How To Recover Deleted Google Analytics Data?

Have you accidentally deleted your Google Analytics data or accounts? Or maybe you were doing a clean-up, but have now decided that the old data could still be useful? Well, worry not because Google Analytics has introduced a new recovery feature. The new "Trash Can" feature will allow users to undo deletes in their Google Analytics account.

Google "Trash Can"

Google "Trash Can" is a safety net that saves information each time users delete a view, property, or account from Google Analytics. To use Trash Can, Analytics users simply select an account from the Administration tab and click the Trash Can icon.

Then a list of deleted information appears, and users simply check off the information they want reclaimed and hit restore to return the document to its previous state.

You can see from the screenshot above that a list of deleted data has appeared after clicking on the Trash Can option. You can see the details alongside, and you can change views between Account, Property and View.

You can check and Recover any data that is listed.

However, there's a catch. Trash Can only stores information for 35 days. After that, it gets deleted permanently.

Please note that this feature hasn't officially launched for Google Analytics. However, information is being stored in Trash Can as of today. When the product does appear in Analytics accounts, all deleted information should appear in the Trash Can folder.

Trash Can is a direct response to user feedback, according to a Google representative;

"We heard from a lot of users that had mistakenly deleted their accounts, properties, and views. Especially in a multi-user environment, mistakes like this happen too often. Trash Can gives users a safety net, a chance to recover things before being deleted forever."

We're hoping to see further improvements to the feature until it is officially announced. The 35-day rollback limit needs to be extended as well to at least three months. But at least it's a step in the right direction. Stay tuned, and we'll keep you updated! Cheers ;)

Google Supports Locale-Aware Content Based Location

Google has always been telling webmasters to treat its crawlers - GoogleBot in other words - just as you would treat any user accessing your website from the United States. By default, Googlebot requests pages without setting an Accept-Language HTTP request header and uses US IP addresses. As a result, not all content variants of locale-adaptive pages may be indexed completely.

This is now going to change because Google may crawl your site from IP addresses outside of the US and also may crawl your site with language settings outside of English-US.

Google has announced that they now support locale-aware crawling by Googlebot - this is a huge change for internationalized sites.

What does this mean?

Some sites that offer internationalized content do so without sending the user to a special URL. Google has always preferred you set up specific URLs or ccTLDs for content tailored to different countries or languages, but many sites just dynamically serve content on their .com based on the IP address origin or their browser language configurations.

Google is now going to support the sites that dynamically serve internationalized content based on IP or language. They will do this based on two methods:

• Geo-distributed crawling where Googlebot would start to use IP addresses that appear to be coming from outside the USA, in addition to the current IP addresses that appear to be from the USA that Googlebot currently uses.


• Language-dependent crawling where Googlebot would start to crawl with an Accept-Language HTTP header in the request.

As these new crawling configurations are enabled automatically for pages Google detects to be locale-adaptive, you may notice changes in how the content on your site is crawled and displayed in Google search results without you altering your server settings.

These new configurations do not alter Google's recommendation to use separate URLs with rel=alternate hreflang annotations for each locale. Google still supports and recommends using separate URLs as they are still the best way for users to interact and share your content, and also to maximize indexing and better ranking of all variants of your content.

How To Add Enhanced Sitelinks To Bing Ads?

Bing Ads is the Bing equivalent of Google AdWords, where marketers and advertisers aim to capture the attention of potential customers searching for products or services online. We reported that Bing has just rolled out enhanced sitelinks worldwide for Bing Ads users. These enhanced sitelinks let advertisers add specialized links to their website within the ads, thereby creating a bigger and bolder advertisement to capture more user attention.

Today, we'll talk about how you can add enhanced sitelinks for your site to appear in ads.

What are Enhanced sitelinks?

Enhanced Sitelinks is a new format of Sitelink Extensions that allows you to add up to two lines of customizable, descriptive text to your Sitelink Extension. The result is a larger, more relevant and descriptive ad, and a more captivating ad format by which to attract your target audience.

