Social Media Marketing

Master’s Thesis
A Project report

Submitted

In partial fulfilment

For the award of the degree of

Master’s in business administration in Digital marketing

(MBA)

Supervisor: Submitted By:

Name: Name: Pallavi Jain

Designation: SID:2149064

Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur 302017

Certificate
This is to certify that this project entitled “-_________________________” submitted in
partial fulfilment of the degree of MASTER IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA) to
Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur, done by

Mr./Ms. “_Pallavi Jain_, Roll No. 2149064 is an authentic work carried out by him/her under
my guidance. The matter embodied in this project work has not been submitted earlier for
award of any degree or diploma to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature of the student

Signature of the Guide

Date
 Table of Contents

Introduction

The objective of the Thesis

Methodology

1. SOCIAL MEDIA

1.1 Web 2.0 and social media

1.2 Social-networking sites:

1.3 Pinterest:

Pinterest for business

1.5 Buyable Pins

1.6 Promoted Pins:

1.7 Pinterest Analytics for business accounts

2. MARKETING

2.1 Marketing Definition

2.2 Marketing Process

2.3 Digital Marketing

2.4 Social Media Marketing

2.5 Advantages of social media marketing

3. E-COMMERCE:

3.1 Categories of e-commerce

3.2 Business-to-Business (B2B)

3.3 Business-to-Consumer (B2C)

3.4 Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)

3.5 Benefits of e-commerce

3.6 Limitations of e-commerce

3.7 Drop shipping

3.8 Advantages of drop shipping

3.9 Disadvantages of drop shipping

4. INTRODUCTION OF THE COMPANY

4.1 GonChas.com

4.2 Situation analysis

4.3 Business

4.4 Competitors

4.5 Customers

4.6 Goals

4.7 Key Performance Indicators

4.8 Working of the website

4.9 Using google image search

4.10 Using AliExpress image search option

4.11 Contacting the Seller

4.12 Deciding the Price

4.13 Putting the item for sale:

5. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS:

5.1 Planning Marketing Strategy

5.2 Performance Measurement

5.3 Google Analytics Metrics

5.4 Pinterest Ad Metrics

5.5 Pinterest Advertising strategy:

5.6 Pinterest Business account:

5.7 Pinterest ad account

5.8 Pinterest Tag

5.9 Pinterest Advertising Plan:

5.10 Campaign objectives

5.11 Audiences

5.12 Optimization and delivery

5.13 Ad Formats and Placements

5.14 Promoted Pins

5.15 Promoted Carousels

5.16 Promoted video Pin

5.17 Campaign Launch and Evaluation

5.18 Traffic Campaign

5.19 Overall evaluation of the Traffic campaign

5.20 Influencer Marketing Campaign

5.21 Campaign launch and Evaluation

5.22 Overall Evaluation of Influencer marketing

5.23 Comparison of Pinterest ads and Influencer Marketing

CONCLUSIONS LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION

In the old days, advertising was done by conventional, non-targeted, and traditional ways
through magazines, television, radio, and direct email. These methods were not very effective
as it was hard to target specific buyers (Scott, 2010). The advent of the internet and social
media has changed the conventional marketing for good.

Social media has changed the strategies and tools for communicating with customers. It has
become one of the essential factors in influencing consumer behavior. Companies have
always fought for seeking consumer attention, and the advent of social media has provided a
new ground for it. The high competition has forced both companies and marketers to explore
new ways to reach their customers leading to the development of social media marketing.
Social media has become an integral part of our lives, and it has a significant factor in
influencing different aspects of our behaviors regarding purchases, opinions, evaluation, etc.

Also, the ease and low cost of internet marketing, as compared to the conventional ones, has
enabled businesses of all kinds to reach their target audiences more efficiently. Social media
sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. have changed the course of internet
marketing. The number of active monthly users on just Pinterest is over 250 million
(Pinterest, 2018). This number tells us how useful Pinterest and other social media platforms
can be for companies to promote their brand, products, and services. Social media also gives
its users the freedom and ability to review products and services that they use. This thing
helps in influencing other potential customers and also helps the company in getting useful
feedback about their product or service. It ultimately leads to improvement of
products/services and better customer experience.

The objective of the Thesis

The main objective of the thesis is to obtain knowledge and find best practices for doing
social media marketing focusing mainly on Pinterest. The issues concerning the targeted
audience, how to use the right tools, keyword selection, ad strategies and tactics, etc. are
also discussed. The theoretical part consists of literature review and detailed information
about Social media marketing. The second part will mostly deal with the practical application
of the knowledge and the experience of the author. Pinterest has been selected as the social
media marketing platform for the thesis.

One of the major reasons for selecting Pinterest is its interesting and novice concept (Kohler,
2019). While there is a large amount of writing about Pinterest in the popular trade and
marketing press, there has been little scholarly work so far. So, there is a need for more
scholarly work and research on Pinterest, as it is one of the fastest growing social media with
a lot of potential (Pew Research Center, 2012). This work will help marketers in planning and
implementing Pinterest marketing campaigns successfully. We will discuss Pinterest in more
detail in the first section of our thesis. The marketing plan consists of Pinterest advertising
campaigns for an e-commerce website. The idea is to use the knowledge and best practices
for Pinterest marketing and Pinterest ads and find out how they can be profitable for an e-
commerce website. Another important part of the study is the niche of the website. The niche
of the e-commerce website used for the study is women clothing and accessories. With this
niche website we got a more precise understanding of the Pinterest audience as 81 percent
of the users on Pinterest are women (Pinterest, 2018). The responses of customers were
monitored closely depending upon the type of ads, keywords used, demography and the
audience selected. This information collected was then used to find the best practices for
making maximum profit and get a higher return on investment, that was the main goal of the
website.

Methodology

Both primary and secondary data has been used in this thesis. The main difference between
a primary and secondary data is how, where and when it was collected. Secondary data is
the data that already exists and can be used in the investigation process to get more
knowledge about the study. The primary data is collected by the person doing the
investigation. This data is used for answering any research questions and to resolve any
problems related to the study. The first part of our thesis is comprised of data collected
through secondary sources including scientific articles, research papers, books, journals and
the Pinterest website.
The second part of the thesis comprises of both primary and secondary data. Primary data is
collected from the ad campaigns, performance of the website, customer base, etc. The
primary data includes number of saves, clicks, account follows, page views, conversion rate,
etc. These data will be collected directly from the e-commerce website used for this study.
These data are acquired by using different target audience that were separated according the
demographics, interests, etc. The website gonchas.com is an e-commerce website build on
WordPress and uses the “WooCommerce” plugin that allows to sell merchandise online. The
main idea of the website is to outsource less-expensive, good quality and viral items from
Chinese site Aliexpress.com and sell it on gonchas.com for a profit. The supply chain
management method used is known as Drop shipping. In this method the distributor ships
individual orders directly to the customer on the behalf of the online shop (Tarn et al., 2003).
Detailed information about drop shipping will be provided in the last part of the Literature
review.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA:

The aim of this chapter is to define social media and the role of different social media
platforms. The first part deals with defining the Web 2.0, social media and a brief overview of
how consumers adopt to new technologies and how different social media platforms emerge.
In the second part different types of social media, also referred as social networking sites –
SNS (Alloway & Alloway, 2012) will be introduced.

