With limited resources, your marketing team can be forgiven for not creating and maintaining an active presence on Pinterest. There simply might not be enough time to curate pinboards and to find and follow influencers there when resources might be used on other more predominant channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Regular participation on Pinterest may not be part of the daily plan.
However, do not take that as a pass for completely ignoring Pinterest, especially when it comes to incoming Web traffic.
Marketers cannot be given a pass when they lose an inbound lead that originates from Pinterest.
Whenever a Pinterest user pins an image from the Web, the URL of the page that hosted that image is stored along with the pin. Repins preserve that information. And whenever someone else finds that pin, whether from their home feed or in a search, the image continues to link back to the original URL.For a retailer with a catalog item that debuted this week, that URL is almost certainly going to be active. But for older content, it becomes more and more likely that the URL will not be active.
As an example, looking for kids clothes I found this on Pinterest. It might make a nice gift for my nephew, so I clicked through the image to Hot Topic, the online retailer that offered the shirt, only to find:
“The page you’re looking for cannot be found.”
The best part of this approach is that it is an automated marketing program. Once built, it runs on its own. You are making the most use of traffic generated by Pinterest, even if you are not active on the network itself.
The biggest mistake marketers make with Pinterest is not having an automated system in place for dealing with inbound traffic from Pinterest. There should never be this kind of 404 page for traffic coming from Pinterest.
Curated Content Lives On
Since Pinterest caches images, your content can live on far longer than intended once pinned by a user. The term “curate” is accurate in more than one sense. Pinterest and Pinners are assembling museum galleries of content that persist over time. And the provenance of your content is your Web site.
When a URL request comes in for a page that is no longer active, or as in this case a catalog item no longer found, it remains an opportunity and an inbound lead. It is a lead with some intelligence, too, since you know what they were looking for.
In this exact example, there are two ways that the retailer, Hot Topic, could have better handled the request:
When a URL request comes in for a page that is no longer active, or as in this case a catalog item no longer found, it remains an opportunity and an inbound lead. It is a lead with some intelligence, too, since you know what they were looking for.
In this exact example, there are two ways that the retailer, Hot Topic, could have better handled the request:
- Offering related products
- A full remarketing campaign
Handling Incoming Traffic
Assuming the exact page is not found, there are two easy to implement options available for handling incoming traffic from Pinterest.
Related Products
There is no excuse for presenting a 404 page. Even without the HTTP error code, the message “the page you’re looking for cannot be found” is not good enough.
Look at the case of this Hot Topic item, and the URL: http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Apparel/KidsBaby/Cool+Story+Bro+Kids+T-Shirt-952982.jsp
The URL itself includes the exact catalog item, and where it sits in the product catalog hierarchy.
So why settle for telling the user that the exact page cannot be found? Offer related products.
At the very least, point the user to the KidsBaby section of the Apparel catalog, and bring up a clean attractive pop-up message that says “Sorry, Pinner, that item is no longer available, but here are some other kids clothes that should catch your eye”.
Better still, product recommendation engines can be used to offer similar or related content. I currently work for SDL whose product Fredhopper is designed for exactly that kind of scenario.
No matter the level of detail, the 404 error handling for your site should look for these incoming requests and offer something beyond the standard message. This has always been true. But the ability of Pinterest to preserve your older content makes it more true than ever.
Look at the case of this Hot Topic item, and the URL: http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Apparel/KidsBaby/Cool+Story+Bro+Kids+T-Shirt-952982.jsp
The URL itself includes the exact catalog item, and where it sits in the product catalog hierarchy.
So why settle for telling the user that the exact page cannot be found? Offer related products.
At the very least, point the user to the KidsBaby section of the Apparel catalog, and bring up a clean attractive pop-up message that says “Sorry, Pinner, that item is no longer available, but here are some other kids clothes that should catch your eye”.
Better still, product recommendation engines can be used to offer similar or related content. I currently work for SDL whose product Fredhopper is designed for exactly that kind of scenario.
No matter the level of detail, the 404 error handling for your site should look for these incoming requests and offer something beyond the standard message. This has always been true. But the ability of Pinterest to preserve your older content makes it more true than ever.
Remarketing
In addition to showing recommended products, it may be possible to build an entire remarketing campaign around this kind of inbound traffic.
In addition to the pop-up message, what about offering a sign-up for email letting the shopper know when the item will be available again, or when similar content is available?
You have now turned missing content into a new addition to your email list. And again, you know specifically what they are interested in.
In addition to the pop-up message, what about offering a sign-up for email letting the shopper know when the item will be available again, or when similar content is available?
You have now turned missing content into a new addition to your email list. And again, you know specifically what they are interested in.
Marketing Automation
The best part of this approach is that it is an automated marketing program. Once built, it runs on its own. You are making the most use of traffic generated by Pinterest, even if you are not active on the network itself.
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