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Pitching Performance, With Pinterest’s CRO
00:45:05
Having nipped at Meta’s and Google’s heels for years, Pinterest is finished with being the underdog. It’s been getting very “serious” about its , says Pinterest CRO Bill Watkins.
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- [00:13]
Alison Schiff
Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you. Hey, everyone, you're listening to Changer Talks. I'm Alison Schiff and thanks for letting me spend a little time in your ears. My guest this week is Bill Watkins, CRO of Pinterest, which is playing a successful game of catch up when it comes to performance marketing. Pinterest is out there wooing performance budgets and evangelizing the need for more positivity and less toxicity in social media. We'll talk about Pinterest's brand new AI powered ad platform, Performance plus, how Pinterest is competing with the absolute titans of advertising that populate its category and what Pinterest is doing to capitalize on shopping intent. It'll be very Pinteresting. Forgive me. But First, a quick FYI before we. Please save the date for next year's CTV Connect March 12th and 13th in New York City, Ad Exchanger is joining forces again with synopsys, Ad Monsters and chief marketer to host a can't miss summit on all the key issues and opportunities in Connected TV. Learn more and register@ctvconnect.com hey, Bill. Welcome to the podcast.
- [01:41]
Bill Watkins
Alison, thank you so much for having me.
- [01:44]
Alison Schiff
All right, lay it on me. Give me your fun fact. What is something about you that not a lot of other people already know?
- [01:53]
Bill Watkins
Some people know, but I just love men's fashion. If it's Stetson, hats, watches, a nice suit, I love to get dressed up. Put it that way.
- [02:03]
Alison Schiff
I'm a total schlub, so. But that's nice to hear. By the way, I have a fun fact about you that I found just from a little perusal of your LinkedIn, that you minored in French in college. I do. Are you still fluent?
- [02:18]
Bill Watkins
Only in can after one or two glasses of.
- [02:22]
Alison Schiff
I was going to ask you. How do you say performance budget in French?
- [02:26]
Bill Watkins
Pinterest.
- [02:29]
Alison Schiff
Touche. I actually looked it up. It's bijet dit performence. My accent is terrible. I took French in high school, but even after two drinks or three drinks, I'm no good in Cannes. But yeah, let's. Let's talk about Pinterest's performance ambitions because there's a big push now to get more performance marketing budgets. But I do want to talk first about perceptions. Perceptions of Pinterest. I mean, you've been at Pinterest for nearly 11 years, so you've been in a really good position on the inside to see how marketers think about Pinterest, I mean, now you're responsible for the whole global sales organization. You talk to advertisers all the time, I'm sure all of Pinterest monetization efforts also. So, I mean, the question is, Pinterest is very different from Snap, for example, but similar in that I think you're both considered to be underdog platforms, at least for now, kind of nipping at the heels of Google and Meta and those guys. How would you say the perception of Pinterest has changed or evolved over the past 10 or 11 years? And is it changing to be more Pinterest as a, as a place to be in, to spend always on budgets?
- [03:47]
Bill Watkins
Yeah, I think the perception, and frankly also the reality is that our advertisers globally are seeing Pinterest get serious by way of investing in advertising products, in particular lower funnel performance products, more so than ever before. So, you know, last year at can so in 2023, we had more products to talk about in that one can than we did in the last five cans combined. And that same level of investment in operating discipline into in particular lower funnel ad products, it's only increased this year. And I think that is what our advertising partners not just are seeing or perceiving of us. But, you know, if you watch Pinterest Presents last week on the 1st, and we can talk about this, there are so many examples up and down the funnel, but in particular in the lower funnel, where advertisers just don't perceive us as being a viable lower funnel performance ad platform, they're telling us the results that they're seeing that make that true. And I think that's something that, you know, personally I am incredibly proud of because it's been a journey to get us here. But we're here and we're really excited about what we can do for advertising partners and the joy that it brings to our users. And we call those folks our Pinners.
- [05:05]
Alison Schiff
We are definitely going to get travel down into the bottom of the funnel and talk about Pinterest Presents. There were a lot of interesting announcements and everything you're doing on the performance side. But first I was at an Advertising Week event, a panel hosted by Chalice AI. I stayed around afterwards for some drinks and chatting with people, chit chatting with someone I just met as you do. And I just happened to mention that I was interviewing Pinterest on our podcast the next day. And then that person said, oh, that sounds boring. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he just kind of shrugged and he's like, oh, I don't know, like, I don't think about it that much. But you, you should ask the guy some hard questions. Like I, I want to, I want you to ask him hard questions. Like, okay, so I'm going to try to ask a hard question. Why doesn't Pinterest have a permanent spot on every media plan, like now, today, like Meta or Google or very often Amazon?
