>And then there are the ads, which, as a bunch of other commenters have pointed out, tend to be really far out of line from anything I've ever expressed interest in. It's just off-putting to see a bunch of low-quality ads for tacky crap in the middle of my feed of minimalist interiors.
This seems likely to be an inventory issue more than anything else. Fine-grained targeting requires fine-grained ads which requires a sub-linearly scaling sales team.
Well, it's hard to get good advertisers when the ROI isn't there.
It's not something you'll hear unless you're in the know, but there is a pretty high level of animosity towards Pinterest in most retail marketing departments. I love Pinterest, so it was surprising to learn when we started this work, but it boils down to: 1) traffic from Pinterest ads show very poor quality / engagement. 2) Pinterest has not been a good partner - they've actively "snubbed" a number of big labels. There are even a few major retailers who "deleted their Pinterest". 3) Organic Pinterest basically doesn't work, so they won't even put an intern part time onto managing their Pinterest account. Even one of their top retailers, Nordstrom, appears to use a bot to post to their account.
When your ad dollars don't show ROI, people spend elsewhere. And if your main customers aren't engaging your platform, that's definitely trouble too.
If Pinterest ads don't show ROI why is their revenue growing? People say the adboard is full of diet, teeth whitening, fidget spinners, these campaigns are all about a ROI or otherwise they wouldn't exist.
So yeah, a ton of fear mongering on here. I'm long on Pinterest.
Email spam also has ROI, for products even less serious than the worst you find on Pintrest. It only takes a very few to make it worthwhile.
But the users that don't buy might be more inclined to leave the platform if ads are too invasive and low quality.
That is an entirely different argument and one easily refuted by the fact that Facebook has thrived even when the base of their ad revenues is built on scammy ad campaigns.
This seems likely to be an inventory issue more than anything else. Fine-grained targeting requires fine-grained ads which requires a sub-linearly scaling sales team.