Pinterest strikes new ad deal with Google amid revenue push

Pinterest has revealed a fresh advertising collaboration with Google as it strives to boost its advertising revenue. Google became the social platform's second external advertising partner following Amazon's multiyear agreement with Pinterest last year.

During the Q4 2023 earnings call, the company discussed the Google partnership while reporting results that fell short of analyst predictions. Pinterest recorded revenue of $981 million for the period, marking a 12% year-on-year growth, and saw its monthly active users climb to 498 million, reflecting an 11% year-on-year growth.

Although Pinterest's stock initially dropped by nearly 28% due to the revenue miss, it rebounded when CEO Bill Ready unveiled the Google deal. Ready mentioned that the company initiated the rollout of the new advertising integration a few weeks earlier, and it is already yielding positive outcomes.

Highlighting that 80% of Pinterest users are international but contribute only 20% of the revenue, Ready emphasized that the Google partnership aims to boost the average revenue per user in global markets.

The CEO also discussed the utilization of AI and innovative formats to enhance user engagement and expand the user base. He mentioned the global rollout of the collage feature, enabling users to create new images using stickers and objects, on iOS. Additionally, Pinterest indicated that 75% of colleges feature shoppable product pins, though conversion statistics were not disclosed.

In the previous year, the company introduced an auto-organizing feature prompting users to create boards by recognizing similar pins, resulting in a 30% increase in boards created on the platform.