- [06:03]
Bill Watkins
Well, it depends on who you're talking to. And I would encourage you, please give me the number of that. I don't think I'll have any issue convincing here to take a serious look at what we can do for them. And after this podcast as well and the results that we talk about, I think it'll be pretty compelling. But you know, I was actually Alison, I'm really excited to talk to you because I think it was two years ago when I sat down with James on your team there and I think the title of the article was How Pinterest Wants to be a Performance Ad Player. And two years later, here we are. Everything from rolling out direct links to over 50 measurement partners, conversion API to now what we just announced the big announcement. I think that the hero or MVP of all of our investments this year, you know, our end to end AI driven solution which we call Pinterest Performance plus, these are driving significant results. And I think, Alison, you have to couple that with the platform and the momentum that we have. You know, we have now 522 million users. That's up 12% year over year. Engagement is growing nearly double the rate of user growth, meaning people that are using the platform are coming back more. We are aging down as a platform. Gen Z is our largest, fastest growing cohort and it's 2, they are 2x more engaged than any other generation. And then a couple of other I think really compelling stats for our friend that you talked to yesterday. And I think these are some real compelling hard stats here. Ad impressions are up 30% over 30% while ad relevancy is up over 30%. You typically don't see that. And the AI driven performance improvements, clicks are up 18% on average and conversions are up nearly 10%. All of this and we've transformed our monetization from what was 2/3 upper funnel just a few years ago to now 2/3 in the lower funnel. And you and I both know performance advertisers, they don't spend a penny that they don't know performs and performs well in particular driving incremental sales or signup. So I will admit it has Been a journey, but it is one that we are incredibly proud of. And our partners are now telling us how much value we're driving for them. And I think that's the most important thing.
- [08:21]
Alison Schiff
So we're going to talk about that journey, but I have a facetious question first. So Performance plus, which is the name of your suite of AI powered automation tools for lower funnel stuff, there's a lot to say about it, but I want to ask about the name because it sounds familiar. It's the plus from Meta's Advantage, the Performance from Google's Performance Max. Kind of a portmanteau of the two. Uh, were there other names on the table?
- [08:48]
Bill Watkins
Oh, there were so many different names on the table. But, you know, look, this day and age, you know, you've got to have a plus in there, but what are.
- [08:56]
Alison Schiff
You doing if you don't have a plus in there?
- [08:58]
Bill Watkins
Exactly. You gotta have a plus. And, but more importantly, like, let's just call it what it is. It's driving better performance for advertisers. Hence, it's Pinterest Performance Plus. And you know, I wasn't an English major, but I love a fun alliteration as well. And you know, we have many fun little Pinterest puns running throughout the halls of this great company. So we figured, what better name?
- [09:20]
Alison Schiff
I'm a sucker for alliteration and I love wordplay. Although I will say I'm kind of happy that some Pinterest related wordplay, it's like a little bit played out, but it was fun at the time. Do you remember like 10, 12, maybe 13 years ago when there were lots of headlines like this new Pinteresting tool? Or like, I'm really Pinterested in that you're like, okay, that was funny. Everyone calm down.
- [09:42]
Bill Watkins
We have many pinployees at our company. I work in Chicago. We call it the Pindy City. Allison, we could go.
- [09:49]
Alison Schiff
Stop. I want one more. Pindi City is amazing.
- [09:52]
Bill Watkins
There you go. I can get you a Pindy City Patagonia jacket. What do you think about that?
- [09:57]
Alison Schiff
I'll take it. Because as maybe not everyone knows, but a lot of people know I wear swag. Like, I use my swag. So, yeah, feel free to send it along. I like that. So, yeah. So Performance plus is a big part of Pinterest reinvention of itself as a place for marketers to spend performance dollars. But let's get into what it is exactly. I mean, you've got AI powered targeting tools for, you know, all different manners of targeting budgeting creative bidding, all the pieces that you really need to woo performance buyers that have very particular needs, they just, they gotta spend the dollar to get a dollar five back, whatever it is, or more ideally. So if people want to know more about them, I mean, they can just read the blog that you put in your newsroom or call up their Pinterest rep. So instead of going into detail actually on those tools, because I think they're, they're self explanatory and they're just what advertisers need, talk to me about how they're different and like how Pinterest makes them different when they're applied to Pinterest inventory than say the similar tools on other platforms.
