I was talking about the failure of FB in our Premium Lounge available to all Lifetime MOT Members and started to give some insight on why I think Pinterest is well-positioned for the future. My perspective comes from being a marketer who runs marketing strategies on every ad platform for various clients. I decided it would be worth doing deeper research to determine whether or not PINS is a buy right now.
Why I Like Pinterest From A Marketing Perspective
When suggesting marketing strategies to clients, I often include Pinterest somewhere in that plan. Like Google Ads, Pinterest offers advertisers the ability to target specific keywords. Like Facebook Ads, Pinterest provides the ability to target specific interests. This means that Pinterest is collecting interest data on its users, and users are using Pinterest as a search engine. It’s the best of both worlds.
Pinterest’s users often go to the app with clear intent, which gives Pinterest a lot of first-party data. First-party data is immune to the iOS privacy updates that hamper platforms like FB. FB gains information by following you around the internet and learning about your interests. Pinterest does so by tracking what you do while on its app. When apps can’t follow you anymore, who do you think will have more data to personalize your ads?
Another positive point for Pinterest is that it’s more of a social commerce app than a pure social media app. Amazon and Etsy are pure social commerce. Snapchat and Twitter are pure social media. Pinterest is somewhere in between, so it doesn’t have to rely on either avenue for its revenue.
Lastly, Pinterest is clearly investing in improving its ad platform. They have made advancements in ads customer service and features over the last couple of years that make advertising with them a breeze.
If Pinterest can grow its user base, it should become an even more powerful marketing tool.
PINS Company Profile
Date Founded: Known as Cold Brew Labs Inc, 2008. Changed to Pinterest, Inc. in April 2012.
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Sector: Communication Services
Industry: Internet Content & Information
Full-Time Employees: 3,225
Mission Statement Excerpt: “Pinterest’s mission is to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love. It’s the biggest dataset of ideas ever assembled, with over 200 billion recipes, home hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.”
Why I Think PINS Is A BUY
CNN Business has “27 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Pinterest Inc have a median target of 39.00, with a high estimate of 59.00 and a low estimate of 20.00.” The low estimate is only about $5 from PINS’ current share price, while the median target is about $14 higher. To me, this shows good room to grow with much less space to dip.
Data on Yahoo Finance shows that PINS beat earnings in the last four quarters. In 2021 PINS earnings turned green, and its revenue has increased YoY since at least 2018. PINS also announced that it expects first-quarter revenue in 2022 to grow in the high teen percentage range YoY.
“As we look ahead to 2022, we plan to further invest in our business as we scale the distribution of Idea Pins through our creator-led content efforts and enhance our core Pinner experience and shopping to make Pinterest the destination for inspiration and action on the internet,” said Ben Silbermann, Pinterest’s CEO and co-founder.
Most experts generally seem to rate PINS as a HOLD or BUY but as always, do your own research before buying any stock.
