For those of you who are aware that U.S. video ad spending is about to reach $9.9 billion this year, you probably already anticipated a paid ad platform for Pinterest. You won’t be disappointed; Promoted Video is the name of Pinterest’s program and here is all you need to know to get started.
The social network, which has over 100 million users, recently realized that underestimating the exponential growth of video usage is a significant mistake. So Pinterest took the leap and did something about it.
This realization led to the launch of Promoted Video – the response to a 60% increase in posted video on Pinterest over the last year. Not bad for a social network that’s only 6 years old.
Promoted Videos: The Gist
It was confirmed by Pinterest that YouTube has become the top source of pinned items, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company is also working on a new tool related to viewing and posting original video on Pinterest; this is in the works.
While that is under development, dedicated business users are able to make use of Promoted Video. The best part about the new ads is that they’re coupled with featured pins below the video. This way the platform has enabled the 67% of those who say video on Pinterest inspires them to take action to experience your brand on a deeper level.
Not to mention how easy it is for viewers to click underneath to buy your products or services! When clicked, the video ads will start to play with sound and the advertiser will be able to show a maximum of six related pins to pair with the video. And even better – they will be tailored to each user’s interests and interspersed within their personalized feeds. The main goal of the new tool is to inspire users to take action.
How Much For the Pleasure?
With a minimum investment currently set at $500,000, Promoted Video is not available for everyone. But I have a feeling that’s exactly what the social network intended. The ads can be bought on a CPM basis, with the price of $15 to $20 per thousand impressions.
What is interesting is that advertisers pay any time a user sees one of the pins used for the Promoted Video, even if they never actually see the video.
Brands That Tested Promoted Video
The platform confirmed that 12 brands were involved in the initial testing of the new video ads – and they’ve revealed 8 of them:
- bareMinerals
- Behr Paint
- Garnier
- General Mills’ Old El Paso
- Kate Spade New York
- Lionsgate
- Purina
- Universal Pictures
So far we’ve heard from Old El Paso about their experience with the new service. The brand targeted food enthusiasts with a simple recipe that ended up being four times more memorable than a non-video ad. They saw a 7.9% increase in purchase intent driven by their target audience because many people were interested in trying out the featured dessert recipe at home. The brand used the data gained from research on Pinterest that showed people prefer dessert recipes to main course or side dish recipes.
How to Create a Promoted Video
To make you more familiar with the process, we’ve outlined a step-by-step guide to creating a video ad on Pinterest.
- Open https://ads.pinterest.com/ and start creating a business account.
- Fill out your business name, area of business, enter website and click on create/convert.
- Open https://ads.pinterest.com to create a video ad
- On ads pinterest url scroll
- Scroll down to bottom of the page and choose campaign type
- Click on “Promote” Button
- Set campaign price, name and daily or lifetime budget and select related pins
- Follow the last steps and launch your ad.
Voila! Now your ad’s up and running. Or, in the unlucky circumstance that you don’t yet have $500,000 to spare, at least you know the process for when you do.
Which will be soon (I’m big on the positive reinforcements)!
Tips on Using Promoted Video
There’s something very important to remember if your business has any future whatsoever on Pinterest:
Pinterest users are different from every other social network’s audience.
See, they go to the site to look for inspiration (hence – the wish boards). That should be your main reason for creating any video on the platform. For instance, since the DIY niche is huge on Pinterest, a good idea would be to create a video showing people how to do or fix something, using, of course, your own products.
A make-up brand would produce a video showcasing a specific look and then would add pins to the products used to create that look. A tip from me: make sure all the products you feature in the video are available. You can show recipes, crafts – the opportunities are endless as long as some creativity is involved.
After all, Pinterest holds the title of the most creative social media out there – at least in my book.
