Pinterest is opening its Promoted Pins feature to all advertisers

Ben Silbermann, the CEO of Pinterest, laid out plans last year for how he intends to monetize the popular web service. As part of a beta program for this plan, a select few advertisers were allowed to put their promoted pins in search results and category feeds. A little more than a year later, Pinterest has announced that the results of the test have been promising, and that the company will  be opening the service to all advertisers. 

After initial success with its beta program, Pinterest announced Sunday that it will expand its chief monetization vehicle, promoted pins, to all advertisers, starting Jan. 1. Pinterest introduced the program in June, which offered advertisers the chance to run pins that are targeted to users based on age, sex, location and interests. Initial results with Kraft and General Mills, early partners in the program, “have been promising,” Joanne Bradford, Pinterest’s head of partnerships, wrote in a post. Pinterest claims the average promoted pins is shared 11 times, on average Pinterest claims the average promoted pins is shared 11 times, on average, meaning advertisers got about a 30% bump in earned media for their campaigns.