1.1 Web 2.0 and social media:

There are multiple ways to define media because of their complex nature and structure
(Grossberg L., 1998). Media has been described as broadcasting, cinema, encompassing
press and technology (Scannell P., 2002). Media can provide the target audiences with
required information, different views, monitor and critique those wielding power in a society,
which creates the opportunity for publicity (Grossberg L., 1998). It also makes profit for its
owners and meet the demands of its stakeholders such as marketers (Scannell P., 2002).

The origin of the term “Web 2.0” goes to „O‟Reilly Media Web 2.0‟ conference of 2004,
during this conference Tim O‟Reilly described the Web 2.0 phenomenon as business
embracing the Web as a platform and using its strengths for global audience (John R.
Graham, 2005). Tim O„Reilly (2007), states that a website need to fulfill 3 conditions in order
to be seen as a part of web 2.0. - The user shall be able contribute to the sites content by
her/himself. - The user shall have control over her/his information. - The websites design
shall be interactive and useful. Constantinides and Fountain (2008) took a different point of
view and defined Web 2.0 as: “a collection of open-source, interactive and user-controlled
online applications expanding the experiences, knowledge and market power of the users as
participants in business and social processes. Web 2.0 applications support the creation of
informal users’ networks, facilitating the ow of ideas and knowledge by allowing efficient
generation, dissemination, sharing and editing of the informational content.”

Web 2.0 gives businesses new opportunities to reach and stay in touch with their consumers,
learning their needs and opinions and also interacting with themdirectly in a personalized
way. According to another definition Web 2.0 is a platform whereby content and application
are no longer created by individual users, rather continuously modified by all the users in a
participatory and collaborative fashion (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Some of the most
important technical functionalities like Adobe Flash, RSS and AJAX allowed this change to
happen. So, it can easily be said that Web 2.0 is all about cooperation. Also, to some extent,
Web 2.0 technologies are the platforms on which the social media and user-generated
content have developed into a mass- market phenomenon (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).

The form of media that involves interactive participation is known as Social media (Manning
J. 2014). According to another definition, “websites and applications used for social
networking are known as social media” (Oxford Dictionaries 2012). Social media comprises
of social networks, as well as content-oriented networks (Euromonitor International 2010).
Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as, ‟a group of Internet-based applications
that are built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the
creation and exchange of user-generated content‟. The development of media has been
divided into two separate ages, the broadcast age, and the interactive age. Media was almost
exclusively centralized in the broadcast age. During this age, a single entity, e.g., a
newspaper or television station, or a movie production studio would distribute a message to
the masses.

The feedback process was often indirect, slow, and impersonal. Mediated interaction
between people usually took place on a much smaller level, often through personal letters,
telephone calls, etc. These definitions explore two central concepts in the present study: the
possibility to participate and the ability to share user-generated content, UGC, and these are
considered the essential characteristics of social media (Miel and Faris, 2008).

„Web 2.0‟ and „social media‟ are closely related and interdependent. As a consequence, they
are often used imprecisely and interchangeably however they are still different because of
their different meanings and different strategic implications (Berthon, 2012). An overview of
Web 2.0, social media and consumers can be seen in the following figure. It uses two
delineating dimensions of focus. The figure shows that Web 2.0 can be thought of as a
technical infrastructure that enables the social phenomenon of collective media and facilitates
user-generated content.

Figure 1: Web 2.0, Social media and Creative consumers

Source: (Berthon, 2012)

The advent of digital and mobile technologies has revolutionized the way people interact. The
interaction among individuals has become a lot easier than before. This revolution in the
media led to the birth of a new media age, where interactivity was placed at the center of all
media functions. Now a single individual could speak to many and get instant feedback.
Before the advent of interactive media, citizens and consumers did not had a voice, and now
they could share their opinions with many. All types of social media involve some digital
platform that can either be mobile or stationary. They all have two common characteristics
that define them. Firstly, every kind of social media allows some form of participation for its
users. Although some social media sites like Facebook allow passive viewing of posts from
other users but the person must have a profile created to be able to view posts from other
people. The second important characteristic of social media is its participatory nature; it
involves interaction. The interaction can vary depending on the person you interact with. It
can be established friends, family, acquaintances, or new people who share common
interests or common social circle (Manning, J. 2014). Social media is comparatively
inexpensive and accessible to make any individual publish or access information compared
to traditional industrial media, which generally require a lot of effort both in time and cost. This
has made it possible for a global audience to be able to share and publish information and
share opinions. Information can be published directly without the need for printing it, which
makes it a swift communication tool. Social media and social networks were actively used
under the Arab revolts in 2011 to communicate fast and spread updates efficiently to a large
mass of people (Kirkpatrick, 2011).

1.2 Social-networking sites:

The rise of social media gave birth to social networking sites (Tuten & Solomon, 2014). The
online communities that allow people to socialize and interact with each other are known as
social-networking sites (Dennis, 2010). These sites allow users to connect with other users
by creating personal-information profiles, inviting friends and family to gain access to those
profiles, sending messages and comments, etc. (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The personal
profiles can include various type of information about the users. It includes their names, date
of birth, photos, videos, audio files and blogs. In short, social networks emerge from the
ability of users to represent themselves and their interests and to network with other like-
minded users. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, VK, and Myspace are few
of the best-known social networking sites. Usage of social media networks produces
outcomes such as community building, content sharing and collaboration enhancement
(Spencer S., 2014).

Due to their popularity, the social-networking sites have made a significant impact on modes
of social communication (Hollenbeck, 2012). The number of people using social networking
sites is increasing very rapidly and at the time of writing this research more than 2.62 billion
people use social-networking sites (Statistica, 2019). Several researchers e.g. Kaplan
suggests that these social-networking sites have changed the social lives of many
individuals, especially the younger generation of internet users (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Accepting this huge potential, many companies are using these networking sites to support
their brands and increase their customer base (Muniz, 2007).

