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Pinterest's monetization will do great. Seriously, Pinterest could and should IPO in coming years. I'm bullish on Pinterest not only because my wife and I use

Pinterest's monetization will do great. Seriously, Pinterest could and should IPO in coming years. I'm bullish on Pinterest not only because my wife and I use Pinterest for everything from planning our wedding to finding outfits and meals, but because I market on Pinterest for a few clients all day long. It consistently brings in more traffic than other sources when you do it right, even for clients that are ranked in the top 5 in high-traffic Google SERPs. The crazy thing about Pinterest traffic is that it never dies off. If you get a bunch of repins today, traffic will be showing up from those pins months later; it's kind of absurd, and very unlike Adsense or other discovery advertising platforms in that way. The difficult aspect for Pinterest will be getting the worth of Pinterest ads down to a final cost per action since it is such a long wait before you see how much each pin is truly worth. And that really is the goal for any advertiser: If I know this click will bring me $2 I'll pay up to $1.99 for it. A lot of Pinterest users are in hardcore discovery mode, and as such Pinterest traffic doesn't convert as well as search traffic immediately, but in the long run it always seems to be worth it.

Nowyouknow 13y ago
>It consistently brings in more traffic than anything combined when you do it right, How do you do Pinterest "right"? Just curious. You're absolutely right about the traffic trend. When Pinterest was first getting a major buzz, I was pinning regularly and those pins are still getting actively repinned. After a period of no pinning, now when I do pin things, I hardly see any activity.
- austenallred 13y ago
  It's a long process that took me forever to figure out, but here are the basics. I'll probably write a blog post about it. Pin something, get a couple of repins, then repin that to a very popular community board (it takes work to get invites to those with followings of 150,000+). Follow, like, and comment (sincerely) on the pins of people who repinned your pin. Rinse and repeat. On the average day for a newer site/account I'll drive between 1,000 and 2,000 visits and get about 100-150 new followers. The average product I pin will get 20-50 repins on day 1. But the crazy part is, as you mentioned, that all compounds over time. The most important piece of information I'm willing to share is that if I could advertise on Pinterest I would switch all of my clients' ad spend from Adsense to Pinterest today. Promoted pins are going to be worth mad cash.
  - gabemart 13y ago
    Pin something, get a couple of repins, then repin that to a very popular community board (it takes work to get invites to those with followings of 150,000+). I'm not intentionally being dismissive, but isn't this a little like saying "Pin something, get a couple of repins, [magic happens]"? I would imagine that if you can get content posted regularly to any platform with 150,000+ followers/readers/subscribers, the traffic rolls right in. Is there something particular to pinterest that makes it easier to get content posted to these community boards, vs. getting content posted on a popular blog or retweeted by a popular account?
    - austenallred 13y ago
      There's no secret there, there's just a gatekeeper you have to get past, and it's a little bit different for every one. Some will let you right on through, but usually you get to know the board owner really well, interact with them a bunch on Pinterest, and ask for an invite. You can also create generic Pinterest accounts and use a bot to load them up with very similar content to what they're looking for with a couple search functions, but that's probably not worth explaining on this forum. Also, getting on the community boards is only the beginning of the battle.
  - meleva 13y ago
    when you write Adsense, do you mean Adwords ?
    - austenallred 13y ago
      No, I mean Adsense. Adwords is intent-driven search. Adsense is discovery. Pinterest is much more comparable to Adsense.
      - mkr-hn 13y ago
        I thought AdWords was the interface for making ads for AdSense. The logo even says "Google AdWords." And the ads I made look a lot like AdSense.
ojbyrne 13y ago
Your first sentence is ambiguous. I'm still not entirely sure you mean it in the startup world usage of "killing it" - i.e. doing really well (though I think you do), or the more mainstream usage of "destroy it."
- austenallred 13y ago
  Thank you. I edited it (doing really well).
- LukeShu 13y ago
  While I agree that the usage is unclear, "killing it" as "doing really well" is very mainstream. It still means "destroy it", but "it"="the competition/obstacles".
onedev 13y ago
I'm also very optimistic about Pinterest; especially their discovery and advertising. I think much like Twitter did, the platform will sneak up on us.

Nowyouknow 13y ago

>It consistently brings in more traffic than anything combined when you do it right, How do you do Pinterest "right"? Just curious. You're absolutely right about the traffic trend. When Pinterest was first getting a major buzz, I was pinning regularly and those pins are still getting actively repinned. After a period of no pinning, now when I do pin things, I hardly see any activity.

austenallred 13y ago
It's a long process that took me forever to figure out, but here are the basics. I'll probably write a blog post about it. Pin something, get a couple of repins, then repin that to a very popular community board (it takes work to get invites to those with followings of 150,000+). Follow, like, and comment (sincerely) on the pins of people who repinned your pin. Rinse and repeat. On the average day for a newer site/account I'll drive between 1,000 and 2,000 visits and get about 100-150 new followers. The average product I pin will get 20-50 repins on day 1. But the crazy part is, as you mentioned, that all compounds over time. The most important piece of information I'm willing to share is that if I could advertise on Pinterest I would switch all of my clients' ad spend from Adsense to Pinterest today. Promoted pins are going to be worth mad cash.
- gabemart 13y ago
  Pin something, get a couple of repins, then repin that to a very popular community board (it takes work to get invites to those with followings of 150,000+). I'm not intentionally being dismissive, but isn't this a little like saying "Pin something, get a couple of repins, [magic happens]"? I would imagine that if you can get content posted regularly to any platform with 150,000+ followers/readers/subscribers, the traffic rolls right in. Is there something particular to pinterest that makes it easier to get content posted to these community boards, vs. getting content posted on a popular blog or retweeted by a popular account?
  - austenallred 13y ago
    There's no secret there, there's just a gatekeeper you have to get past, and it's a little bit different for every one. Some will let you right on through, but usually you get to know the board owner really well, interact with them a bunch on Pinterest, and ask for an invite. You can also create generic Pinterest accounts and use a bot to load them up with very similar content to what they're looking for with a couple search functions, but that's probably not worth explaining on this forum. Also, getting on the community boards is only the beginning of the battle.
- meleva 13y ago
  when you write Adsense, do you mean Adwords ?
  - austenallred 13y ago
    No, I mean Adsense. Adwords is intent-driven search. Adsense is discovery. Pinterest is much more comparable to Adsense.
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      I thought AdWords was the interface for making ads for AdSense. The logo even says "Google AdWords." And the ads I made look a lot like AdSense.

ojbyrne 13y ago

Your first sentence is ambiguous. I'm still not entirely sure you mean it in the startup world usage of "killing it" - i.e. doing really well (though I think you do), or the more mainstream usage of "destroy it."

austenallred 13y ago
Thank you. I edited it (doing really well).
LukeShu 13y ago
While I agree that the usage is unclear, "killing it" as "doing really well" is very mainstream. It still means "destroy it", but "it"="the competition/obstacles".

onedev 13y ago

I'm also very optimistic about Pinterest; especially their discovery and advertising. I think much like Twitter did, the platform will sneak up on us.