Here's an example;

Bing claims that after the introduction of this feature, advertisers in the U.S. have seen an average rise in click-through rate by 27%, going as high as 68% for some. This is a phenomenal statistic, and gives advertisers all the more reason to add enhanced sitelinks.

How to add Enhanced Sitelinks?

• From your Bing Ads dashboard, go to the Ad Extensions tab and choose Sitelink Extensions

• Select the sitelink extension you want to add Enhanced Sitelinks to by checking the box on the left-hand side of your screen


• Click on Edit an extension from the Edit drop-down menu


• Click on the sitelink(s) you want to add a description to, and then write in your description(s)

• You can also choose the Device preference by checking the Mobile box.  Bing Ads will give preference to those Sitelinks in mobile devices. Note that Enhanced Sitelinks is currently not supported in mobile devices.  You can select the Mobile preference without entering Sitelink descriptions


• Click Save and repeat for other Sitelinks

Only high-quality ads serving in the top position in the ad block above the algo results will trigger Enhanced Sitelinks. Therefore, make sure you focus your efforts on high performing campaigns such as your brand term campaigns first.

If you have problems or questions regarding the addition of enhanced sitelinks in your ads, shoot us a question in the comments section below!

Bing Rolls Out Enhanced Sitelinks Worldwide

Sitelinks are automated links generated from your site, and are seemingly chosen randomly to be displayed in search results. They help users navigate to their desired content quicker, and this contributes towards a higher click-through rate. Google has had sitelinks for quite while now. But Bing is relatively new at this. However, Bing recently announced that they will now be rolling out 'enhanced sitelinks' for all users globally.

Now, Enhanced Sitelinks has been rolled out to Bing Ads customers in all markets, worldwide. Bing�s initial pilot of Enhanced Sitelinks found that the feature was showing an average of a 27 percent increase in click-through rate (CTR) for those advertisers using the service.

Enhanced Sitelinks

Bing�s Enhanced Sitelink allows advertisers to "add two lines of customizable, descriptive text to your Sitelink Extension."

The addition of Enhanced Sitelinks enables advertisers to provide their potential customers with additional details about their products/services and has been shown to improve CTRs.

You must understand, however, that there is no guarantee. Even if your ad is eligible, Enhanced Sitelinks are not guaranteed. The deciding factors include relevance of ad, relevance of the included Enhanced Sitelinks, space available on the SERP page, and the user location.

Best practices

According to Bing, "Only high-quality ads serving in the top position in the ad block above the algo results with trigger Enhanced Sitelinks." This means that Enhanced Sitelinks efforts should be focused on your top-performing campaigns.

Your Sitelinks should be no more than 25 characters in order to be eligible. If your Sitelinks are more than 25 characters you must first shorten the Sitelink and then add your description text.

If you're a Bing Ads user (become one now for free), then you should definitely set up Sitelinks for your site. We'll soon cover the topic of setting up and specifying what links Bing chooses to display. So stay tuned! (:

How To Watch The Microsoft Windows 10 Event Live?

Microsoft is getting ready for one the biggest update to its Windows operating system in many years. The new OS, called Windows 10, was released as a developer preview last year, with reports that the release would come on early in 2015. Microsoft will be holding an event today to discuss the future of its new platform. Unlike the last one, this event will be about much more than the desktop.

What's new?

The new Operating System features a host of improvements over the older Windows 8.1. These included some UI tweak such as a smart Start menu, snap-able apps, an improved command prompt interface, and other visual enhancements. 

Though we saw glimpses of the long awaited Windows 10 at a business-focused preview event in September, many other details - such as the user interface improvements for touch devices and the mechanics of its Continuum feature - have remained under wraps until now.

Windows 10 isn't for desktops only. The latest version of the Operating System will also be integrated into Windows Phone and Xbox.

How to watch the event?