Facebook – Facebook is the largest social-networking site. It has over 2.32 billion monthly
active users worldwide (Statista, 2019). It was initially created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 for
the purpose of staying in touch with his fellow students at Harvard University. Facebook is a
free social-networking site that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and
videos, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues (Spencer S.,
2014). The average Facebook user spends almost one hour per day and the potential of
having successful marketing campaign is immense.

Facebook has developed an advertising platform that enables very accurate targeting.
Depending on the personal information of the user, marketers can choose which users that
will see the ad on Facebook. It can be divided by gender, geographic area, age, interests,
education, birthday, workplace, relationship status, language and connections (i.e. to specific
pages and groups). From a marketing perspective, Facebook offers a wide range of benefits
for marketers. Few of the most prominent benefits includes; Massive exposure on global
scale, Low marketing costs, sophisticated targeting tools, etc. (Spencer S., 2014).
Twitter – Twitter is a microblogging social networking site (short messages) which
encourages communication between users and their followers (Spencer S., 2014). Twitter
only allows users to “tweet” messages of 140 characters or less to their contacts. The contact
is known as followers. It is a unique way of communication that allows users to share ideas,
news, and hyperlinks to reach a wider audience.

It also helps professionals to broadcast a link to their blogs and send their tweets
automatically to their other social media applications (Fischer, 2011). In terms of marketing
and business, Twitter is one of the biggest marketing phenomena of the online business
world. As a marketing platform, it offers many benefits to a business Few of the core benefits
of marketing on twitter are: increased customer satisfaction with better customer service,
more effective communication with customers, increased traffic to the company website,
ability to follow trends and watch competitors closely, etc. (Fischer, 2011).

LinkedIn – LinkedIn is an employment and professional networking site that allows its users
to build their business and professional contacts into an online network. At the time of writing
this research, over 485 million registered users are on LinkedIn to exchange information,
maintain contacts and to share ideas (LinkedIn.com).

LinkedIn is often used for different purposes than a social networking site, if we see it from a
consumer’s perspective (Wagner, 2014). People use it to build their professional networks,
search for jobs and other information related to their career. For brands and marketers, it’s a
place to advertise jobs, events and white papers. In terms of marketing, LinkedIn is a
powerful platform to help any business in making quality connections. Some of the benefits of
LinkedIn as a marketing tool are: Lead generation, Networking with high notch professionals,
Increased exposure, Filtered results of professionals, etc. (Wagner, 2014).

Pinterest – Pinterest is one of the most popular social-networking sites, especially among
women. It has been described as “digital crack for women” (Dvorak, 2012); (Phillips, 2014). It
is one of the fastest growing websites in history (Pew Research Center, 2012). Within a few
years of its launch it was able to get over 11 million users. Also, the average visits to
Pinterest lasts approximately 97.8 minutes, that allowed Pinterest to be ranked higher than
most of the other social networking sites in terms of user engagement (Statistica, 2014). Due
to this high engagement rate and rapid growth, it attracted many users and brands. Pinterest
is a marketing force to be reckoned with, evolving on a steady basis to help brands deliver
more engaging content and reach the right customers (Weinroth, 2015). Few of the most
important benefits, Pinterest marketing offers, are: Increased awareness, high website traffic,
high user engagement, lead generation, etc.

Instagram – Instagram is a social networking site used for photo sharing from mobile devices
(Scott, 2013). There were approximately more than 77.6 million active Instagram users in the
United States in 2015. This number is projected to cross 111 million in 2019. It is most
popular among teens and young millennials. Globally speaking, 41 percent of the users are
24 years or younger. Because of the visual nature of Instagram, it is a very valuable social
media marketing tool. 98 percent of fashion brands had an Instagram profile as of March
2016 (Statista, 2019). All these numbers show that Instagram is a great tool for marketing,
and it offers a wide range of benefits to companies, in terms of marketing. Some of these
benefits include: better targeting of audience, as Instagram also uses the data from
Facebook, Instagram ads are non-intrusive and less likely to annoy the targeted audience,
Instagram has a higher engagement rate than most of the other social media platform, etc.
(Safko, 2012)
The number of social media users has shown a rapid growth in the last few years and is
projected to increase steadily. There are 3.175 billion active internet users in the world, out of
which, 2.206 billion are active social media users (Statista, 2019). In 2017, 71% of the total
internet users were social network users and this percentage is projected to increase. The
most popular activity among internet users is social networking and it has a high user
engagement rate. With social media penetration of over 66%, North America ranks first
among regions where social media is most popular (Statista, 2019). More than 81% of US
population had a social media profile in 2016.

Figure 2: Number of social media users from 2010 to 2021

Another important thing to consider, while discussing social networking sites, are the
platforms on which these social networking sites are used. Mobile and smartphones have
become the most popular devices for using social networking sites. The most popular
purpose of smartphone app usage other than gaming is using social media to connect with
other people (Jeff, 2014).

A report from comScore shows that both Facebook and Twitter users spend more time using
those networks on mobile devices than they do on traditional computers or laptops, also, it
was noted that the apps drive the majority of engagement on mobile devices- 4 out of every 5
minutes consuming media on mobile devices are via apps (Comscore, Inc. , 2012). An
average Facebook mobile user spends more than 7 hours per month while the 25.6 million
twitter mobile users had an average engagement of nearly 2 hours per month, in comparison
the people visiting twitter on their computers spent just 20.4 minutes (Forbes, 2019). As seen
in the below figure, the number of mobile phone users worldwide is steadily increasing and is
projected to reach 4.78 billion by 2020.

Figure 3: Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2015 to 2020 (in billions)

1.3 Pinterest:

The rise of visual content sharing sites has brought many changes in the social-media
landscape (Pew Research Center, 2012). The importance of visual content sharing in social
media can be realized from the explosive growth of the latest visual-content sharing sites
such as Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat – especially in an industry like fashion where the
main focus in on aesthetics and visual representations (Workman, 2007). In the current
landscape of social-media, many fashion brands are experimenting with the power of visual
content, using images and videos to build brand awareness and engaging consumers
(Wasserman T, 2012).

