Pinterest ‘Pinners’ Outperform: LiveRamp Proves Their Power at the Checkout

The Challenge

In a landscape where the largest marketing budgets often favour platforms with the widest reach (regardless of effectiveness), Pinterest set out to stand apart by offering deeper insights into how its audience of ‘Pinners’ engages, converts, and drives offline sales. Traditional metrics, such as impressions and clicks, tell only part of the story. Pinterest aimed to demonstrate its significant business impact.

Pinterest users aren’t just browsing—they’re planning. This mindset of Pinterest users is the differentiator for advertisers and needed to be measured effectively.

With rising pressure to prove ROI and justify every marketing pound, Pinterest wanted to demonstrate its value and move beyond vanity metrics, understanding the true incremental impact of Pinterest ads on offline sales in the UK.

The Solution

To close the gap between digital campaigns and offline sales, Pinterest partnered with LiveRamp to run an analysis that included real, anonymised in-store sales data from Tesco Clubcard Shoppers. The test and control methodology separated audiences who were exposed to Pinterest ads from those who were not in order to isolate the actual impact Pinterest campaigns had on retail transactions, down to the pound spent and trips taken.

This was no modelled estimate. It was a real-world view into what happens when campaigns meet customers at the right digital moment—when they’re not just scrolling, but planning.

The Results

The findings uncovered a powerful story of untapped value:

• +26% Annual Spend: Shoppers exposed to Pinterest campaigns spent 26% more annually than those not reached by the ads.
• +25% More Store Visits: Exposure to Pinterest resulted in a 25% increase in shopping trips, indicating sustained behavioural change.
• +6% Larger Baskets: Those reached on Pinterest filled their baskets with more items on each visit.

These were not short-term gains. The analysis revealed a durable uplift in customer value.

In a separate meta-analysis of 10 UK offline sales lift studies across groceries, meals, and household goods, LiveRamp’s incrementality framework discovered that:

• 70% of Pinterest campaigns delivered statistically significant offline sales lift, outperforming the UK benchmark of 55%.
• Average sales lift was 21% higher than typical social benchmarks.
• The spend per converted customer was 8 times higher, proving that Pinterest doesn’t just reach more people, but it reaches the right people.
•  For campaigns that delivered statistically significant lift, iROAS was 52% higher than LiveRamp’s UK social benchmark.