- [11:05]
Bill Watkins
Yeah, I think first let's take a step back and talk about what makes Pinterest different and then I can talk about what, you know, makes our tools different. You know, and you had mentioned, I've been at Pinterest almost 11 years. Two things have been true that entire time. Nine out of 10 people come to our platform to get inspired and to discover new ideas. And a majority of those people that discover new ideas on Pinterest for a decade running want to shop that which they discover. That is a fundamentally different experience. When you talk to our users, in particular Gen Z, they say that they come to Pinterest not only to shop, but actually that we're the antidote to the toxicity that they experience on other social media. And that is something that we are incredibly, incredibly proud of. It's also something that we very deliberately invest in and set policies around both how we govern the experience for our users as well as content. Interestingly enough, it was over a year ago that Pinterest pioneered being private only for users under 16. And when you think about everything that's going on with the mental health crisis in this country, and that's something that is very important to us. There is a purpose there. But I think it also speaks to not just that very important purpose, but also how folks are using our platform and how they're not using our platform. So they are literally coming to a place that they call their own online oasis. A personal respite, a place to get inspired, but also a place to shop. And what I'll also say is, you know, two years ago, Allison, those stores on Pinterest, they were not open and that was on us. And we need to invest seriously to make that happen. And you know, so now as we get into like, well, what makes things different on Pinterest, it first started, you know, last year with us investing in Direct links and what Direct links has been able to do, specifically driving a 2x increase in traffic, outbound traffic to merchant and brand domains to Merchant brand websites, 2x increase. Think about that. A platform that's nearly a decade old at the time, you know, driving that kind of performance gain where the format change is incredible. And of course, you know, what did that result in? It resulted in about, you know, cutting our CPCS in half literally overnight, making Pinterest significantly more efficient. And at the exact same time we were investing in know products like mobile, deep linking and so forth. And to have Walmart on stage at our investor day at the end of last year telling a room of analysts that ROAS on Pinterest was up 15x. Those are real results. Those are very real results and those are things that we're proud of. So that's the baseline of performance of what's I think different on Pinterest. First, it's the experience. Why are people coming to Pinterest versus coming to other places? This is the most brand safe platform out there, period. And we just got a heck of a lot more serious in driving better results for partners. Which I think kind of leads me into performance plus in the context of what makes it different. Well, I think it's the results that Pinterest is able to drive. We have similar tools with respect to bids and budgets and targeting and creative. And I can walk you through some amazing examples from awesome partners like Prada, Adidas, Ruggable, Chase, Nestle. But, but I think it's the platform that, that we are and how, how folks use the platform to shop. It's all about the commercial intent on Pinterest. And I think that's something that's very unique and differentiated. Again, a majority of Pinners are coming to shop. So the mindset that someone is in when they're searching, when they're saving items into collections, we call those collections boards or then ready to click out and take action. It's just an incredibly high commercial intent surface that also happens to be the most brand safe platform on the Internet. And I think that that combination of incredible advancements in AI and automation, again we're seeing on average a 13% increase in checkouts and a 10% improvement in CPAs by our investments in performance. Plus that builds on top of the efficiency gains that we saw with direct Links. But to do it in a place that is the most positive and brand safe experience on the Internet, most positive and brand safe platform on the Internet, I think that creates a Very unique and differentiated opportunity for advertisers. And, you know, I can, I can say that. But when, but when we have Walmart saying that, you know, ROAS is up 15x, when we have Prada saying that conversions are up 30%, when we have timberland saying that ROAS is up 50%, or when ruggable says that we've increased outbound traffic by 3x at half the cost, those are real results from performance marketers and we're just so proud of that.
- [15:52]
Alison Schiff
All right, well, there's a lot to unpack there, actually, but we're going to take a quick break. I'm going to put a pin in our conversation. Bill, lovely.
- [16:00]
Bill Watkins
I love what you did right there.