Pinterest has some unique terms that needs to be defined for a full understanding of the
platform and its working. The most common and important terms used are: Pin, Re-pin, and
Board. The Pin is the basic unit of Pinterest. It consists of an image or video with some
information about the source (either uploaded or taken from a website) and an indication who
saved it. The act of saving a „Pin‟ is called Pinning. Pinning can be done by clicking the “+”
button on the top right menu bar of Pinterest account. Clicking the “+” button will give you
options for adding a pin from a website, uploading a pin or creating a new board. Pinning can
also be done directly from a website by using the “Pin it” (or bookmarklet) button. The “Pin it"
button can be installed on a browser‟s bookmarks or favorites bar.
The term “Re-pin” is very easy to understand once you grasp what a pin is. Repining is done
by clicking the save button that appears when hovering over a pin. For organizing pins, a
user can make “Boards” in their account. Boards are defined by a title and a category. A user
can have either a public or a secret board. A public board allows any user on Pinterest to
access the pins inside it while a secret board is visible only to the creator. Boards are by
default public to all users on Pinterest. Secret boards can be made public at any time;
however, public boards cannot be changed to secret boards once they have been made
visible. There is also the option to make collaborative boards. This can be done by inviting
other users to contribute to a board from the edit board menu (Wishpond, 2019).
As a part of this visual content sharing trend, Pinterest is growing faster than any other
website reaching 100 million users in September 2015 (Pew Research Center, 2012).
Pinterest is basically a bookmarking site that was launched in 2009, allowing users to „pin‟
sites and content and „repin‟ it to their boards (Pinterest.com, 2019). or Users can either
upload content from their personal computer or other devices or save something directly from
a website. Women make the majority of the site with more than 81 percent registered female
users (Omnicoreagency, 2019). For marketers, Pinterest can be a destination for users to
discover and evaluate different brands.

Pinterest can be defined as “a social networking site where any web image or personal digital
image can be posted („pinned‟) to a digital scrapbook, where it can then be viewed by the
public” (Phillips, 2014). During the initial phase of its launch, Pinterest was invitation-only, and
it became the fastest site in history to reach high user engagement with 10 million unique
monthly visitors (Pinterest - Statistics & Facts, 2019). It has since become the third most
visited social network after Facebook and Twitter.

Within a few years of its launch, it became the third most visited social network with
approximately 53 million users. Pinterest is ranked higher than most of other social network
sites in terms of user engagement (Pinterest - Statistics & Facts, 2019). The average time a
visitor spends per month on Pinterest is approximately 97.8 minutes (Pinterest - Statistics &
Facts, 2019). Pinterest is most popular among women who make 81 percent of the total
users (Omnicoreagency, 2019). These figures highlight the intense engagement likely to be
experienced by female users. Also, the highest share of Pinterest users was observed to be
between 18 to 34 years (Pinterest - Statistics & Facts, 2019).

Pinterest is primarily a visual content sharing platform unlike most of the other social media
networks where people typically share text-based content. Pinterest views itself as a virtual
pin board where people can share visual things of interest like photos, bookmark images,
comment on photos and generate conversations around a visual centerpiece (Jacques A,
2012). “Repining” is the action taken to repost some image you like on Pinterest, it is
compared to the action of someone re-tweeting on Twitter or sharing a post on Facebook. A
lot of brand advertisers, online retailers, bloggers and website owners have embraced
Pinterest because the images or content posted on Pinterest tend to have a longer shelf-life.

This means that the products or the posts shared on Pinterest steer consumers to the
product or website for a longer time than any other social media. Pictures pinned on Pinterest
stays there driving traffic to the website until it is removed by the owner (Phillips, 2014).
Pinterest can be called the leader in the area of social and E-commerce due to its high user
engagement and high conversion rates (Phillips, 2014). Some of the famous topics on
Pinterest are Fashion, Home, Garden and do-it-yourself segment (DIY).
 1.4 Pinterest for business

Pinterest offers a special type of account for businesses and companies. These accounts are
known as Pinterest business account. They enable a company or business to get access to a
wide range of tools for promoting their brand and getting insights about their performances.
Pinterest for business is a free service that aims to help companies and businesses expand
their customer base and to keep existing ones. The business accounts come with analytics
tools that give valuable information about the audience they interact with. This information
includes the interest, demographics, devices used, etc.

Another important feature of „Pinterest for business‟ is the ability of account holder to do paid
promotion. This feature is known as “Promoted Pin”. Promoted pin involves paying Pinterest
for reaching a target audience. It has been discussed in the coming section. Pinterest proves
to be a very helpful platform for businesses even without using the paid services. According
to an American research, Pinterest is one of the best channels to increase the number of
visitors to a website and the users of Pinterest buy more than the users of any other social
media platforms (Niñofranco, 2018). These options will be used the practical part of the
study, so it is important to explain them in more detail. Some of the most notable promotional
options Pinterest offers are: Buyable Pins and Promoted Pins. The have been discussed
below.

1.5 Buyable Pins

Pinterest has introduced „Buyable Pins‟ for its users in USA. „Buyable pins‟ are basically
products that you can purchase directly from Pinterest without getting redirected to the
merchant‟s website. The „Buyable Pins‟ have a „Buy it‟ button next to the image. This service
is only available in USA and Pinterest only works with a few big brands (Pinterest, 2019).
However, there are more than 2 million products on Pinterest that you can buy by going on
the vendors website (Mangalindan. JP, 2015). One of the biggest benefits of „Buyable Pins‟
is the fact that people feel more safe shopping from Pinterest than from some website they
don‟t know. Registering and setting up “Buyable Pins‟ is completely free for companies. Only
the payment goes through Pinterest, the rest of the things, like shipping, customer service
and other things related to the delivery of the item are the responsibility of the vendor.
Customers can use their Apple Pay or credit cards for doing the purchase securely (Pinterest,
2019).

1.6 Promoted Pins:

If a company wants to reach a wider audience, they can do it by paying Pinterest to promote
their pins. These promoted images are known as Promoted pins. They look exactly the same
as normal pins. For promoting, Pinterest gives the option of creating advertising campaigns
for the business accounts. The company or the business needs to start by defining the
campaign goals, set daily budget and the total budget. Once these are decided, an image or
pin needs to be selected for promotion. Next step involves selecting the targeted audience.
There are many options available to target the audience e.g. keywords, demography, device,
gender, language, etc. Once all these steps are followed the pin is ready for promotion. The
campaign runs until the daily budget is reached. Promoted Pins are available in 7 countries
for now. They include United States, Unite Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, Ireland and
New Zealand.

According to a study made by Ahalogy about consumer attitudes towards Promoted pins, the
awareness of the advertisements has increased by 12 percent compared to last year, but
most of the users have not seen any advertisements. Those who have seen the
advertisements have been neutral towards them. Pinterest users do not consider the ads as
annoying as the ads perfectly mix with the normal pins and hence does not harm the user
experience, rather users called it more relevant content (Ahalogy, 2015). Half of the active
users have clicked on the Promoted pins to retrieve more information about the product and
about 40 percent of them have made a purchase (Ahalogy, 2015). The most popular
categories for shopping are fashion and clothing, arts and crafts. Also, the study found that
man is more likely to click on promoted pins and make a purchase (Ahalogy, 2015).

