Pinterest Statistics That Matter to Your Business

Pinterest is not simply a network for spreading information, but one geared towards action. Users flock to the site to find ideas for cooking, wearing, decorating, building, creating, and—most importantly for your business—buying. 

Pinterest is a top resource for shoppers looking for that perfect product or gift, and your brand needs to be there. To get the most out of Pinterest you need to make sure you know exactly who you’re targeting and why.

To help you out, we’ve put together a list of Pinterest statistics so that you can strengthen your marketing strategy. Continue reading to learn what they are—and why they matter.

Pinterest user statistics

Pinterest has more than 150 million monthly active users

There’s no doubt about it—Pinterest is growing. In September 2015, Pinterest reached100 million users. Now, one year later, the site boasts over 150 million users. If you’ve been wondering whether your business needs to be on Pinterest, these numbers alone should be your answer.

With this substantial user base, there’s a good chance that your brand has a ready and willing community on Pinterest. People generally visit Pinterest to either solve a problem or get inspired, so ensure your brand is doing at least one of these two things.

80 million Pinterest users live outside the U.S.

Over half of all Pinterest users, and 75 percent of brand new signups, are from outside of the United States.

While it’s tempting to create content with an English-speaking audience in mind, it’s obviously important to ensure what you’re sharing is internationally accessible. As you create shareable content for your social media and online business channels, make sure that you are not overlooking cultural “norms” you could include to make your content more widely applicable.

Think about whether the clever pun or tagline you’re using will only be understood by those within your culture, and consider ways you can incorporate culturally neutral content across all of your networks.

Another aspect to think about is the reference to seasons or seasonal campaigns. Your summer might be someone else’s winter, so make sure you aren’t alienating huge portions of your audience with these types of easily-avoidable missteps.

84% of people use Pinterest across multiple devices

When thinking about your own social media use, it’s probably clear that mobile is paramount. User patterns on Pinterest are no different: 84 percent of users access the site across multiple devices, with over 75 percent of Pinners using Pinterest on mobile devices.

Users aren’t just using Pinterest on their mobile devices to pass the time, but for dedicated research. A whopping 67 percent of Pinterest users consult the site on mobile devices while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. These consumers are checking for prices, reviews, and ideas based on what is being shared on Pinterest.

For any business looking to make their content mobile-friendly, Pinterest explains it’s “important for retailers to add high quality, impactful Pins that help people understand how the product works, why it’s a must-have and how else they can incorporate it into their lives.” Make sure this information is easily discoverable with clear and organized Pinterest boards.

67% of Pinners are under 40-years-old

While age is just a number, there are some occasions when a message needs to be tailored for a general age group. Keeping this in mind, note that 67 percent of Pinterest users are under the age of 40—a 27 percent jump from 2015.

To target this age group, consider how they (generally) use social media. Keep in mind that specific tactics will not work for everyone within distinct age groups as every individual is different, but do take note of certain patterns. The best way to do this is to conduct testing through classic trial and error.

Post a Pin or share a Repin, and use Pinterest Analytics to see which age groups respond and engage with your content. Once you have this information, you’ll have what you need to successfully plan and run future campaigns.

Male users have grown 120% in the past year

The number of disgruntled marketers I hear declaring “Pinterest is just for women” is astounding. Hopefully, the above Pinterest statistic can help defy this mind-boggling attitude. If you’re looking to specifically target men, Pinterest is a good place to be. In one year alone, male signups have risen by a whopping 120 percent. Men are, in fact, Pinterest’s fastest growing demographic, with males accounting for 40 percent of new signups.

One reason for this could be Pinterest’s 2015 introduction of a more targeted search feature, Guided Search. When users search for terms such as “watch” or “shoes,” they can now specify the results they want according to gender.  

According to TechCrunch, male Pinterest users “are favoring searches related to categories like apparel, technology, travel, gardening, recipes, gadgets, design, luxury cars, tattoos, and camping.”

Pinterest for business statistics

87% of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest

If there’s any Pinterest statistic you walk away with today, let it be this one: 87 percent of users cite Pinterest as the reason for buying a certain product. Not only that, but 93 percent of Pinners have used the site to plan for a future purchase.

These numbers are significant, and indicate the need for brands to be on Pinterest. Online commerce is growing at five times the rate of retail overall, and Pinterest is the place to work with this growth.

Even if you don’t have a huge following at the moment, Pinterest users are 47 percent more likely to be introduced to new brands than users on other social media platforms.

To showcase your product or brand on Pinterest, Promoted Pins (Pinterest’s version of ads) are the way to go. Learn more about how advertise on Pinterest in our complete guide.

