Pinterest (PINS) was Made for Advertising

In the last 2 years, Pinterest has really separated itself when it comes to user growth and happiness.

Mentions of downloading and using Pinterest have increased by nearly +50% vs. 2019. In addition, Pinterest edges out more traditional "social" sites when it comes to Consumer Happiness -- besting Facebook by more than 20 points. A lot of this has to do with the underlying use-case for each site. Pinterest doesn't face similar political hurdles as Facebook, isn't as reliant on user-generated content like Snapchat, and is actually designed to promote connections between consumers and new brands/products/ideas. This is critical, because brands (and advertising) are how these social media sites make money. It's estimated that the US retail social commerce sales will rise by 34.8% to $36.09 billion in 2021, representing 4.3% of all retail eCommerce sales. All of the social media platforms on the scatter plot above are focused on improving "shopability" -- and the visual-based nature of platforms like Pinterest and Instagram position these channels well for future growth. Pinterest has a "shop mode" to allow users to filter only shoppable pins. Translation: consumers actually ASK to be served ads, and shop them. According to management, this has increased product searches by 20x since the start of 2020. LikeFolio data confirms elevated "discovery" on the Pinterest platform. Mentions of discovering a brand or product for purchase on Pinterest has increased by +48% YoY.

It will be critical to monitor to see if Apple's privacy update will disrupt the ability for social sites like Facebook to effectively serve targeted ads. LikeFolio data does show some signs of YoY weakness out of Facebook and Instagram when it comes to brand discovery.  On the flip side, emerging social site TikTok, is gaining serious traction with consumers. TikTok discovery mentions have increased +33% YoY and mention volume is building.