1.7 Pinterest Analytics for business accounts

All the business accounts get access to Pinterest analytics. Pinterest analytics is a tool that
enables the account holder to analyze the reach of their account and gives valuable insights
about the users the account interacts with. The information includes the location, interests,
devices used, age and gender. It also allows the user to track the number of visitors to the
account and to the websites. This information can be utilized to find out the type of content
visitors are more interested in. It also gives information about other interests of the visitors,
that the company might not know. This can help the company in increasing the overall
engagement by diversifying the content according to the interest of its users.

Figure 4: Average monthly engaged Average monthly users

The above figure gives insights about the audience interacting with the author‟s account. The
average monthly viewers mean the number of viewers who have seen any of the content
share on author‟s account (Shivar, 2018). The average monthly engaged means the number
of viewers who got engaged with any of the shared content on author‟s account. The
engagement can vary from mere liking, sharing to click the image and going to the target
website (Shivar, 2018).

The below figure shows the audience insights. It is a new feature added by Pinterest recently.
The first part of the figure shows the location of the audience. It is showing the percentage of
users residing in a specific country, for instance, 49% of the users interacting with the
author‟s account resides in the USA. This information can be used for deciding what products
should be promoted depending on the user‟s location. The second part of this figure shows
the devices used by this audience. For the given audience mobile devices are being used
more than desktops. This is also very useful information for the marketer as it helps in
deciding what type of website or content should be promoted to suit this audience, for
instance, if a website has to be promoted on this account it should be responsive, to make it
more mobile friendly.

Figure 5: Location and Devices used by GonChas‟s audience

The below figure shows the age and gender distribution of the audience. The chart shows
that more than 80 percent of the audience is female. So, this information can also be used by
the account holder to focus more on content related to women, women products and
services.

Figure 6: Age and Gender of GonChas‟s audience

The below figure gives information about the most popular categories and related interests of
the audience. This is one of the most important information as it tells what your audience is
interested in or what content do, they like or share.

Figure 7: Categories and Interests of GonChas‟s audience

2. MARKETING:

What is marketing? Most of us think that marketing is only about selling and advertising, but it
is more than that. We see a lot of television commercials, promotional messages,
advertisements, sales calls and online advertisements on the websites we browse. These are
all part of marketing, but they are just the marketing iceberg (Philip Kotler, 2015). In this
chapter the author will define marketing and highlight its importance for a business.
 Figure 8: The Marketing Iceberg

2.1 Marketing Definition:

Marketing has several definitions but the one widely accepted and approved by the American
Marketing Association in 2013 defines marketing as: “The activity set of institutions, and
processes for creating communication, delivery, and exchanging offerings that have value for
customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” (American Marketing Association, 2013).
The function of a business that deals with customers is Marketing. It aims at creating value
and satisfaction. Hence marketing can also be defined as managing profitable customer
relationship (Philip Kotler, 2015). The two basic goals of marketing are to attract new
customers and to keep and grow the current customers by delivering value and satisfaction. It
is very critical for the success of any business. Successful companies know that if they take a
good care of their customers, profits and market share will follow. Management guru Peter
Drucker (1954) emphasized on the importance of marketing by saying:

“Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all. It
encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its
final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. Concern and responsibility for
marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise . . . Marketing is the
distinguishing, the unique function of the business.” Another definition proposed by two major
professional marketing bodies, focused more on the process of marketing, is: “Marketing is
the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large
(Approved October 2007 AMA Board of Directors). On contrary, Chartered institute of
Marketing, sees Marketing as a management process, they define Marketing as: “Marketing
is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer
requirements profitably” (Chartered Institute of Marketing).

We can see marketing in the advertisements that plays on our televisions, radios, magazines,
letterbox, online websites, etc. (Philip Kotler, 2015). Simply put, we can say marketing is
managing profitable customer relationship and its aim to create value for customer and
capture value from customer (Gary Armstrong, 2015). In the recent years, businesses have
adopted a host of new marketing approaches, from imaginative websites to social networks
to smartphone apps. These methods have been very successful as they approach each
customer directly and personally. The businesses today want to be a part of your life and
want to make their brand a part of your life (Gary Armstrong, 2015). In 1960, Jerome
McCarthy introduced the world his unique idea of marketing mix – widely known as the 4 Ps;
Product, Price, Place and Promotion. This idea is still valid and plays an important role in
formulating and implementing marketing strategies. The idea of 4 Ps was later extended and
developed into 7 Ps with the addition of People, Process and Physical evidence (Booms and
Bitner, 1981).

2.2 Marketing Process:

According to Philip Kotler marketing comprises of five steps (Philip Kotler, 2015). The first
four steps comprise of the process of understanding customer needs and wants, designing a
marketing strategy, constructing marketing programs for communicating and delivering value,
and building strong customer relationship. The last step comprises of taking value from
customers and making profit. So, in short, the business creates value for the customer and in
return takes value from the customer in the form of sales, profits and long-term customer
equity (Philip Kotler, 2015).

Figure 9: Marketing process

Human need is the most basic concept underlying Marketing. These needs include physical
needs for food, clothing, warmth and safety; individual need for knowledge and expression;
social need for belonging and affection (Gary Armstrong, 2015). When any of these needs is
not satisfied a person will either try to reduce the desire or look for something that will fulfil it.
The way people behave in such situation depends on their society. In a less developed
society people might try to reduce their desire while in an industrial society people might try to
develop or find objects that can satisfy their needs (Philip Kotler, 2015).
The needs and demands of people are satisfied by products or services. The products or
services comes as a combination of goods, experiences and services that can be offered to
satisfy the need or want of a market. The word product usually suggests a physical object
such as a house, car, iPhone, soap or a chocolate bar. But the concept of product is not
limited to only physical goods; anything that can satisfy any need of a person can be called a
product. So, the ultimate goal of buying a product does not lie in just owning them rather it
lies in the benefit and value they provide. People buy food to satisfy their hunger. We buy a
car not to admire its utility, but because it transports us from one place to another (Gary
Armstrong, 2015).