The event will start today at 12:00 p.m Eastern Time (ET), or 5 p.m GMT. For Pakistan/India, it will start at 10/10:30 pm respectively. The event is expected to go on for at least one hour. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, along with other top executives is expected to speak at the event.

If you want to catch the event, you can tune into Microsoft's live-stream from the link given below. If you are unable to tune in live, or have missed it, don't worry. Follow the same link, where the video of the event will be posted.

Livestream: Microsoft live-stream of the event

Liveblog: Mashable's live-blog link

If you cannot watch the video, you can catch the live-blog link above from Mashable, where they'll provide text and image updates from the event.

Let's see what Microsoft has in store for us (:

A Bulletproof Password: Is It Really Possible?

The recent Sony hack has everybody on edge, especially since it turns out that the files leaked also contained the passwords to a bunch of Sony emails, social media accounts and web server accounts. While, yes, it looks like so super powerful, pro-level hackers were hired to do the job, that doesn't negate the fact that Sony has some top notch security. And if Sony�s security can be breached to such a deep Wiki-leaks level, what does that mean for the rest of us whose security profiles are decidedly less intense?

Note: We found this peace of information extremely useful for all MBT readers and loyal customers. Since we have moved our hosting to Cloud therefore we would keep you updated with all latest software tools that we use so that you could be equally benefited and sustain a secure online business.

As someone who makes a living with music online, keeping your information and intellectual property safe is literally the key to your livelihood. Imagine what would happen if someone got access to your backing tracks or demos or somehow took your systems hostage. It�s scary, right? So what do you do? How do you keep your information and property safe?

Most of the time, as simplistic as it sounds, keeping your intellectual property and account information safe is a matter of choosing the right username and password combination. A lot of people, in spite of the multitude of warnings against this, stick with a single username and password combination for every login they have. This is the worst thing you can do! Yes, keeping track of literally a dozen (or more) different username and password combinations is difficult, but it is not impossible.

Stop Using One Login Code

Even the people who do create a variety of username and password combinations aren't keeping those combinations very safe. Most of them are still doing things like keeping usernames and passwords on post-its on their monitors or are writing them down in other very easy to find places. Worse still, people are creating text files in which all of their username and password combinations are kept. Talk about giving away the keys to the kingdom! 

If you are worried about keeping those details safe but aren't confident in your ability to remember them, spend some time hunting down the best password manager you can find to protect them against hackers and other threats. The security software company Trend Micro says a password management system secures your browser and uses keystroke encryption to protect your passwords.

Pass Phrases Are Better

Most companies, when you are creating your passwords, require you to use upper and lowercase letters, numbers, spaces, special symbols and the coordinates of your underground bunker. Believe it or not, that random assortment of letters, numbers and pound signs isn�t the super safe password that most believe it is. This is because most people still choose a single word and then �l33t speak� it to include the numbers, special characters, etc.  A single word, even �l33t�ed out, is still relatively easy to hack.

A much better approach, writes Null-Bytes, is to create a passphrase. This is where you string together a few words to create a really long password and then include all of the upper, lower, numbers, symbols, etc required by the server. The longer the password, the harder it is for a hacker to break and if you use a phrase, it�ll be easier for you to remember. 

Suspicion is Your Friend

Most people know, when that monthly email from PayPal turns up, screaming about account breaches, etc, that it�s a phishing scam. They know to go directly to PayPal using their web browser and not to click on anything within the email. Phishers, though, they�re getting more sophisticated. Phishers recently used text messaging to dupe Wells Fargo customers out of their social security numbers. GoDaddy account holders have also seen a spike in phishing attempts.

Remember the rule: never click on anything in an email or a text that references one of your accounts. Never give out information over the phone or through the mail. Whenever you are contacted regarding an account, the best thing to do is to then contact the account holding company directly and talk to someone there. 

You can be safe online. You can protect your information. You just have to be careful and smart. The most successful data breaches aren�t huge like Heartbleed. They�re small and seemingly innocuous. Always keep your guard up!