- [16:01]
Alison Schiff
Thank you very much. So stick with us and we're going to talk more about performance products, shopping, capi, and also the Pinterest Presents event, because Alana Glaser was there, which is really cool. So stick with us. All right, we are back and I want to pick up on a thread that you brought up before the break, which is the toxicity of social media. It is one way that Pinterest is trying to set itself apart, as you said, as a social media platform for positivity. Because, yeah, I mean, social media can be very toxic. There's research that it's bad for teens, for mental health. It warps minds, spreads misinformation. It's just like, yuck, right? But you guys want to be a place that's inclusive, positive, somewhere to feel good about yourself, not a place to. To doom, scroll and get bullied and see Nazis congratulating each other or whatever, which is what it kind of feels like sometimes in other places. But anyway, a couple weeks ago, we alluded to this. During the first half, Pinterest hosted a virtual event. Pinterest Presents, you unveiled Performance plus. And I have to say kudos, because as far as corporate events go, it really was quite fun. For anyone who didn't tune in, there was this funny gym theme. Like you had a group of actors, including Il Glazer playing marketers. She was a marketers in training, like at a big training facility. And Alana was coach ROI at one point. She's leading like a soul cycle style class where people on mounted bikes are like pushing those pins, which is very clever. And then intermixed in it, you had Pinterest executives and market, you know, marketers talking about the new tools and including you. So I'm getting somewhere, I promise. At one point, Andrea Millard, Pinterest CMO was talking about the need for more competition and also alluding to the toxicity of social media. And I'll just quote her, and this is her basically like addressing marketers like, I understand the pressure to deliver results, but having to rely on just a few channels for growth is only getting riskier. I often hear from other marketers that they feel trapped by the duopoly. With signal loss and rising costs already looming. Fellow CMOs have said to me verbatim, we need another option and we're rooting for you for Pinterest to win. So that's a long way of asking what is your POV on the duopoly? Like, do you think brands feel trapped by Meta and Google? It's a softball for you.
- [18:56]
Bill Watkins
Look, I appreciate the question, but we focus on what makes us different. We focus on our mission to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love. And we're very, very proud of who we are. You know, a majority of people coming to get inspired and discover new ideas and also majority of people coming to shop in doing so on a platform that is literally having its best product market fit in years. Allison, what we are finding is that when our investments map to what makes us unique and different, we're winning. And you can go back and look at our prior earnings calls and see the sequential quarter on quarter gains for multiple quarters in both user growth and engagement and also revenue. We had said, I think in Q1 and in our Q2 earnings that we're printing the highest year over year growth than we have in years. Right. Well, that's coming from the advertising dollars and the performance that we're able to drive for our partners. I think those results speak for themselves. And do we study the competition? Of course. And do we want to make sure that we're building advertising products that drive the best performance for advertisers up and down the funnel? Absolutely. You know, we aspire to be the industry's leading full funnel solution, but what we've learned is you have to do it in a Pinteresty way. Right. Our users are coming to our platform for very deliberate reason with high commercial intent. You know, we have a lot of folks don't know this. We have over 8 billion text queries every single month on Pinterest and 97% of them are unbranded. Again, the commercial intent that our users have, but they're coming to spark an idea, frankly of a commercial journey, of a shopping list that they're going to create a set of items that they're going to go buy or an experience that they're going to go do. And they're doing it in this safe, protected environment that is very personal to them and very much resonates with them. But it inspires them, but it's inspiring them to go act. And that's at the core of who we are. And that's our mission, you know, to bring everybody the inspiration to go create this life they love. It is different from other platforms. And yes, you know what? We're also, I think monitoring very closely are things like the US Surgeon General reports, you know, that came out either in the spring of 23 or most recently in the spring of 2024. And you know, what can we learn from that to, in the context of how we need to continue to invest in what makes us different. But look, we are, we are. We are aiming to prove to our industry that you can engineer for positive mental health and have a thriving business. This is not binary. And that is our message to the market. You know, I was recently on stage at a smartly advanced event where we were talking about just this and we were doing so with all of our peers in the industry from the other platforms. You know, but over a year and a half ago, when, when Pinterest co created the inspired Internet pledge with the Boston Children's Wellness Center Digital Wellness center, you know, that that was a message to the market. This is not something that we want to do just for ourselves. We want to give this away. We want everybody else to join us in saying that, look, we can tune our algorithms and engineer our experiences for positivity and have thriving businesses. And if you read those U.S. surgeon General reports, we need that now more than ever. And the last thing I'll say is I'm equally as proud of all of the inclusive products and design that we are bringing into Pinterest that again, I think preserve who we are, preserve and defend and grow who we are as a platform. So if it is our inclusive AI products, if it's diversity by default of what you're going to see in Feed, if it is our skin tone ranges, hair pattern search or body diversity AI, this is to ensure that everyone can see themselves on our platform. And that is one of many ways of engineering positivity and inspiration and again, also driving great business results, you know, we wouldn't be printing the year over year growth that we had printed this year, you know, up to up through Q2, if it wasn't for the results that we're driving for advertising partners. You know, when, when Nestle Purina is saying that we're one of their top partners at an $8.54 ROAS. You know, or when Chase is telling us that, you know, our full funnel solutions on Pinterest can help drive incremental signups at a decreased cpa. You know, those are just two other examples that speak to, yes, you can do both. And that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to engineer for positive mental health and inspiration, and we're also going to prove that that helped to drive a thriving business.