Marketing is a collective process where individuals or groups can exchange goods and
services based on their needs and wants (Philip Kotler, 2015). The act of obtaining a desired
object from someone by offering something in return is called Exchange (Gary Armstrong,
2015). It is the core concept of marketing, whereas transaction is the marketing unit of
measurement. Transaction basically involved the exchange of values between two parties.
There have to be two or more parties where one party gives X to another party and gets Y in
return (Gary Armstrong, 2015). Marketing involves bringing about profitable customer
relationship by managing markets. Creating these relationships takes time and hard work.
Business have to find their target customers, identify their needs, make good market
offerings, decide reasonable prices, advertise them and deliver them. The core marketing
activities can be summed up as consumer research, product development, communication,
distribution, pricing and service (Philip Kotler, 2015).

2.3 Digital Marketing:

The concept of Digital marketing has expanded and brought more opportunities for
companies to reach their current and potential customers. Digital marketing shouldn‟t be
mixed up with internet marketing. Digital marketing is a broader term as it is beyond internet
marketing. In addition to channels like social media, search engines, display, etc. it also
includes other digital media like mobile phones, television and radio (Lexicon, 2017). Digital
marketing has been defined as marketing that is done through platforms such as websites,
email, apps, and social networks, that are accessible with electronic devices such as
computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. (Singh O, 2017). (Smith K, 2012) defines digital
marketing as a way of promoting products and services through digital channels by
computers, smartphones, mobiles and digital devices. The aim of these platforms is to reach
e-commerce transactions and to build a strong customer relationship while retaining current
customers and acquiring new ones (Smith K, 2012). Digital marketing is very essential for
any company these days as it‟s the fastest way to spread any message to any corner of the
world with internet access. It‟s a two-way communication between a company and its
customers, as you not only convey a message or product to your customer, you also can get
a direct feedback from them (Leeflang P., 2014). Moreover, the digital channels used
frequently by companies are their website, email and social media account (Leeflang P.,
2014).

Based on the understanding of marketing, Internet marketing can be defined as the

marketing of products and services via internet. Ward defines internet marketing from an
application perspective: “Internet marketing refers to the strategies that are used to market a
product or service online, marketing strategies that include search engine optimization and
search engine submission, copywriting that encourages site visitors to take action, web
design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal linking, and email marketing” (Ward, 2000). It
is used as a communication channel for doing direct marketing. Since its invention, it has
proved to be a very useful and effective marketing tool. In the beginning it was used just a
channel to communicate with customers through emailing and getting response from them,
but it has evolved from those days. It has helped businesses target their potential customers
on a more personal level (Kotler, 2003). Another definition says, „The online marketing is a
way of leveraging the internet by conveying a message in order to move people to take some
action‟ (Shama & Brogan, 2012). It is also a means for determining potential product and
price structures and this process is understood as internet marketing research.

According to (Fishkin, 2017) the most widely used online communication channels are as
below:
 Online websites
 Social Media platforms
 E-mails
 Search Engine Marketing – including pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization
(SEO)
 Display Advertising
 Online Public Relations
 Affiliate Marketing

Inside the field of Internet Marketing there are several other terms that are used as synonyms
to describe related concepts. For instance, E-commerce involves the concept of sales and
purchase taking place using the internet or through electronic means (Abhijit Chaudhury,
2002). It means the term E-commerce describes more the transactional technical aspect of
the business while internet marketing focuses on all managerial and technical activities that
leads to the transaction. Internet marketing mostly focuses on the paid, public and non-
personal representation or announcement of a message by a firm or sponsor to the existing
or potential future customers (Dreze X. & Hussherr, 2003).

Internet has provided a lot of possibilities for the marketers, before the arrival of internet,
companies had to spend a lot on advertising to attract potential customers (Scott, 2009).
Internet has a very high influence on the lives of people, it has shaped the way people make
decisions, the way they interact with each other and the way they do business (Sharma,
2011). The traditional rules of marketing do not comply anymore. Customers have moved
online, so the marketers have to do the same in order to reach them (Scott, 2009). This shift
from traditional marketing to internet marketing can be understood in the perspective of old
media and new media because the traditional marketing in done mostly through old media
and internet marketing uses the new media. Old media are the form of ways people tried to
communicate, advertise, and influence each other, mostly during the 19th and 20th century
e.g. newspapers, radio and television (Saltzman, 1999). While the new media includes
internet websites, videogames, virtual reality and other (Manovich, 2003).

(Shama & Brogan, 2012) has mentioned three main difference that separates old media from
the new media: The old media channels were one-way: The advertisements in the old
media were one way. It was not possible to react or share opinion about them. Simple
targeting: The target audience selected use to be more homogenous, it included a wide
audience with various interests, purchasing habits and opinions. Dominance of main stream
media: It was not easy to access information for general public, so the main source of
information was the mainstream media and people trusted mainstream media outlets. The
shift to digital marketing from traditional marketing is very significant and it changes the focus
of entire advertising industry. In the graphs below, a visible downwards trend can be seen in
consumer media consumption share of old media (Television, Radio and Print).

Figure 10: US consumer media consumption share

As seen in the above figure, there is a clear shift in the trend from old media to digital media.
The old media, television and radio, consumption is showing a decline from the year 2009
onwards while the digital media consumption is showing a steady increase. Also, the print
media consumption has shown a steep decline. The shift in the consumption of media has
opened new gateways for digital marketers. Because of these changes the world has
transitioned into a digital environment and for every business, it is imperative to have a
website and use web as a means to interact with their customers. There are some successful
traditional marketing strategies, especially if you are reaching a largely local audience, but it
is very important to take advantage of digital marketing so as to keep up in today‟s world.
This information is very useful for any marketers to decide which media platform to focus
depending upon the targeted audience and evolution of the media consumption trends.

Figure 11: Media consumption for US consumer

Other important thing to consider, while discussing the media consumption, is the way people
access media. As seen in the graph above, the digital segment of media has been divided
into Desktop and Mobile. This division clearly shows that there is downward trend for desktop
consumption and a sharp increase in the mobile consumption. This gives valuable
information for the marketers to plan and optimize their marketing campaigns and
advertisements according to the type of devices used. Also, it helps companies to keep up
with the rapidly changing trends and media consumption preferences of their consumers.
These rapid changes in terms of the media usage and the new technology in the industry,
puts pressure on the marketing professionals. 76% of the marketers believe that the industry
has changed more in the past two years as compared to the past 50 years. The traditional
marketing methods does not work as it used to before, therefore the marketers need to adapt
and broaden their portfolio of skills by including digital marketing (JURAN, 2017). In short,
digital marketing is the 21st century tool of marketing. It has many benefits over the traditional
marketing, for instance, it is more interactive for reaching both local and global audience, the
data is available immediately and results are much easier to measure, social media enable
companies to communicate directly with consumers and build a good relationship with them,
it allows 24/7 marketing and captures the most energetic crowd, etc. (Santanu & Dr. Gouri,
2016). So, all these benefits make digital marketing a very attractive and important part of
marketing for any company.

