Many Lithuanian companies allocate their e-commerce marketing budgets out of sheer inertia. Annual strategies are dominated by the usual choice: if products need to be advertised online, investments are mostly directed only to Facebook and Instagram. This is understandable—for a long time, these were the main channels for reaching a mass audience.
In recent years, however, the internet has become a highly competitive environment for attention: shortening content lifecycles, ad overload, and constantly rising CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) are reducing the effectiveness of traditional social networks. Businesses are forced to pay more and more for the same number of user views.
As a result, it is not consumption itself that is changing, but its purpose—users are increasingly shifting from entertainment-driven browsing to situations where they are looking for solutions for a specific purchase.
The latest data from Statcounter, which measures website traffic generated by social platforms, reveals a new trend in Lithuania. Facebook confidently remains in first place, while Pinterest already outperforms both Instagram and YouTube in terms of referral traffic to websites.
These numbers do not reflect the popularity of the platforms in a general sense, but rather a transformation of the buyer’s journey—where buyers are actually coming from when they land on your website. This shift in traffic signals that the purchasing decision has moved from a passive content feed to an active search environment.
Why is Instagram losing ground in e-commerce, while Pinterest is growing in popularity?
To understand why the distribution of traffic is changing, one must understand the purpose for which users visit these platforms. Your return on ad spend (ROAS) depends directly on this. Today, the difference between Instagram and Pinterest is not the visual format, but the user’s intent.
Instagram and YouTube are dominated by entertainment content, videos, and fragments of personal life. The user comes here to pass the time or look for emotions, and your ad simply interrupts them. In these channels, brands must constantly buy the user’s attention, which is becoming more expensive every day.
Although Pinterest technically belongs to the category of social platforms, user behavior on it is much closer to a search engine than a traditional social network. People come here with a specific goal—they are visually planning their future purchases. This could be ideas for home renovation, terrace installation, a new season’s wardrobe, or gifts. A user looking for ideas on this platform is already halfway through the buyer’s journey. They are no longer looking for entertainment content; they are actively looking for what to buy and from whom. This channel often brings in users who are already actively searching for specific ideas or products for their upcoming purchase.
Shift in user behavior: The transition from passive content consumption to active search
This surge in traffic is not accidental—it directly coincides with the broader evolution of the internet and the era of AI search. Globally, users are tired of algorithm-dictated, feed-based content. Today, e-commerce is dominated by the intent-based model, where the buyer takes control into their own hands.
For the past decade, algorithmic feeds dominated, showing users what the platform thought might interest them. However, with growing information overload and generative noise, buyers are less and less tolerant of aggressive pushing and are increasingly taking control themselves—they no longer wait for content, but actively search for a solution.
In this context, Pinterest occupies a unique position because it acts as one of the first systems to combine search, inspiration, product discovery (discovery commerce), and purchase intent into a single process. When the internet gets tired of textual noise, the buyer makes a decision where they see a clear, structured visual catalog. This is a “visual Google” where the user forms the query themselves. Pinterest is one of the few platforms where advertising works not as buying attention, but as inserting targeted search results.
The Pinterest algorithm mechanics and long-term advertising value
The reason why this system manages to generate high-quality traffic to e-shops lies in the architecture of the platform itself. Unlike classic social networks, it operates according to search engine distribution rules.
When you upload a product or launch an ad, the system indexes it based on keywords and visual similarities. The algorithm does not evaluate short-term user engagement (likes or comments), but rather save signals (saves/re-pins) and actual clicks to the website.
This creates a so-called “evergreen” effect: your commercial or organic content does not disappear from sight after a few days. It remains ranked in the system and is continuously shown to new users as long as it matches their search queries. You are investing not in a one-time flash of attention, but in long-term visibility in search.
Which businesses actually benefit from this platform?
Some company executives still believe that Pinterest is only suitable for a few niches—for example, if you sell clothes or designer furniture. This is an outdated view.
The essential rule here is simple: if the buyer chooses your product with their eyes and buys it while planning ahead, this channel will work effectively.