72% of Pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy offline

While ecommerce is growing at an exponential rate, in-store shopping isn’t going anywhere. Pinterest is five times better at driving in-store sales than any other platform and 72 percent of Pinterest users use the site to research and decide what to buy when they make an in-person purchase.

Make sure Pinterest users are seeing and noticing your Pins while they’re conducting this research. Create Promoted Pins with product information, benefits, and problem-solving abilities to connect with shoppers at both an online and in-store level. AsPinterest shares, Promoted Pins help brands:

• Increase awareness
• Boost favorability
• Shift perceptions
• Get people to buy

83% of Pinterest users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity

One of the key reasons businesses should be on Pinterest is audience receptibility. Because Pinterest is so often used as a platform for browsing and shopping, users are open to marketing efforts. In fact, that’s what many of them are there for.

According to Pinterest, “When asked who they would rather follow—their favorite brand or celebrity—83 percent of people said they would prefer to follow the former.”

It’s hard to try and sell something to an unwilling audience, which makes Pinterest’s marketing-receptive audience is a boon for brands. However, this doesn’t mean you can stop putting in the effort. Continue creating quality content that adds value to your audience’s feed—and reap the rewards.

Over 5% of all referral traffic to websites comes from Pinterest

It’s no secret—Pinterest is a huge driver of traffic to websites. While five percent might not seem impressive on first glance, consider how much web traffic occurs over the course of any given day. For five percent of that to be from Pinterest alone is huge.

Pinterest explains: “This is second only to Facebook, which drives almost 25 percent of all referral traffic on the web. Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Google+ each refer less than a one percent share of the market.” As a great example of this, Pinterest is the second highest source of social media traffic to Shopify stores.

Active Pinners have a 9% higher average income than non-users

Pinterest users are valuable to your business for a number of reasons. One of the most enticing might be their incomes. On average, active Pinterest users have an income that is nine percent higher than non-users.

This highly sought-after group of users can be reached for a much lower cost than was previously possible with traditional advertising budgets. Active Pinterest users share that they spend less time consuming traditional media like TV, magazine, and catalogs. This means you have a greater chance of catching their attention—and making them a customer—by being present on Pinterest.

Pinterest ad statistics

Those who interact with a Promoted Pin spend 7x morethan others

Promoted Pins are Pinterest’s clever answer to traditional marketing. They look like regular Pinterest content, but rather than ‘tricking’ the audience, Promoted Pins actually offer valuable information—which is probably why they’re so successful with driving sales. As Pinterest explains, “Pinners are people actively trying to discover and save ideas—and they need your brand’s products and services to bring those ideas to life.”

Running Promoted Pins allows you to reach the most relevant audience possible. APinterest study compared users who’ve seen Promoted Pins to those who haven’t, and found that those who saw them had 40 percent more awareness of new products and 50 percent higher intent to purchase.

If you’re looking to drive more traffic to your website (and who isn’t?) you can run atraffic campaign with Promoted Pins. With a traffic campaign, you pay only when users click on your brand’s Promoted Pin to visit your website. This lets you easily reach relevant users when they’re looking to take action.

70% of sales due to Promoted Pins are from new customers

Pinterest users are not typically searching for specific brands—they’re looking for ideas. If you can show them ways that your product fits into these ideas, you will undoubtedly find success. By using Promoted Pins, you can make sure your brand appears in relevant search results and reaches new customers.

With 70 percent of sales coming from brand new customers, it’s no question that Pinterest is not only a powerful sales tool, but an invaluable way to boost brand awareness.

Now that you’re armed with the stats you need to know to develop a killer Pinterest strategy, it’s time to execute on it. Use Tailwind for Hootsuite to create new Pins, schedule drafts for later, or Pin to multiple boards at once.

Steps to Sustain Brand Value

 Steps to Sustain Brand Value





When I broke the screen on my iPhone a couple of months back, I asked the Apple care team for help. And the experience that followed exceeded my expectations. The team member involved went out of his way, contacting the nearest store to arrange an appointment to replace my screen -- in less than an hour.

It was that memorable experience which increased the value of Apple in my eyes, through my positive brand experience with the computer giant.

The design, look and feel of the Apple store itself has always provided me -- and obviously many others -- a unique, carefully crafted consumer experience. Apple fought and won the right to protect that experience with a trademark registration that covers the unique design and layout of its stores worldwide. And here again is the core of a good brand experience: Steve Jobs chose a brand name that could grow in the minds of the public, be legally protected and add to the value of the company.

Apple thus is a great illustration of how and why every new brand owner should make a conscious choice to invest in a trademark or trademarks to represent his or her company's consumer experience. For many companies, after all, the most valuable business asset is their brand.


Studies have shown that somewhere between 30 percent and 50 percent of the purchase price paid for a company is for its intangible assets, which are often labeled "intellectual property." The most common IP assets are patents, trade secrets and trademarks, including words, symbols, logos, slogans, trade dress and even sounds used to market a business’ products and services.