2.4 Social Media Marketing

There has been a shift in the way people use social media (Schaffer, 2013). Nowadays,
social media is being used by people and businesses to communicate and seek information
for their professional and private uses (Schaffer, 2013). This shift in the usage of social media
is a big opportunity for business to learn about the needs of users and influence them to
make “purchase decisions” (Rad, 2011). Businesses can actually analyze the growing
amount of data that is available to everyone publicly in different social media platforms, the
“big data” and learn from it (Schaffer, 2013). This data can give the business very useful
information about their customers, markets, partners, costs, competition and operation
(Russom, 2011). Social media networking has emerged and expanded over the years and it
has provoked marketers and managers to use this networking as a part of their marketing
communication (Kim & Wang , 2017). Some researchers have described social media as way
to connect or interact with current and potential customers with the main aim of maintaining
or building a relationship (Felix R., 2017).

There are many benefits of using social media as a marketing tool as opposed to using
traditional marketing tools. One of the benefits is the ability to find your target potential
customers and reach them in a personalized way. This is done by targeting buyer‟s niche
directly with specific information that meets their needs (Scott, 2013). So, in short, the term
“social media marketing” is defined as the marketing technique that involves usage of the
social media network and social media website to market some products or services. Social
media marketing can also be defined as the use of the platform that makes connection
between the brand and the consumers while at the same time providing channel for user-
centered networking and interaction (Chi, 2011).

Social media marketing provides the companies multiple ways to reach out to a large
audience where they are capable of attracting new potential customers and interact with the
existing ones (Harrysson, 2012). For reaching their target audience and potential customers,
businesses use a wide range of marketing strategies and tactics. These strategies and tactics
allow them to reach their potential customers in a more personalized way (Hays, 2013).
Through social media marketing companies are able to interact with their audience by
choosing the demographics, geography and other personal information that allows them to
reach the audience with specific characteristics. Also, by practicing segmentation of the
obtained data, the company can make sure they have reached their target audience (Hays,
2013).
Social media marketing is one of the most powerful type of marketing on the internet at the
moment (Gruber, 2014). One of the many reasons for a business to be marketing through
social media is that your customers are spending time on these channels. According to
Statista, 77% of US population has at least one social media profile (Statista, 2019). With so
many consumers using social media every day, this presents a great opportunity for small
businesses who want to reach their online audience. Another reason why consumers may be
more receptive to your brand message on social media is because social media allows a two-
way communication and show a different side of your brand.

On social media, you are able to make authentic connections with your leads and customers,
rather than just delivering direct marketing messages. (Gruber, 2014). Social media is a great
tool to influence, attract and engage customers efficiently. Engagement is the most important
part of social media marketing as it turns strangers into friends (Eid and El-Gohary, 2013).
The term “engagement” is very beneficial for marketing as the customers do not just click to
read a message, rather they react by commenting, sharing and liking those messages
(Agresta, 2010). Marketers should understand that it is very important to make a virtual
community where the consumers have freedom to give feedback, spread our information,
marketing messages and promotional advertisements rather than just reading and listening
passively without the ability to give some input (Agresta, 2010). Social media is based on the
modern concept of “social interactions”, that means the community is built on multiway
conversations; between brand and customers and significantly between customers and
customers. This “social interaction” concept has proved to be more productive than the
traditional concept of “word of mouth” (Bock, 2016). Mass communication has also been
replaced by “person-to-person” communication as people tend to hear and believe whom
they know well (Agresta, 2010). Some of most important components of social media
marketing as mentioned above are the use of social media platforms for encouraging users to
spread social media marketing content via social media marketing activities such as
interaction, personalization, sharing, etc. (Rahman, 2017).

Social media marketing is an effective process by which companies build a strong

relationship with customers, communicate with them and deliver online marketing offering via
social media platforms (Rahman, 2017). Another unique thing about social media marketing
is that it focuses on people, not product (Diamond, 2008). Products or services can be
presented with many qualitative features and promotional tools but what really matters are
the comments and appreciations left by the customers about the product or service, and this
is the reason social media marketing is so different and challenging for marketers. It is not the
marketers or the company that controls the marketing, it‟s the customers and users who do it
through social media. Both negative and positive word of mouth can be spread across the
globe in just a matter of minutes through social media. That is why marketers needs to
recognize the power of the critical nature of the conversations being hold by consumers using
social media. As a consequence, the ability of influencing the crowd effectively is what is
required from the marketers in the current era (Evans, 2008).

A company can benefit from social media marketing in a lot of ways. By arranging marketing
campaigns, a company can reach a bulk audience. The bulk audience is not limited to
customers only, rather it can include stakeholders, employees, bloggers and potential
customers (Shaik, 2012). Another benefit of social media marketing is the wider reach. The
resources on social media channels are larger and wider as compared to offline sources.
Social media also brings transparency in the company. The company associated with social
media marketing is forced to be transparent as the social media attracts a huge audience that
is directly or indirectly linked or associated with the company (Sánchez Abril, 2012). Also, the
people associated with the company wants to know each and everything about the company
(Lacoste, 2016). Another important thing about social media marketing is the marketers can
listen, track and measure what is being shared on social media sites and use this data for
improving the product or services and tuning everything according to customer‟s needs.
Using the social media analytics and metrics, the impact of social media on a company‟s
marketing strategy, can be measured relatively easily. Another important type of social media
marketing is Influencer marketing. Influencer is not a new phenomenon, people are being
influenced by other people since the beginning of humanity.

Whether it has been for religious, political or way of life, there have always been leaders that
directed and affected the decisions, way of thinking and opinions of others. Katz and
Lazarsfeld stated within their two-step flow communication theory, that these are the people
who have the ability to spread information to others and thus gives more meaning and value
to the information (Katz. E., 2005). Therefore, influencers are „people who possess greater
than average potential to influence others due to attributes as frequency of communication,
personal persuasiveness or size of a social network (Non Business Advisor, 2015). Keller
and Berry define influencers according to the number of followers and their reach. For them
„influencers are well connected (and) have a significantly larger number of groups than the
average‟ (Jonathan & Edward, 2003). De Veirman defines social media influencers as
„content creators‟, which involves them sharing personal information, opinions, experiences
and inviting others into their everyday life through online communities (De Veirman, et al.,
2017).

