Pinterest Says Pinners Are Already Planning For The Holidays

‘Tis not the season. There are still 93 days until Christmas, and only the most organized of your friends and family have started planning for the holidays.

But perhaps people on Pinterest are different. Pinners get into the spirit of the season early, and marketers would be wise to take advantage, according to a blog post on Pinterest today.

Pinterest says people are already searching for and Pinning creative gift sets and stocking stuffers. It cited a study by market researcher CivicScience that found 47 percent of Pinterest users start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving (compared to 39 percent of the population overall).

Pinterest released stats from 2014 data showing that Pinners’ interest in the holidays is increasing: the number of holiday Pins jumped 50 percent over 2013. Pinterest said 38 million people saved holiday-related Pins in 2014, noting that that’s roughly the combined population of Florida and New York. It’s also nearly 40 percent of Pinterest’s current 100 million monthly active users, so the holidays are indeed big on Pinterest.

Pinterest’s female-skewing user base is well represented by these stats. Only 2 million men Pinned holiday-related content last year.

The type of holiday content catching Pinterest users’ interest is no surprise. Pinners saved 170 million holiday decor Pins, 50 million fashion Pins, 42 million food Pins and three million ugly sweaters. People Pinned 92 million gifts in 2014, and after Black Friday, those shoppers tended to save apparel, jewelry, games and gadgets, according to Pinterest data.

To take advantage of Pinners’ shopping propensities, the company recommends that businesses study Pinterest analytics to see what their audience is interested in and create seasonal content based on that information. Text overlay on images is another recommended tactic to make Pins more likely to be clicked. Pinterest says that people who click a Pin to see it close up are 1.6 times more likely to convert.

Pinterest put together an infographic to display its holiday shopping data and tips:

Postscript: An earlier version of this post and infographic incorrectly stated that 38 million is roughly the combined population of California and New York. According to the US Census Bureau, California’s 2014 population was 38.8 million. Pinterest adjusted its infographic to say that the total is near the combined population of New York and Florida. For the record, the US Census’ 2014 estimate was 19.7M for New York and 19.8M for Florida.