Pinterest Investor Day 2023: Growing Engagement and Monetization

Earlier today, Pinterest hosted its first-ever Investor Day. The event featured presentations from Chief Executive Officer Bill Ready, Chief Financial Officer Julia Donnelly, and members of the company’s executive team. 

Together, they shared an in-depth look into the strategic shifts, product innovation, and operational rigor that have driven deeper user engagement and revenue growth during the last year. The team also provided a look at the next three to five years, projecting Pinterest will grow revenue at a mid-to-high teens compound average growth rate (CAGR) and improve EBITDA margin to the low 30s percent range.

Bill Ready, CEO at Pinterest

’’We’re seeing great momentum in our business and in turning our unique attributes into clear business advantages. Last year, we updated our strategy to lean into our core differentiators and the results couldn’t be more clear with Pinterest returning to consistent MAU growth, deepening user engagement and growing monetization. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made over the last year and even more excited about the future we’re building at Pinterest.”

Here are the key takeaways from our Investor Day as we continue to grow engagement and monetization on Pinterest:

Every month, hundreds of millions of people around the world come to Pinterest. They’re decision makers with purchasing power, including more than half of US moms and nearly a quarter of US dads.¹

In addition, Gen Z is an emerging powerhouse on Pinterest, representing our most engaged and fastest-growing audience (42% of Monthly Active Users²). Research shows that this immediate and growing product market fit is due, in part, to Pinterest being a positive place where they can envision their future lives, representing an opportunity for brands to reach this valuable consumer base.

Pinterest is where people come to search, save, and shop ideas for all of life’s moments. We are the only platform where users touch every stage of the purchasing journey – discovering new ideas, deciding what to buy and then taking action. On Pinterest, brands enhance the experience rather than distract from it. It’s a place where relevant ads increase engagement.

Our users are also curating ideas and products at scale. They are saving more than 1.5 billion Pins per week³ to more than 10 billion boards⁴. No other platform enables planning like Pinterest. This provides us with unique first-party signals about people’s tastes and interests – they tell us directly what products and styles they love and plan to purchase. We’ve refocused our world class AI on using these signals, delivering a more personalized experience for users and better results for advertisers.

More than half of our users see Pinterest as a place to shop. We’ve made Pinterest more shoppable by enabling people to shop and buy across all surfaces of our platform. As a result, we’ve seen a 50 percent year-over-year increase in buyable items saved to boards.⁵ 

We’re also partnering with retailers rather than competing with them, delivering seamless handoffs to their mobile apps and websites. We’re scaling shopping ads, including with our first third-party partner, Amazon Ads – unlocking new budgets from advertisers and giving our users more of the relevant commercial content they crave, deepening engagement. 

Because our users engage in dynamic multi-session journeys on Pinterest, we’ve always had the potential of giving advertisers full funnel results. Today, that potential is even more realized.

We’ve launched more ad formats over the past year than ever before – more than double the prior two years combined – helping brands meet every objective, particularly at the lower funnel.

With our innovative ad products, full funnel solutions, and brand safe, positive platform, we are in a strong position to continue growing our wallet share in the $550 billion digital advertising space.⁶

Our unique value proposition has helped us grow market share inside the massive digital advertising market. We’ve achieved a multi-billion dollar scale and a 35 percent CAGR since going public.⁷

Now, thanks to the strategic shifts over the past year, we are positioned even stronger for the future. We believe we can grow revenue faster than the overall market, resulting in a mid-to-high teens revenue CAGR over the next 3-5 years.  

We also believe that we can continue balancing investments in the business to drive long term growth and flowing profitability through to the bottom line, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin stepping up into the low 30s percentage range in that same time period.

Julia Donnelly, CFO at Pinterest

’’This past year of execution has shown that Pinterest has multiple compelling growth levers – from MAU and engagement growth driven by our innovative product focus to ARPU upside driven by the synergy between engagement and ad load, as well as our lower funnel progress. We have a powerful business model that allows us to grow profitably and we’re excited to continue focusing on what Pinterest is uniquely able to deliver.”

From engagement to monetization, our strategy is working. But, as far as we’ve come, we know there’s still so much more opportunity ahead of us. We have a unique digital experience at the intersection of social media, search, and commerce with a highly valuable demographic. We’re scaling to gain share of a tremendous advertising opportunity as we increasingly monetize the lower funnel and we address under penetration in core geographies. And, we have a differentiated financial profile defined by scale, growth, profitability, and cash generation. 

We appreciate the financial community joining us and for their interest. A comprehensive look at Pinterest’s Investor Day, including the full recording and presentation deck, can be found on our Investor Relations site(opens in a new window).

Sources:

¹ US Comscore Plan Metrix, June 2023 | Note: Digital Population Reach

² Pinterest Internal Data as of June 2023

³ Pinterest Internal Data as of June 2023 | Note: Weekly average over last twelve months

⁴ Pinterest Internal Data as of June 2023

⁵ Pinterest Internal Data as of June 2023 | Note: Comparing Q2’23 vs. Q2’22

⁶ Insider Intelligence | eMarketer | Note:  Worldwide Global Digital Advertising Spend Forecast as of Q1 2023

⁷ Pinterest Internal Data as of June 2023  Note: Active advertiser is defined by more than $0 ad spend in a given quarter; CAGR = (compound annual growth rate) by Q2 over a 4 year period

Forward-looking statement: This newsroom post contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties, including, among other things, statements about trend analyses, future events, future operational performance, financial performance, anticipated growth and industry prospects. Words such as "believe" "project" "may" "will" "estimate" "continue" "anticipate" "intend" "expect" "plan", “target” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including: general economic and political uncertainty in global markets and a worsening of global economic conditions or low levels of economic growth, including inflation, fear of recession, foreign exchange fluctuations and supply-chain issues; our ability to provide useful and relevant content; our ability to attract and retain partners and other content creators that provide relevant and engaging content on our platform; risks associated with new products and changes to existing products as well as other new business initiatives; our ability to maintain and enhance our brand and reputation; compromises in security; our financial performance and fluctuations in operating results; our dependency on online application stores’ and internet search engines’ methodologies and policies; discontinuation, disruptions or outages in authentication by third-party login providers and changes by them that restrict our access or ability to identify users; competition; our ability to scale our business and revenue model; our reliance on advertising revenue and our ability to attract and retain advertisers and effectively measure advertising campaigns; our ability to effectively manage growth and expand and monetize our platform internationally; our lack of operating history and ability to attain and sustain profitability; decisions that reduce short-term revenue or profitability or do not produce expected long-term benefits; risks associated with government actions, laws and regulations that could restrict access to our products or impair our business; litigation and government inquiries; privacy, data and other regulatory concerns; real or perceived inaccuracies in metrics related to our business; disruption, degradation or interference with our hosting services and infrastructure; our ability to attract and retain personnel; the volatility of our stock; and the dual class structure of our common stock and its effect of concentrating voting control with stockholders who held our capital stock prior to the completion of our initial public offering. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2023, which is available on our investor relations website at investor.pinterestinc.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All information provided in this newsroom post is as of September 19, 2023, unless an earlier date is indicated. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this presentation, which are based on information available to us and management’s views as of the date hereof. We undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.