When the day comes to sell your company, and prospective buyers take an interest, their first question will likely be, “What’s your IP?”

Brand building starts with a unique product or service, and a clear plan to establish a channel, a bridge to the consumer. Today, brand building is likely to be a series of channels that connect with the consumer in different ways -- television, radio, print, social media, Internet sales or point of purchase in a store.

So, that's the objective: to create a memorable consumer experience at each touch point. The next question is, how do you get members of the public to associate their experience of the brand names and logos you promote to the public with your products and services? How do you build and protect a sustainable brand?

How do you emulate Steve Jobs' bitten apple -- and the immediacy with which iconsumers think "great computers!"? Here are six strategies to begin with.
1. Investigate -- Turn on the lights in a dark room to see who is there!

A professional search is like turning on the lights in a dark room; a search shines a light on the competition. Entrepreneurs sometimes bypass this step, opting to rely solely upon what they can discern from an online search. But this is not the wisest choice, particularly when you're investing thousands in marketing materials and packaging. Don’t risk being derailed before you even launch.
2. “Noodle” on it.

Think about the results. With a professional search, you will not only learn whether the brand name merits a major investment, but will have a way to formulate a smart plan to register. It is better to know the issues prior to getting married, and that also applies to selecting a brand name.

I recently conducted a search for a new fashion brand, which allowed me to develop a strategy to overcome an anticipated rejection of my client’s application based upon an existing registration. We used the search to gather facts; those facts greatly helped us successfully register the brand.

Related: How to Conduct a Patent Search to Make Sure Your Brilliant Invention Doesn't Already Exist
3. Select wisely -- Search for the intersection where selection meets protection.

The most common mistake new brand owners make is choosing a descriptive term. Descriptive terms are not good trademarks and should be avoided. Descriptive trademarks require costly advertising to garner public recognition, and they are extremely difficult and costly to enforce. Take a moment and learn what types of terms make strong trademarks. Check out: 5 Choices for a New Trademark.

As Margaret Walker, VP of intellectual property for Xerox Corporation shared with me: “Let’s understand what makes for a strong trademark, and what does not, and what your risk tolerance is. Are you okay to go out and invest this much money in something you are not going to be able to protect down the line?”
4. Proper use -- Use them correctly or “lose ’em.”

Correct trademark use involves the manner in which the brand owner, distributors, licensees and the public (including the media) use the mark. A guide for proper use should be created early in your brand’s existence. Marketing materials should provide a consistent brand presentation and include the generic term for the product or service.

Equally important, public use should be periodically monitored to avoid the risk that rights in the brand name will be lost.
5. Register with a plan -- Strategic registrations are invaluable.

Registration is like recording the deed to your house, allowing you to kick out squatters. A federal registration also protects the brand from increasing risks of domain-name infringement. With dozens of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) now available, registrations to assist in enforcement have never been more important. Don’t make the mistake of believing that a domain-name registration is a substitute for a trademark registration. Check out: Domain Names

Effective registration allows for orderly expansion both in the United States and internationally. For example, foreign trademark rights often go to the first party that registers. Pinterest learned this the hard way last year when it discovered that an earlier registration filed by a company in the United Kingdom could not be stopped. Pinterest's error: It had failed to promptly seek registration of its name.
6. Enforce and maintain -- Snooze and you will lose.

Managing and maintaining the brand’s public persona and reputation is vital. Sometimes called “policing your mark,” monitoring the marketplace is legally required in order to maintain rights.

The goal of monitoring is to ensure that differentiating thoughts and feelings about the brand are protected. This includes watching for new users using your marks for related goods and services, as well as third-party uses of similar but not identical words and marks.

Remember: Words like cellophane, aspirin and escalator were once trademarks. But then they weren't: Even the “walking fingers” of the Yellow Pages was found to be a generic term as a result of widespread and common use; AT&T failed to sustain its rights. Each of these former trademarks is now free for anyone to use.

So, don't make the mistakes described. Follow these steps, and you will be well on your way to growing greater value for your business, knowing that your brand is protected for the future.

Steps to Sustain Brand Value

 Steps to Sustain Brand Value





When I broke the screen on my iPhone a couple of months back, I asked the Apple care team for help. And the experience that followed exceeded my expectations. The team member involved went out of his way, contacting the nearest store to arrange an appointment to replace my screen -- in less than an hour.

It was that memorable experience which increased the value of Apple in my eyes, through my positive brand experience with the computer giant.

