynamic prospecting tools to drive 23 per cent higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to previous conversion campaigns. The addition of direct links drove 50 per cent more outbound clicks than seen in previous campaigns, and overall, the campaign netted at 68 per cent year-on-year increase in ROAS.

If it's working for advertisers' bottom lines, it's working for Pinterest's too. The platform's ad impressions surged 43 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, while clicks to advertisers had nearly quadrupled within two years. Hence Pinterest recording its first billion-dollar revenue quarter and posting a 19 per cent growth in full-year revenues.

“Our strategy is paying off. People are coming to Pinterest more often, the platform has never been more actionable, and our lower funnel focus is driving results for users and advertisers,” CEO Bill Ready said of the result. “Looking ahead, I’m confident that our focus on being a positive platform is a competitive advantage in driving long term success for the business and value for our advertisers and users.”

The platform has maintained the trajectory into 2025: first quarter results put revenues ahead by 16 per cent year-on-year.

Positive intent

Pinterest has been tinkering around the positivity positioning since the now 15-year-old platform’s 2020 resurgence post IPO – and Ready has spent the last three years fine-tuning the message.

It’s backed by numerous studies that detail Pinterest’s positive impacts on users, including 2023 research from UC Berkley that found 10 minutes on Pinterest a day helped Gen Z university students to buffer against burnout and stress.

The platform has since helped found The Inspired Internet Pledge, committing to driving change online in support of mental well-being, and has been forthright it its effort to walk the talk.

The platform’s inherent utility as a “visual search” platform makes taking that stand somewhat easier – users are typically coming to intentionally seek inspiration and “increasingly to shop”, per Petrunoff, rather than to mindlessly scroll.

But it also helps that Pinterest is steadfast on content moderation and has gone the extra mile on policies for safety and emotional wellbeing, even developing filters that enable users to input their skin tone and hair pattern to help drive the algorithm to the content that is most relevant.

The well-being mandate extends to commercial decisioning as well. Pinterest actively turns away advertising money from categories it perceives as harmful – online gambling, weight loss products and services, and a range of healthcare products and services.

Pinterest is not alone in its efforts to convince advertisers – and regulators – that it’s not like the other platforms, with youth-focused Snap likewise on the march. The yellow app has commissioned plenty of research into how it promotes authenticity, friendship and happiness among users. It’s even got its own research exploring the links between positive ad environments and attention, thanks to Amplified Intelligence.

However, Petrunoff questions whether other apps have genuinely solid credentials.

“We’ve got brand safety reports on an annual basis now – I think that is a point of difference,” she says. “We are very clear on what we stand for in terms of being positive in the community, and all the products that we have built are aligned to those values.”

“And then we have policies around content that again speak to that [positive] environment and brand safety.”

Those policies appear to be paying off.