- [23:24]
Alison Schiff
I hear what you're saying, but I actually have a more existential question about social media in the world writ large. I appreciate the effort to make a positive environment, an inclusive environment, and I think you're doing it. Pinterest seems like a nice place to ha out. But more broadly, I think back to myself being a young person because I'm. I'm old now, the ripe old age of 41. So I didn't grow up with social media. And I'm actually quite happy about it. I think it would have been. I don't know, there would have been pressure to post things. And I'm not just talking about the Pinterest experience, which I know is kind of a different experience than what one might think of or one does think of as classic social media. But I kind of like the fact that I had a very unmediated childhood other than watching way too much television. I'm curious about you. I mean, what do you think about the impact that social media might have had on you, like, as a young person? I'm not calling you old, by the way. I'm old, too.
- [24:25]
Bill Watkins
Look, I'm 44, so I'm sure my experience was similar to yours. I got my first cell phone in college.
- [24:31]
Alison Schiff
Same.
- [24:32]
Bill Watkins
I can remember, you know, hopping onto search engines my freshman year to start doing research for all of my many reports. And I'm sure we all had to write in school. And, you know, I remember the early days, you know, of Friendster and MySpace and then Facebook and so forth. So. But, you know, look like I'm also a parent. I have three young kids, right? 11, nine, and seven. And I take their mental health and their digital experiences. My wife and I take that very seriously. And again, I come back to look at not what Pinterest is saying. Look at what the US Surgeon General saying, okay, look at the data and look at. Look at the stats that would show that we can and need to do better for them. And again, I would point back to, you know, us going not Private by default for users under 16, but private only for users under 16. You know, and that is. That was. That was some considered a bold, but we considered the responsible move, and we did that over a year ago. That's just one of many measures that we're taking to ensure that we're helping to build a more positive Internet. And, you know, it's. That is not a tagline. That is. That is our purpose. That is woven into the mission of our company. And, you know, like, there. There's ups and downs at every company. Okay, But. But when we're. We're all driving through challenges together, that is an incredible purpose that everybody that works at Pinterest can really hold on to. And you know what? We get to look everybody in the eye 30 years from now. We get to look our family and friends in the eye and say that we worked for a company whose sole aim was to go inspire the world. That is incredibly meaning and purposeful thing to all of us. And we're really proud of the work that we're doing. But we want to push the industry forward. You know, I think back, it took one auto manufacturer in Volvo back in the 50s to make seatbelts standard in cars and to also show that you can adopt safety measures while also building a thriving auto oem. You know, and I look to what we are doing today. We literally have the best product market fit that we've had in years. Like, we are aging down as a platform. Our most recent cohorts, generational cohorts, are twice as engaged as any other. You know, I've worked in tech for 20 years. You don't see it that often. Our ad impressions are up at the same time. Our ad relevancy is up. Ads on Pinterest are content, you know, on this canvas, on this platform that is equal parts inspirational, where folks are discovering new things, but it also has incredibly high commercial intent, where people are literally saving products into shopping lists of things they're gonna buy. You know, they're literally weaving brands into the fabric of their lives, given the commercial intent and the platform. And, you know, we're very proud to say this is how we engineer for positivity and inspiration and look at these business results. These things do not have to trade off on one another. And I think it's a call to the industry that we and others are making. We have almost 40 companies that have signed the inspired Internet pledge that I think think the exact same way.
