In-stream shopping upgrades and promoted Idea Pins are among the new updates and additions unveiled by Pinterest as part of its second annual 'Pinterest Presents' global advertiser summit.

Here's a look at the big announcements from the event.

Shopping's big addition of focus is 'Your Shop', a new, personalized shopping page within the app.
Explained by Pinterest :

Your Shop is where people on Pinterest can browse, shop, and buy it-all completely personalized to every single individual's unique tastes. That is correct. People on Pinterest will see a custom shopping surface, by brands and products, based on their own activity and preferences.

I mean, that's probably not a really big reveal as Pinterest might make it out to be here, but hopefully it will get more people to tap through on more products in-stream, with Pinterest's always-improving algorithms looking to provide ever more enticing product matches for each user.

Which brings us to the next update.

To make the next stage of checkout easier for shoppers, Pinterest is also introducing a new, direct, in-app checkout for Shopify merchants.
That'll make it much more straightforward to transition from inspiration to purchase, even without interfering in the in-app experience. Which in turn will lead to even more impulse buys and more shopping activity-a prime component that Pinterest needs to buttress, given that its usage has leveled off over the last year after peaking early in the pandemic.

Fewer users is bad news, but fewer users spending more money.

Pinterest also announced a new shopping API, which would ease the uploading of product catalogs into the site for merchants and hence fuel their pin product listings.

Simplified catalog connection will enable maximum in-app commerce, since small businesses, for instance, will not bother unless it becomes worth someone's trouble to make Pins shoppable. Pinterest has been working on this for some time and this new API is the latest development of it.

Whereas one of the prominent upgrades for marketers is an official announcement about improving Pinterest Trends, so that marketers can get insight into just how popular any topic is in the app.
US, Canadian and UK businesses will be able to see new features added to the Pinterest trends tool, including: real-time search data, more trend types, more granular audience tools and personalized trend recommendations for your business. And later this year, we will launch the tool to additional countries around the world, he concludes.
It is already a good research and insights tool, not only for brands on Pinterest but also more generally; these new elements will make it even more valuable. Do be sure to take a look from time to time to see what is trending in your business niche.

Finally, because it wants to reach the highest possible engagement level for its Stories-like Idea Pins, Pinterest will soon also allow advertisers to promote their Idea Pins within the app.

Pinterest is also improving its paid partnership process in order to better facilitate branded content deals, providing more avenues for creators to make money in the app and for brands to leverage their expertise in Pin formats.

Already, creators can tag your products in their Idea Pins, and disclose a paid partnership. Later this year, you'll be able to advertise those Pins as Idea ads to showcase even more the collaboration with a much wider audience.

As Pinterest reports high volumes of user interest around Idea Pins and its TikTok-style Watch tab, it promises that these new promotional options will unlock even more ways for brands to ride that wave of popularity and amplify their Pin efforts.

Some other interesting updates: if you plan to market through Pinterest, it may be worth taking a deeper look at these tools and elements - and seeing how they might fit into your process.

I mean, as the item states, usage is indeed off a bit on Pinterest – but even so, at 431 million users, all of whom arrive at the app with shopping intent, that's still a significant audience you very much want to reach, and the dedicated shopping focus of the app potentially makes them an even more valuable group for your brand than those on other, larger apps.

It all boils down to your business, your product, and how you can angle that towards key Pin trends. And that's something that these new tools and updates will help in the process.

Your Shop is now in beta in the United States and will become available to the rest of its US audiences later this year, followed by other countries. Checkout is now available in beta for select Shopify merchants in the US, while Pinterest Trends has been updated and is now available to business users in the United States, Canada and the UK.