Pinterest Advertisers Could Start Paying For Promoted Pins As Early As Next Month [Report]

Promoted Pins could be making their paid debut on Pinterest as soon as next month, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Pinterest began experimenting with Promoted Pins last October.

In the vein of native advertising, Pinterest ads share the same look and feel as organic pins with the exception of a “Promoted Pin” tag. With Promoted Pins, advertisers can reach more of the 70 million active users on the platform than just their own followers and those that see followers’ repins. The ads have been tested on both the web and Pinterest’s mobile apps in search results and category feeds.

Online retailer Wayfair and high-end hotel chain Four Seasons are among the brands that have tested the visual-driven ads on Pinterest. The Wall Street Journal says Four Seasons created a pin that promoted a $70,000 hotel package complete with a private jet trip to Bora Bora. The ad was repinned more than 9,000 times and the company received over 500 requests for a brochure.

It appears advertisers will have the choice of buying ads on a CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) or CPC (cost-per-click) basis depending on whether they running branding or performance oriented campaigns.

Last week, AdAge reported that Pinterest is seeking high-level commitments from a select number of advertisers between $1 and $2 million, and aiming for CPMs between $30 and $40.

Pinterest has rolled out a number of features that have helped entice ecommerce marketers to participate on the platform including the ability to add pricing to product pins. Last August it introduced a free price-drop alert — users are notified by email when prices drop on products they’ve pinned.

Now the question will be whether Pinterest can persuade companies to pay for added exposure in users’ streams where they spend the bulk of their time on the platform. It seems a safe bet it won’t be a tough sell. As eMarketer social media analyst Debra Williamson told WSJ, “We think it’s going to ramp up very quickly.”