Pinterest shoppers: “thoughtful planners and generous gifters”

Pinterest describes their shoppers as “thoughtful planners and generous gifters,” a kind and short phrase that provides a wealth of information for brands to learn. Users that wield Pinterest as a mighty tool for gift ideas are avid curators of their holiday season and impressively operate months in advance. Not only do users plan gifts and wishlists early, with their momentum building in October, but they are likely to revisit and buy what they saved months prior (and they highly prefer personalized recommendations).

The popular practices and purchasing power of Pinterest planners can teach brands new marketing tactics and ways to better connect with their customers. They plan early, they actively look for ideas, they are visually-oriented, they scroll for algorithmically-generated ideas, they search for specific gifts, and they design their own collection of aesthetically-inclined boards for inspiration. Their habits indicate that they go to Pinterest for its recommendations and powerful visuals, meaning that they might not know what they want but they are on a mission to find it, entering shopping-mode before the average shopper. This is one reason why early planning is incredibly useful for both brands and shoppers since they have time to find ideas and time to decide what they want. Instead of just targeting late minute shoppers with their gift guides, brands should take a page out of Pinterest users’ book and “design for saves and early discovery,” a piece of advice Pinterest gives brands on festive gifting.

On top of that, Pinterest shoppers WANT gift ideas to be given to them and they recognize that ‘present idea for mom 2025’ on search engines is too general of a search term to be helpful in their ‘inspo’ quest. They seek more personalization every year as trending products become too mainstream for their ‘thoughtful’ and ‘generous’ minds. Thoughtfulness never goes out of style when it comes to gift-giving and Pinterest can provide curated pins that are relevant to users’ interests based on their history of creating and saving pins and boards on the platform. What brands can learn from Pinterest shoppers is that the purchasing power of early planners is stronger than the average (or late) shopper because they are guaranteed to buy products and they actually want brands to give them ideas.

PR Tip: Brands should use Pinterest to showcase their products because users are continuously influenced by the platform in their purchasing decisions. Use Trend Badges, Collection ads, and Pinterest Performance+ to instill confidence in your products.

Users crave visual storytelling, while at the same time, seek actionable ideas. Seeing what other users have created can inspire them to learn how to make something unique on their own. The end result is a network of shareable content that influences identities and preferences while empowering users to bring the ideas they find to life. This holiday season, brands can find inspiration from the ‘inspo’ curators themselves.

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