The design, look and feel of the Apple store itself has always provided me -- and obviously many others -- a unique, carefully crafted consumer experience. Apple fought and won the right to protect that experience with a trademark registration that covers the unique design and layout of its stores worldwide. And here again is the core of a good brand experience: Steve Jobs chose a brand name that could grow in the minds of the public, be legally protected and add to the value of the company.

Apple thus is a great illustration of how and why every new brand owner should make a conscious choice to invest in a trademark or trademarks to represent his or her company's consumer experience. For many companies, after all, the most valuable business asset is their brand.


Studies have shown that somewhere between 30 percent and 50 percent of the purchase price paid for a company is for its intangible assets, which are often labeled "intellectual property." The most common IP assets are patents, trade secrets and trademarks, including words, symbols, logos, slogans, trade dress and even sounds used to market a business’ products and services.

When the day comes to sell your company, and prospective buyers take an interest, their first question will likely be, “What’s your IP?”

Brand building starts with a unique product or service, and a clear plan to establish a channel, a bridge to the consumer. Today, brand building is likely to be a series of channels that connect with the consumer in different ways -- television, radio, print, social media, Internet sales or point of purchase in a store.

So, that's the objective: to create a memorable consumer experience at each touch point. The next question is, how do you get members of the public to associate their experience of the brand names and logos you promote to the public with your products and services? How do you build and protect a sustainable brand?

How do you emulate Steve Jobs' bitten apple -- and the immediacy with which iconsumers think "great computers!"? Here are six strategies to begin with.
1. Investigate -- Turn on the lights in a dark room to see who is there!

A professional search is like turning on the lights in a dark room; a search shines a light on the competition. Entrepreneurs sometimes bypass this step, opting to rely solely upon what they can discern from an online search. But this is not the wisest choice, particularly when you're investing thousands in marketing materials and packaging. Don’t risk being derailed before you even launch.
2. “Noodle” on it.

Think about the results. With a professional search, you will not only learn whether the brand name merits a major investment, but will have a way to formulate a smart plan to register. It is better to know the issues prior to getting married, and that also applies to selecting a brand name.

I recently conducted a search for a new fashion brand, which allowed me to develop a strategy to overcome an anticipated rejection of my client’s application based upon an existing registration. We used the search to gather facts; those facts greatly helped us successfully register the brand.

Related: How to Conduct a Patent Search to Make Sure Your Brilliant Invention Doesn't Already Exist
3. Select wisely -- Search for the intersection where selection meets protection.

The most common mistake new brand owners make is choosing a descriptive term. Descriptive terms are not good trademarks and should be avoided. Descriptive trademarks require costly advertising to garner public recognition, and they are extremely difficult and costly to enforce. Take a moment and learn what types of terms make strong trademarks. Check out: 5 Choices for a New Trademark.

As Margaret Walker, VP of intellectual property for Xerox Corporation shared with me: “Let’s understand what makes for a strong trademark, and what does not, and what your risk tolerance is. Are you okay to go out and invest this much money in something you are not going to be able to protect down the line?”
4. Proper use -- Use them correctly or “lose ’em.”

Correct trademark use involves the manner in which the brand owner, distributors, licensees and the public (including the media) use the mark. A guide for proper use should be created early in your brand’s existence. Marketing materials should provide a consistent brand presentation and include the generic term for the product or service.

Equally important, public use should be periodically monitored to avoid the risk that rights in the brand name will be lost.
5. Register with a plan -- Strategic registrations are invaluable.

Registration is like recording the deed to your house, allowing you to kick out squatters. A federal registration also protects the brand from increasing risks of domain-name infringement. With dozens of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) now available, registrations to assist in enforcement have never been more important. Don’t make the mistake of believing that a domain-name registration is a substitute for a trademark registration. Check out: Domain Names

Effective registration allows for orderly expansion both in the United States and internationally. For example, foreign trademark rights often go to the first party that registers. Pinterest learned this the hard way last year when it discovered that an earlier registration filed by a company in the United Kingdom could not be stopped. Pinterest's error: It had failed to promptly seek registration of its name.
6. Enforce and maintain -- Snooze and you will lose.

Managing and maintaining the brand’s public persona and reputation is vital. Sometimes called “policing your mark,” monitoring the marketplace is legally required in order to maintain rights.

The goal of monitoring is to ensure that differentiating thoughts and feelings about the brand are protected. This includes watching for new users using your marks for related goods and services, as well as third-party uses of similar but not identical words and marks.

Remember: Words like cellophane, aspirin and escalator were once trademarks. But then they weren't: Even the “walking fingers” of the Yellow Pages was found to be a generic term as a result of widespread and common use; AT&T failed to sustain its rights. Each of these former trademarks is now free for anyone to use.

So, don't make the mistakes described. Follow these steps, and you will be well on your way to growing greater value for your business, knowing that your brand is protected for the future.