What are your views on creating a bulletproof password and ensuring 100% security of your online assets? Was your data ever compromised? Do share your precious views by posting your experiences. Peace and blessings! 

New Upcoming Event Listing in Google Knowledge Graph

The Knowledge Graph is Google's way of keeping you within the confines of its search pages, so you won't have to navigate away. This feature has done wonders for Google users, and remains one of the reasons why most people still use Google. The Knowledge Graph has come a long way from a simple arithmetic calculator to the complex information panel it is now. In addition to the previous music artists' event schedules, Google has now added more dimensions to the array.

It started last year when Google started showing music artists' event schedule in its Knowledge Graph pane on the left. Here's a screenshot from the update back then;

This feature has now been expanded;

Ticket links for events

For artists: if you mark up ticketing links along with the events on your official website, Google will now show an expanded answer card for your events in Google search, including the on-sale date, availability, and a direct link to your preferred ticketing site.

As before, you may write the event markup directly into your site�s HTML, or simply install an event widget that builds in the markup for you automatically�like Bandsintown or BandPage.

Delegated Event Listings

What if you can�t add markup or an event widget to your official website - for example, if your website doesn�t list your events at all? Now you can use delegation markup to tell Google to source your events from a page of your choice on another website. Just add the following markup to your home page, making sure to customize the values in bold:

<script type="application/ld+json">

{"@context" : "http://schema.org",

 "@type" : "MusicGroup",

 "name" : "Your Band or Performer Name",

 "url" : "http://your-official-website.com",

 "event" : "http://other-event-site.com/your-event-listing-page/"

}

</script>

The marked-up events found on the other event site's page will then be eligible for Google events features. Examples of sites you can point to in the �event� field include bandpage.com, bandsintown.com, and ticketmaster.com etc.

Comedian Events

Google wants to feature comedian events in its Knowledge Graph too.. Just add ComedyEvent markup to your official website. Or, if another site like laughstub.com has your complete event listings, use delegation markup on your home page to point Google their way.

Venue Events

Google is also starting to show venue event listings in Google Search. Concert venues, theaters, libraries, fairgrounds, and so on: make your upcoming events eligible for display across Google by adding Event markup to your official website.

As with artist events, you have a choice of writing the event markup directly into your site�s HTML, or using a widget or plugin that builds in the markup for you. Also, if all your events are ticketed by a primary ticketer whose website provides markup, you don�t have to do anything! Google will read the ticketer�s markup and apply it toward your venue�s event listings.

If you're an artist, comedian, or event organizer, then add the markups on your site and help new fans discover your events, and play to a packed house! All the best :)

Facebook Introduces 'Work': A New Social Tool For Businesses

If you get bored sitting around the office all day without being able to socialize, Facebook has a new hobby for you. Facebook has just announced a new social tool called "Work" (we called it 'Facebook for Work' before), which will revolve around your professional life, and how employees in a Business communicate with each other.

Now, you won't have to go through the hassle of getting around a firewall in order to access Facebook, or hiding it from your boss for that matter.

Simply titled �Work� (as opposed to 'Facebook for Work' as was rumored before), the new product will reportedly allow businesses to create self-contained social networks exclusively for employees. Sounds kind of like an Intranet, with the exception that it would be accessible outside of work.

How is it different from normal Facebook?

The social networks created in Work would mirror Facebook in design and user experience. Users can join using their existing Facebook account, or can create their own ID just for use in Work.

So, why use Work when everyone you work with is already on Facebook? For starters there are no advertisements or data tracking. So you won�t be inundated with ads or have to worry about lack of confidentiality.

Secondly, the company is touting the usefulness of its Groups feature and how it is being integrated in Work. It�s apparently so useful, in fact, that Facebook believes it could replace workplace email the way that other companies like Slack and Yammer have set out to do.

Lars Rasmussen, the engineering director at Facebook, says that the company is currently using Work for its communication, and is using feedback gained by its employees over the years to refine the product before releasing it in an already crowded marketplace.

