‘One of the first places I go’: Gen Z is finding brands via Pinterest
Some Gen Zers are opening up Pinterest, rather than TikTok, for shopping inspiration.
That was according to an on-stage discussion at eTail East among a focus group of Gen Zers known as “The Z Suite,” part of Berns Communications Group. But Pinterest itself has also said that more than 40% of the platform’s users are now Gen Z. What’s more, Gen Z is the “largest and fastest-growing demographic” on the platform, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said during an earnings call in May. Now, more brands are considering Pinterest a crucial part of their strategy to reach Gen Z.
“I love making mood boards, so I try to find niche trends on Pinterest and then I’ll go to TikTok to see if that trend is in motion or if a certain product is in motion,” Olivia Meyer, a member of “The Z Suite,” said during a panel at the eTail East conference on Tuesday in Boston. “How are other people my age styling this piece? Is it functional? Is it good quality? So, [I’m] getting a sense of validation to a certain extent from TikTok, but starting at Pinterest.”
Naomi Barrales, another member of “The Z Suite,” said she also starts her path to purchase at Pinterest. “I think it just has such a huge base of so much inspiration,” she said. “Gen Z likes to kind of go off vibes,” she added, laughing.
Meyer and Barrales aren’t the only members of Gen Z turning to Pinterest. “Pinterest is aging down, a rarity in consumer Internet applications, which typically age up as they mature,” Ready said during the company’s first quarter earnings call in May. “Gen Z comes to our platform to get inspired and to shop. They save more than other demographics and also find value in new content formats like collages, and they see Pinterest as a distinct and separate destination from other social media apps.”
Now, more brands are trying to have a presence on Pinterest to reach Gen Z, 39% of whom are “perpetually in shopping and browsing mode,” according to a 2024 study by L.E.K. Consulting.
One of the brands using Pinterest is American Freight, a discounted home goods retailer that sells couches, fridges and mattresses. It estimates that 6% of its customer base belongs to Gen Z. As more Gen Zers buy apartments or homes, American Freight is hoping to grow that number. Pinterest is proving important to that mission.
“It’s a really important platform for us, and we’re building our presence there and paying very close attention to it,” Lauri Joffe Turjeman, chief marketing officer at American Freight, told Modern Retail at eTail. “That’s a big place where people are getting that inspiration. That inspires part of the funnel.”
American Freight’s Pinterest page has 15,500 followers. Its posts, which users can “pin,” tease products such as sofas under $500 and three-piece bedroom sets under $800. Others are 15-second video ads or take viewers on a tour of the warehouse. All pins link back to American Freight’s online site, where users can read reviews of the products and learn more details.
Béis, a luggage brand, has nearly 5,000 followers on Pinterest. Its pins tease new products like backpacks and carry-on rollers. Béis told Glossy that its revenue from Pinterest grew by 700% over three months this year. “That was with a really low lift,” Liz Money, svp of brand and creative at Béis, told Glossy. “We’re not putting any money into it. It’s just growing organically.”
Brands can pay, however, to advertise on Pinterest under Pinterest’s ads program, and many are starting to make room in their marketing budgets for Pinterest. Half of Pinterest’s first-quarter ad spend in the U.S. came from the shopping category, per market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
But historically, Pinterest has gone through periods where it has struggled to convince brands to increase their investments on the platform, particularly during more challenging economic times. Earlier in 2023, for example, some brands told Modern Retail they were actually scaling back on Pinterest after performance metrics weren’t as strong as they’d hoped.
Under Ready, who became CEO of Pinterest in 2022, the company has made shopping a bigger part of its platform to try and get a leg up on competitors like TikTok Shop. Within the last 12 months, Pinterest announced third-party advertising partnerships with Amazon Ads and Google to boost its shopping capabilities. Last quarter, Pinterest added even more shopping functionalities, including the resurfacing of product pins based on users’ past browsing history.
Thanks to these functions, outbound clicks to advertisers “more than doubled” year over year, Ready said in May. Pinterest also had its fastest user growth since 2021 this past quarter thanks to “an emerging contribution” from its third-party partners, Ready added.
This story has been updated to correct a statistic that was provided by American Freight. It estimates that 6% of its customer base belongs to Gen Z, not 10%.