- [27:36]
Alison Schiff
Right. Well, I zoomed us out, so I want to zoom us back in into the weeds and talk a little bit more about the performance products for a second. So during Pinterest Presents, Matt Kristol, Pinterest VP of Performance, he also made an appearance and he was talking a lot about control. I mean, Performance plus and all of those kinds of tools are, it's about automation. But you purposely give advertisers control. Like they can mix and match different products based on their goals, bundle them however they want. I have no doubt that AI powered ad products are the future. I mean they're, they're not the future, they're the present. But advertisers some, I think are a little reluctant to just hand over the reins, which is why talking about control is so important. I mean, they love performance, but there's some reticence because of that reason. So. Yeah, and tell me a little bit more about how you're striking the balance between automation and then giving advertisers control they want or at least the option to have control, knowing that they could do that if, if they wanted to. And they're not necessarily like locked into a very specific way of doing things like daddy platform.
- [28:46]
Bill Watkins
Yeah, I think this is a, I think you're touching on something else and that's really important. And in fact, the number one bit of customer feedback, advertiser feedback that we got as we were building out Performance plus and all of its various features and products was just that they do not like an opaque system or lack of controls, rather they wanted controls. So, you know, we were very deliberate in saying with Performance plus across bids and budgets, targeting and creative, you can adopt the entire bundle and let the system do what the system is going to do or you can adopt feature by feature. Now in parallel with that, okay, like of course we have our conversion API solution. We also launched CAPI Connect to make it easier for advertisers to onboard CAPI with us through server server connections such as AWS. We also have over 50 measurement partners, so we have partnerships with over 50 measurement vendors and we just rolled out our new AB test and control feature. So what we want advertisers to hear from us is we have measurement optionality. Whatever your measurement source of truth is, we will have that partnership. You will be able to a B test and control and you can do that with Performance plus, be it on a bundle basis or feature by feature to know what works best for you. And I think the results speak for themselves first and foremost. You know, especially coming out of the year of efficiency last year, it now takes our advertisers more than they are saving over half of the time to start a campaign on Pinterest. It literally first starts there that the time it takes to launch a campaign on Pinterest has been cut in over more than half. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is again across if it's bids, if it's budgets, if it's targeting, if it's dynamic creative optimization to see at the highest level checkouts be up 13% and to see CPA improvements of 10%. And the other thing I'd say is we just went GA last week. These results will only get better over time as we have more data, more signal of the results that have, that are actuals that have happened and that signal that the AI models can train on to drive even better experiences. And you're actually making me think you asked something earlier too about what sets Pinterest apart, what makes Pinterest different, what makes Pinterest Performance plus different. And one of the things that makes us uniquely different here is the data that our AI models train on versus our competition. You know, remember we have over 700 billion objects, we call those objects pins. Over 700 billion pins on our service that have been organized into over 10 billion collections, we call those collections boards. And that is all of our wholly owned first party data. We know not only what you bought, but we can see what you're interested in oftentimes before you even know you're going to develop that interest. We can see in the aggregate if you have pinned X, Y and Z that you might have a propensity to be interested in items 1, 2 and 3. And how do we use that data? With the utmost controls against user data privacy and user safety and security. But use that to showcase a better experience to our, to our users, be it in an organic or a paid or an advertising sense. So the data set that Performance plus trains on, it is uniquely different in market and it's driving great results. You know, I had mentioned Prada earlier, I had mentioned, you know, Timberland earlier, but Adidas seen a 40% increase in revenue or la Redout going from, you know, an average performing partner but to one of their top performing partners with them adopting conversion API and Performance Plus. These are the type of results that we are just absolutely thrilled about. And I think that is very uniquely Pinterest as well.
- [32:45]
Alison Schiff
I mean, thanks for bringing up data because I think I would get in trouble if I didn't bring up data on ad exchanger talks. I would get like a, I don't know, an Angry letter or something. So glad we talked about data. And I want to talk about shopping and commerce again for a second. Obviously it's a huge focus for you guys. It has been for a while. You want to be known as a shoppable platform, but do people, I know you're going to say yes, but do people actually buy stuff on Pinterest? And I ask that because I have to admit I'm someone who's never bought anything from a social platform, Instagram included, nowhere.