It sounds like Facebook has recognized the significant growth of workplace communication apps as of late, and is now in reaction mode trying to produce a solution of its own. Perhaps Facebook is banking on the fact that the users� familiarity with the network will keep them from seeking the services offered by competitive apps.

How Work compares to similar offerings already on the market will remain to be seen as Work is still in the testing phase, having only been released to a select group of partners.

How To Post On Instagram From The Web?

According to a latest study by the Pew Research Internet Project, Instagram is now the fastest growing social network. Somehow Instagram has managed to find the right balance between social sharing, and social interaction. The result is a place that is growing in both capabilities and popularity, and drawing more and more non-conventional users to it.

This makes it a great time to be marketing yourself. Here are some tools to enhance your Instagram experience. With their help, you can use the service from your computer as opposed to just from a smartphone, schedule your posts, and more.

Latergram

The idea is pretty simple. You upload one or multiple images/videos from either the web or phone. You set a schedule so they are released as you want them to be. You can then get the images pushed to your phone, if you choose. You will get an alert just prior to scheduled posts publishing, so you can either change/erase the post, or verify it.

Because you have to authorize the publishing at the time it is scheduled, this is more a way of monitoring your posting calender than an autoposter. But for those who want more control, it is a great tool.

Schedugram

• Schedule Instagram updates from mobile


• Post and schedule Instagram updates from the web


• Multiple Instagram account support

Just want something super simple that schedules and auto-posts photos and videos, then lets you know? Then this one might be for you. Upload via you browser, manage multiple accounts, and allow multiple administrators access. Once the scheduled posts have been published, you get an emailed alert. So any time there it a problem, you will know right away.



Best of all, there is multiple upload support. So you can put a bunch of photos or videos on at once, edit the information like meta data, and then schedule them all at once. This is so much more efficient than doing it one by one.



Do you have any tips for running an Instagram account? Let us know in the comments!

Why Do Many Reconsideration Requests Fail?

There are several reasons a reconsideration request might fail. But some of the most common mistakes site owners and inexperienced SEOs make when trying to lift a link-related Google penalty are entirely avoidable. Here are some of the most common mistakes made when submitting reconsideration requests, and how you can prevent them.

1. Insufficient link data

This is one of the most common reasons why reconsideration requests fail. This mistake is readily evident each time a reconsideration request gets rejected and the example URLs provided by Google are unknown to the webmaster. Relying only on Webmaster Tools data isn�t enough, as Google has repeatedly said. You need to combine data from as many different sources as possible.

2. Missing vital legacy information

The more you know about a site�s history and past activities, the better. You need to find out (a) which pages were targeted in the past as part of link building campaigns, (b) which keywords were the primary focus and (c) the link building tactics that were scaled (or abused) most frequently. Knowing enough about a site's past activities, before it was penalized, can help you home in on the actual causes of the penalty. Also, collect as much information as possible from the site owners.

3. Misjudgement

Misreading your current situation can lead to wrong decisions. One common mistake is to treat the example URLs provided by Google as gospel and try to identify only links with the same patterns. Google provides a very small number of examples of unnatural links. Often, these examples are the most obvious and straightforward ones. However, you should look beyond these examples to fully address the issues and take the necessary actions against all types of unnatural links.



Google is very clear on the matter: �Please correct or remove all inorganic links, not limited to the samples provided above.�



Another common area of bad judgement is the inability to correctly identify unnatural links. This is a skill that requires years of experience in link auditing, as well as link building. Removing the wrong links won't lift the penalty, and may also result in further ranking drops and loss of traffic. You must remove the right links.

4. Blind reliance on tools

There are numerous unnatural link-detection tools available on the market, and over the years I've had the chance to try out most (if not all) of them. Because (and without any exception) I�ve found them all very ineffective and inaccurate, I do not rely on any such tools for my day-to-day work. In some cases, a lot of the reported "high risk" links were 100% natural links, and in others, numerous toxic links were completely missed. If you have to manually review all the links to discover the unnatural ones, ensuring you don't accidentally remove any natural ones, it makes no sense to pay for tools.



