Kate's Take: Quick thoughts on Pinterest marketing #5

Where is Pinterest going and how does it serve creators as their founding business adopters? Our team has actively been investing in e-commerce sellers, as Pinterest has given us signals since 2022 that it is headed in that direction. From the hiring of Bill Ready from PayPal and Venmo and his stacking of the C-suite team with other e-commerce-forward C-suite leaders, the writing was on the wall. But that leaves the big question of where do creators fit into all of this. Do people on Pinterest still find them discoverable? Lately, I’ve been playing around on Pinterest more as a user. Just to see what is coming up for me. Of course, the AI slop which is all around the internet, but products are definitely something that comes up strong the moment I give the algorithm any signal that I like.I’m going to Spain in the fall for my 50th birthday. We’re spending 2 weeks exploring the country with friends and I cannot wait. I’ve already started looking at clothes and new swimsuits. The moment I clicked on a suit, my feed was flooded with resortware and more swim. It was hard to find content. But now I’'m searching for tips on Spain and it’s back. That being said, search is still alive and well. In fact, Pinterest in the Q4 2025 investor report, said they have more searches than Chat GPT. That’s impressive. Also, users grew to 614 million. But something lacked in their report and caused the stock to dip – advertisers impacted by strong headwinds due to tariffs. Those were their words, not mine. What does that mean then? E-commerce sellers on a large scale - think Target and Walmart- were hit hard and pulled back advertising dollars.Queue a new C-suite member who is specifically targeting small and mid-size businesses for advertising. Those who are selling products are PRIME for spending money on Pinterest Ads. Our clients prove this out with our e-commerce sellers having some of the highest ROI in Q4 of 2025. Last, I’ll say this. We’re leaning into experimenting with Substack and how to leverage Pinterest for growth of subscribers. We have two accounts running the experiment now and they are eager to prove out this model by going through our accelerator model first and then transitioning into ads. Our team is so curious and excited. Is Pinterest dead in 2026? A question I’ve been asked every year. I don’t think so but the old models aren’t work. It’s time to think differently and creatively. —-------Here are some helpful links from the podcast:🗒️To get full show notes, visit Simple Pin Media and click on articles. 🗞️Make sure you grab our newsletter – Pinterest Made Simple📌 Looking to hire the best Pinterest marketing team? Here is a list of the services we offer. Book a discovery call with our team. 🎬 New to Pinterest → get started here with 4 videos! Other helpful links:Simple Pin InsidersSimple Pin ShopOur YouTube channel – tons of Pinterest tutorialsDM us on Instagram