- [33:23]
Bill Watkins
The short answer is absolutely. You know, Case Studio one here. I purchased my most recent new set of luggage that my wife told me I needed, a new set of luggage as well as a very nifty laptop carrying brace that sits on top of my luggage. And I did that all on Pinterest in the most incredibly seamless way through Remova and paid with Apple. Pay was out and back. You know, just surfing on Pinterest and discovering new men's fashion idea ideas. But just with that interstitial of a very relevant discovery of something that I needed in my life in a purchase. Again, that's a case study of one. But I think the real answers, you know, for this they come from our advertisers. You know, if it is top retailers in the world, you know, like Amazon, like Walmart, if it is just disruptive DTCs, you know, like a Ruggable, like a Rothy's, or if it is luxury goods, like a product. We have so many examples of results driven purchase driven shopping experiences and shopping customer journeys on Pinterest. And actually I'll take it one step further for the holidays. And I think we talked about this on presents last week, last Tuesday. But just in time for the holidays, we're now rolling out promotional ads or deal ads on Pinterest. You know, we were taking a look at some Salesforce E Commerce data from last year that said on average items were being purchased at a 21% discount last holiday season. More, you know, holiday deal shopping that we've seen in many years prior. And when you think about the state of the economy, when you think about a more cost conscious consumer regardless of household income, when you think about just the thrill of the, you know, the deal, that's something that, you know, our Pinners were telling us they wanted to see on the platform. So we are thrilled that we've just rolled out promotional ads or deal ads on Pinterest and again, this is just launching it to already see a 12% increase in conversions when using deal ads. We are really, really excited to build upon the already, you know, very common use case of shopping on Pinterest. Again, you know, we've got 522 million users that are using Pinterest every single month. A majority of them are saying that they're coming to the platform to shop. They've saved, you know, items, 700 billion items into over 10 billion collections or boards. We like to call those also shopping lists. To layer on top of this, something like our deal ads or promotional ads, that's driving on top of performance plus and on top of direct links, even more efficiencies. And this is how we drive even better results for advertisers and better experiences for our users. And I think that's, that's what it's all about.
- [36:19]
Alison Schiff
So I want to talk briefly about the shopping experience because you're saying shopping on Pinterest, but my understanding is that people are, even though it's relatively seamless, they're pushed out to a merchant site or they complete their purchase through Amazon. Because you guys partnered with Amazon very recently so that Pinterest users could link their profiles to their Amazon accounts and then buy products directly from ads. I think TikTok has a, a similar deal with Amazon. But why not let people transact directly on Pinterest?
- [36:48]
Bill Watkins
So that's a great question. I mean, look like we are, we want to partner with our retailers and our merchants versus compete with them. We think that. And, you know, retail being such a, you know, a large part of the experience on Pinterest, we obviously have studied retail quite extensively. And, you know, if you were to go talk to Doug McMillan at Walmart or, you know, Brian over at Target, one of the first things that they're going to tell you is selection matters. You know, it is selection up and down and across the aisle. And on Pinterest, we want to make sure that they have the broadest set of selections. And we've gone from, you know, 200,000 over 2 billion SKUs and growing by way of the focus on, you know, catalog ingestion on Pinterest. But we want to also have optionality across merchants because that's what our users are telling us. And you had brought up like, how do they transact, if they want to transact through that merchant on the Pinterest app, through direct links, we've made that much easier. But what we also realize is perhaps, you know, our users might not want to transact through the Pinterest app. Perhaps they might want to use a browser more native to them where their information is safely and securely cached for a greater ease of use in the transaction itself. So perhaps they want to use Safari, perhaps they want to use Chrome. And with our new native browser feature, we're now giving users that optionality. And at the end of the day, Allison, I think that's what it's about, whether it's retail and merchant and brand selection, product selection, and having the optionality there all the way to, like I was mentioning earlier, the optionality around measurement. We want to make sure, like I do not want a single dollar on Pinterest that you cannot measure where we can prove the results, period. Because that's what it's all about. And to have over 50 measurement partners having it rooted, of course, in our conversion API product and now with Capi Connect, making it easier to come on board, you know, through partners like AWS, LiveRamp and Salesforce, or if that's not your measurement source of truth, knowing that we have got over 50 vendors that we partner with and growing to make measurement easy, you know, up and down the funnel all throughout the consumer journey. We want to show our users the best, most relevant products that are of interest to them, that bring joy to their lives, that inspire them, but allow them to go create those things and those experiences in their lives and making it easy to purchase and making it easy to purchase when they are ready. And along the way, something that I think is also uniquely Pinterest, that is that digital shopping experience, all too often on competing platforms or other merchant sites, we're rushed straight to the conversion. What about that fun walk in the bazaar, like digital shopping mall experience that leads to demand in a category where you're actually choosing a brand. I mentioned earlier, 97% of our search queries are unbranded. So folks oftentimes are coming in knowing that they have a specific need in mind, but they haven't chosen which brand. Or by leveraging our data, surfacing something to them that really sparks a new interest, sparks a new love that creates new demand for our merchant and brand advertisers. I think that's also very uniquely Pinterest. And again, we're really proud of all the results that we've been able to drive and the products we've been able to build. But we're just getting going.