If you solely rely on automated tools to identify the unnatural links, you will need a miracle for your reconsideration request to be successful. The only tool you really need is a powerful backlink crawler that can accurately report the current link status of each URL you have collected. You should then manually review all currently active links and decide which ones to remove.



I could write an entire book on the numerous flaws and bugs I have come across each time I've tried some of the most popular link auditing tools. A lot of these issues can be detrimental to the outcome of the reconsideration request. I have seen many reconsiderations request fail because of this. If Google cannot algorithmically identify all unnatural links and must operate entire teams of humans to review the sites (and their links), you shouldn't trust a $99/month service to identify the unnatural links.



If you have an in-depth understanding of Google's link schemes, you can build your own process to prioritize which links are more likely to be unnatural, as I described in this post (see sections 7 & 8). In an ideal world, you should manually review every single link pointing to your site. Where this isn�t possible (e.g., when dealing with an enormous numbers of links or resources are unavailable), you should at least focus on the links that have the more "unnatural" signals and manually review them.

5. Not looking beyond direct links

When trying to lift a link-related penalty, you need to look into all the links that may be pointing to your site directly or indirectly. Such checks include reviewing all links pointing to other sites that have been redirected to your site, legacy URLs with external inbound links that have been internally redirected owned, and third-party sites that include cross-domain canonicals to your site. For sites that used to buy and redirect domains in order increase their rankings, the quickest solution is to get rid of the redirects. Both Majestic SEO and Ahrefs report redirects, but some manual digging usually reveals a lot more.

6. Not looking beyond the first link

All major link intelligence tools, including Majestic SEO, Ahrefs and Open Site Explorer, report only the first link pointing to a given site when crawling a page. This means that, if you overly rely on automated tools to identify links with commercial keywords, the vast majority of them will only take into consideration the first link they discover on a page. If a page on the web links just once to your site, this is not big deal. But if there are multiple links, the tools will miss all but the first one.



For example, if a page has five different links pointing to your site, and the first one includes a branded anchor text, these tools will just report the first link. Most of the link-auditing tools will in turn evaluate the link as "natural" and completely miss the other four links, some of which may contain manipulative anchor text. The more links that get missed this way the more likely your reconsideration request will fail.

7. Going too thin

Many SEOs and webmasters (still) feel uncomfortable with the idea of losing links. They cannot accept the idea of links that once helped their rankings are now being devalued, and must be removed. There is no point trying to save "authoritative", unnatural links out of fear of losing rankings. If the main objective is to lift the penalty, then all unnatural links need to be removed.



Often, in the first reconsideration request, SEOs and site owners tend to go too thin, and in the subsequent attempts start cutting deeper. If you are already aware of the unnatural links pointing to your site, try to get rid of them from the very beginning. I have seen examples of unnatural links provided by Google on PR 9/DA 98 sites. Metrics do not matter when it comes to lifting a penalty. If a link is manipulative, it has to go.



In any case, Google�s decision won�t be based only on the number of links that have been removed. Most important in the search giant's eyes are the quality of links still pointing to your site. If the remaining links are largely of low quality, the reconsideration request will almost certainly fail.



These were some most common reasons why reconsideration requests fail. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask in the comments section below. Cheers :)

What To Expect For SEO In 2015?

In the past, we have talked about how SEO changes every few months. What is a best-practice today might be frowned upon next year, hence SEO experts have to constantly readjust and re-analyze their strategies. According to Moz, there have been as many as 83 major search algorithm in the last 3 years. While we cannot predict what's next, we surely can look at trends and start heading in a new direction this year.

Mobile > Desktop

It was a trend an year or so ago. Now it's a reality. Go mobile, or go home - that's the mantra most businesses are now following. According to a study, 74% of mobile users used a search engine during their everyday purchasing process, with 83% wanting to make a purchase that day, and 55% within the hour. This means that your small business needs to focus on optimizing for mobile. Google is putting far more emphasis. It's about time you did the same.

