Pinterest Begins Selling Paid Ads

Last year, Pinterest announced its plan to introduce paid ads and subsequently began testing the “Promoted Pins”. According to a post on Wall Street Journal, the four-year-old digital scrapbooking website is preparing to launch ad sales in the second quarter of the year.

Pinterest plans to make artful Web ads that people actually love, rather than the conventional web ads that urges people to click.At the moment, the company has refused to comment on price or who the first set of marketer will be. Pinterest plans to start with a select group of marketers who will be the first to pay for so-called “promoted pins” on the site, said Chief Executive Ben Silbermann.

Wall Street Journal also pointed that home décor site Wayfair, hotel chain Four Seasons and Unilever‘s ULVR.LN +1.32% TRESemmé and Hellmann’s brands are among the advertisers who have quietly tested promoted pins to date.

Since it launched in 2010, Pinterest has built a following of 40 million users in the U.S., mostly women, according to eMarketer, who post images on the site of anything that interests them