- [40:05]
Alison Schiff
So penultimate question with a brief lead up. First, there was a story in Bloomberg just recently with the headline, Pinterest is emerging from Sell off as a new Wall street favorite, which is nice to. It's a nice headline. It talks about how Wall street is starting to Reward Pinterest for the AI related potential and also the partnership with Amazon that we just talked about. I mean, Pinterest has had a volatile year on the market. Not that you guys are alone in that, but you're in an interesting position now. I think Bloomberg refers to Pinterest as an underappreciated bargain. So why do you think that investors are starting to come around to Pinterest now?
- [40:49]
Bill Watkins
Yeah, I think it was Benjamin Graham that said, over the short term the stock market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. You know, I give that fun quote. I think really to underscore and emphasize, we are focused on our long term enduring strategy. And at Pinterest over the last two years we have been laser focused on the content that we are bringing onto the platform, the shopping experience that we are building, the performance advertising suite of products that we have up and down the funnel to drive results for our advertisers. And then lastly, you know, obviously we're focused on international. We also announced most recently, you know, we just opened up in 30 new markets. And again, for, for a company that's been around for, for quite some time, that's something we needed to do and we're really excited about that. But we have an enduring strategy and we are focused on the long term and I think you have to have courage to do that, especially in this market. But again, we're proving out that not only can we drive good results, that we can differentiate ourselves when we do it. You know, like again, we're this positive, inspiring platform where folks come to discover new ideas but also come to shop. But guess what? The shops on Pinterest, two years ago, they weren't open. They're open now. Through that enduring strategy and that strategic pillar around shopping or, you know, we had not built all the commercial products, ad products that we needed to, to really compete and steal share and market. We've done that now and we are thrilled most recently with direct links with CAPI as well as with Performance Plus. And through those measures, you know, we're seeing that we're stealing share in market and we're driving better results for partners. And you know, so we are focused on, you know, our company mission and our enduring strategy and we have conviction in what we are doing and we also see the results that we're driving, not just for our users, creating this positive mental health and inspiring experience for them, but we're seeing better results for users. And frankly, I think we're just thrilled that other people are seeing that, too. And maybe I'd call back to one of the first questions that you had and your friend that you talked to on that Advertising Week panel yesterday or the day before. And I think, how can we show that individual and have them see everything that others are seeing? So, again, would love that individual's number and to have a chance walking through all those two.
- [43:18]
Alison Schiff
I always protect my sources.
- [43:20]
Bill Watkins
Of course.
- [43:21]
Alison Schiff
So, last question. During that Pinterest Presents event, you got to hang out with Ilana Glazer, which is kind of awesome. Broad City was the best thing ever. It was one of my favorite shows. And then at the end, there were all of these outtakes that you guys showed, and a few of them were, it was you messing up your lines, and Alana was, like, ribbing you for it. So what's it like to be lightly ribbed by Alana Glaser?
- [43:48]
Bill Watkins
You know, we are, we are. We are so fortunate to have just amazing folks come and join us. And, you know, she is amazing. The entire cast was amazing. I am so just proud of Andrea Millard, our CMO in our entire, you know, marketing team that put that together. And, hey, look, you know, I've got thick skin. I can take it. And you know what? I think she had a good point. Just giving me some heat, and that's how it should be. You know, when you're bringing celebrities on under the set, they're going to have an incredible creative mind and they're going to have some feedback. If they didn't, I think that'd be an issue. So I praise her for setting me straight.
- [44:31]
Alison Schiff
And, hey, you've got a dinner party story now.
- [44:33]
Bill Watkins
We do. Indeed we do.