Relationships vs Links

Relationships are the new backlinks. Your goal for successful SEO should be focused on creating meaningful relationships with industry influencers. Reach out to them and ask for their opinions. Identify opportunities to praise their viewpoints. Follow them through social channels and like, retweet, or +1 their updates. Just like you would in person, people are more apt to help you if you show sincere respect and appreciation towards them.

Semantic search

Keyword targeting is a thing of the past now. Semantic search refers to one way that the Google algorithms are changing. Google is starting to put a larger emphasis on the fact that users generally search in a conversational tone, so context is going to be more important than the specific keywords someone types in the search query box. This means that you need to start thinking about search queries and focusing on the context around the keywords you use in your content.

HTTPS > HTTP

In 2014, Google started giving a slight SEO boost to sites that were secure. Even though it might only affect 1% of global searches, we can definitely see the writing on the wall that this percentage will likely increase. Google has publicly said that they encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.

Author Rank

Google always tries to identify ways in which they can provide their users the best search experience as possible. One way that they believe they can accomplish this is by providing a way to grade writers. They do this through the use of the rel=author tag which has been in use since 2012.

It used to be that the determination of content being ranked was highly dependent on the site in which it was written on, and it still is to some extent. However, Google believes that if a writer has a great following and produces content that many people find valuable/interesting, then that content should rank higher regardless of the websites overall authority.

So in 2015 if you want your content to rank in Google, build your author authority now. If you need to learn more about how to build your authority, you can do that here.

Of course, there are still many SEO best practices that haven't changed and will not change in 2015. The question you should continue to ask yourself is: "How can I improve my website to offer more value to my visitors?" If you are continually working to do this, you will likely be rewarded as such in the Google search results.

Good luck :)

Pinterest Rolling Out Promoted Pins For Marketers

Pinterest is so much more than just sharing images. Think about it; people on Pinterest are more interested in what they want (probably in the future), as opposed to what they're doing (as on Facebook, Twitter etc.). And with Pinterest Guided Search, users can look through billions of pins to find things they've probably never seen before! This makes Pinterest the perfect tool for marketers. Pinterest has announced that it will now start rolling out promoted pins, so that marketers can fully benefit from the network.

Imagine looking for possible birthday gift ideas, or new home decorations, or even cooking up a new dish. Now imagine you're running an online gift shop, decorations store or a cooking channel. Pinterest is a great way for people to discover new things, and with the right effort, you can connect millions of new customers with your business.

Pinterest introduced the Promoted Pins feature a while back, but it was still in its beta. Starting with the new year, Pinterest has announced that it will be making the feature publicly available for all, so that more and more people can benefit from the power of advertising and connect with new audiences.

Starting January 1, �reservation-based� Promoted Pins will be available to all US users. The model is CPM-based, meaning that advertisers are charged based on the number of impressions of their promoted pins (i.e. how many people have seen a pin).

Why Promoted Pins?

• Promoted Pins perform as good or better than organic Pins.


• Brand advertisers achieved about a 30% bump in earned media from people who saw a Promoted Pin and saved it to one of their own boards.


• Promoted Pins are repinned an average of 11 times or higher.


• Promoted Pins continue to draw engagement from users even after a campaign has ended.


• Businesses outside of Pinterest�s core categories were successful with Promoted Pins.

In an effort to make itself even more of a useful marketing tool for businesses, Pinterest is introducing what it calls the �Pinstitute� � a new program for businesses to learn how to connect with users and see an even greater return on investment.

Through two tracks focused on creative and measurement, you can learn what kind of Pins perform well, what users care about and what kinds of products Pinterest will be rolling out in the future.

A select group of brands and agencies will be invited to attend quarterly Pinstitute workshops. If you�re not among that select group, Pinterest will also be rolling out a series of webinars and other online learning tools for small businesses.

Now might be a good time to get on the Pinterest marketers' bandwagon while it's still new :)