Analytics data from Pinterest Trends shows that the platform captures spikes in user intent (intent signals) based on the number of saved ideas in specific e-commerce categories in the US: from fashion and event planning to interior design.
Undoubtedly, the fashion and interior categories are very strong here, but the platform’s users are actively looking for solutions in a wide variety of niches: from construction and finishing materials, car accessories to beauty products, healthy lifestyle products, holiday decor, or leisure activities. People come here to find products that they can later buy to implement their real-life projects.
Budget constraints in the market and the “Market Smart” alternative
Despite the fact that the platform already holds the second position after Facebook in terms of traffic, paid advertising on it is still characterized by low competition. This is due to specific agency restrictions that have formed in the market.
For a long time, the prevailing notion in the Lithuanian market was that to reach this audience, it was mandatory to work through the platform’s official large representatives. Since these partners focus on corporate clients, a high barrier to entry is naturally created for small and medium-sized businesses—in many cases, large minimal monthly budgets are required for initial campaigns. The business logic here is understandable—company managers do not want to risk significant amounts of money to test a completely unexplored channel at the very beginning.
Understanding this market gap, the Market Smart team created a process that allows Lithuanian companies to test this channel with significantly lower risk and without large initial investments. The client can choose the ad budget completely freely according to their capabilities, and professional campaign management, optimization, and technical e-shop preparation with our team starts from a service fee of €300/month.
This allows small and medium-sized businesses to safely step into a channel where it is currently still possible to reach a high-intent audience at a more competitive price than on overcrowded social networks.
Product category analysis: Who will win and who will lose in this channel?
This platform is not equally favorable to all product categories. The biggest winners are businesses operating in categories where the purchasing decision is visual and requires forward planning. These include furniture, interior details, finishing and construction materials, fashion, beauty products, jewelry, wedding and event supplies, DIY (do-it-yourself), and garden or landscaping goods. Companies in these niches that have a strong visual identity, a wider product catalog, and high-quality photos—and have taken care of technical data hygiene in time—are currently often achieving a more competitive traffic price than in more crowded advertising channels.
Market forecast: What will happen on the platform in 12–24 months?
Looking at the dynamics of e-commerce, the current situation on the Pinterest platform is a temporary window of opportunity. Based on the experience of other European countries and the evolution of similar channels (as happened with the expansion of the Google Shopping feature), we can predict clear steps in the near future.
As company interest grows, the auction will gradually fill up, and the cost-per-click will approach standard market rates. However, those businesses that test the channel and secure their positions today accumulate more historical campaign data and optimization signals. When your competitors just start entering the platform in two years, they will pay the maximum price, while you—with a trained algorithm and an optimized product feed—will maintain a much better return on ad spend (ROAS).
Businesses that test the channel and secure their positions today will have stronger historical authority and better quality scores in the eyes of the algorithms than those arriving in two years.
Technical requirements for an e-shop and integration steps
Paid advertising in this environment only yields a return when the e-commerce store meets the data requirements of search engines. Since this is a structured visual catalog, everything here is determined not by creative slogans, but by technical readiness:
- Your e-shop’s product feed must be directly connected to the platform. This ensures that product prices, images, and stock levels in the ad update automatically in real time, without manual work.
- Products must be presented in a vertical format (image ratio 2:3). The content must represent the product in a real context, as users are looking for adaptable ideas, not isolated objects on a white background.
- Conversion tracking (Pinterest Tag)—accurate installation of the tracking code is essential for training the algorithm. This allows the system to optimize delivery to those users who do not just look, but take real action—adding items to the cart and buying.
Conclusion
The biggest mistake today would be to treat Pinterest as just another separate social media channel. What is happening in Lithuanian e-commerce is a broader structural shift—users are gradually moving from the attention economy to the search and intent economy.
However, the successful introduction of a new channel only works when it is connected to the company’s overall strategy. The Market Smart team helps businesses not only exploit this early stage of Pinterest but also ensures that all your marketing elements—from technical readiness to Google, Meta advertising, and e-shop optimization—work seamlessly from a single source. We prepare your data infrastructure where real purchase intent is forming today, helping you grow sustainably.
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