Many studies show that the purchase decisions of people are more affected by their closest
surroundings and their living environment than by any classic marketing approach (Kempe, et
al., 2003). People trust their friends and their recommendations for making a purchase. The
Word-of-Mouth marketing association revealed that „13 percent of all consumer sales are the
result of word-of-mouth sharing‟. Influencers have got the same power of persuasion as they
are followed by a huge audience and trusted by them. In terms of the social media, Social
media influencers are known as individuals that others view as a valid source to what to
purchase (Tuten & Solomon, 2015).

Influencer marketing has become essential within brands marketing strategies as customers
are relying more on the opinion of others when it comes to purchase something (Veirman, et
al., 2017). Also, influencer marketing, enables brands to reach a wider and targeted audience
in a faster and less expensive way as compared to other forms of advertising (Evans, et al.,
2017). 85 percent of the U.S. companies are implementing influencer marketing in their
marketing strategy (Roy. A, 2016). According to eMarketer the most effective marketing
strategy is sponsored social messages transmitted through a person with a great online
audience: an influencer (Inc. C.em. and Reserved, 2015).

With the rise in the number of influencers, it is very crucial for brands to find the right
influencer. De Veriman (2017) mentions how identifying influencers is a matter of reachability
through the number of followers, while Araujo (2017) believes it‟s the impact and diffusion of
the communicated message that matters. In De Veriman‟s views opinion leaders as the de
facto influencer. Araujo (2017) considered celebrities and public figures as the high reach
influencers. Khamis (2016) refers to influencers as micro-celebrities. In the view of the earlier
theories and concepts, two different types of influencers can be determined, depending on
their characteristics. The below table gives an overview of how two types of influencers have
been separated.

Table 1: Media consumption for US consumer

The major difference between the two is not only their characteristics but also the way
through which their fame is created (De Veirman, et al., 2017). A micro-celebrity is actively
seeking fame by promoting their own personal brand to create a following (Kapitan & Silvera,
2016). While, an opinion leader gets famous as a result of their actions rather due to the need
of being famous (De Veirman, et al., 2017). The difference can also be seen in the type of
content they choose to share. A micro celebrity will post a lot of content focused on
themselves, their lifestyle, their hobbies (Khamis, et al., 2017). On the other hand, the
majority of the content share by an opinion leader is not focused on themselves rather on
their specific interest and knowledge (De Veirman, et al., 2017). In short, opinion leader is
detached from the content, whereas for micro-celebrity, their personality is their content. So,
these characters are helpful for brands in selecting the appropriate influencer.

Pinterest has a different nature as compared to other social media platforms. It is not a place
where you simply search for people who have many followers or short-term engagement.
Pinterest is different in terms of the engagement and the user response. When a content is
posted on Pinterest, it continues to be visited, looked at, repined well into the future and the
traffic keep on coming for a long time unlike any other social media platform.

On Pinterest, content lives forever. According to wisemetrics, the half-life of a tweet – that is,
the time in which you get 50 percent of all the clicks and views – is approximately 24 minutes.
While on Facebook, a post has only 90 minutes of half-life at best (wisemetrics, 2019). The
half-life of Pinterest is 3.5 months. This means a single pin lasts approximately 1,680 times
longer than a Facebook post (Kohler, 2019). As a result, for doing successful influencer
marketing on Pinterest, brands should focus on somebody who is skillful in amplifying pins
through their Pinterest and should not focus on short term engagement. Like any other social
media platform, Pinterest relies heavily on its micro-influencers. For Pinterest, micro-
influencers are those users who have established a solid reputation for pinning relevant, eye-
catching, interesting content to a board about a particular niche. They usually have small
number of followers (500 – 5000) but have a strong loyalty with these followers. Other
important part of Pinterest is its macro-influencer. Macro-influencers are those who have as
many as 10,000 to 1,00,000 followers. They are often content producers, who have larger
followings brought over from where they originate their content.
Influencer marketing on other social media, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. focuses
on people following those whom they recognize as a key influencer in a niche. The focus is
mainly on the outreach of the individual influencer and their ability to engage their followers.
The general thought about these influencers is the sense of trust that the followers put in
them. So, if they promote a product then their fans will feel that the product must be good.
So, in short, the content is less relevant for these social media platforms. With Pinterest, it is
the content that is important. If an influencer creates a high-quality image, it could well be
found six months later by somebody searching on Pinterest. In this situation, the person who
posted this content is not important anymore, it is the content that has to stand up by itself.
So, the focus of brands, engaging in influencer marketing on Pinterest, should be more on
the content (influencermarketinghub, 2018). There are a number of websites that brings the
brands and influencers together. Hellosociety.com and Openininfluence.com are two of the
famous influencer marketing platforms for getting in contact with Pinterest influencers.

After collaborating with an influencer, it is important to focus on measurable data to evaluate

the results and the outcomes on the collaboration. The most common way to measure the
results is through return-on-investment (ROI) calculations (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). Hoffman
and Fodor view ROI for social media as something different than the traditional ROI. They are
of the view that social media is about long-term investment in building your brand and
creating awareness. To measure the results of your influencer marketing campaigns, (Barker,
2016), recommends analyzing the reach, engagement, impressions, and conversions of the
influencers‟ marketing message.

2.5 Advantages of social media marketing

Social media marketing offers a wide range of benefits for businesses. These advantages
enable companies to get great insights of their customers that can help them in expanding
and improving their businesses. Social media marketing allows the businesses to fill the voids
left in traditional marketing practices (Okazaki S. and Taylor, 2013). This enable companies
to reach a broader audience. On social media platforms, people share the things they like,
and companies get huge benefits from these shares. These shares can be a company‟s
products, services, etc. (Caruth, 2016).

The basic strategies of traditional marketing as marketing mix, social responsibility and
strategic planning are also part of the social media marketing. The major difference exists in
the way consumer and marketers communicate. The traditional marketing focuses on one-
way communication between the consumer and the company. Companies have been trying
to reach their target audience, mainly, through advertising using the traditional media like
television, newspapers and radio. For example, using newspaper advertisements, a company
has been able to reach a large number of audiences within an expected geographical
location.

This type of marketing is one-way communication as the marketer in creating a message for
the potential consumer. Now with social media marketing, marketers are able to use the two-
way communication. In all the social media networks, it‟s the user that creates the content
whereas in the traditional media marketing, publishers create the content in a certain
timetable, for example in a certain newspaper for certain days while social media content is
available round the clock. On social media each user creates a small network in which they
share and repost content that they created or from other users. When some other user finds
this content, they can choose to share it further. This way the content shared on social media
can spread widely (Juslén. J, 2011).

In the traditional marketing, businesses try to reach certain goals and visions by using
marketing mix strategy. The marketing mix strategy includes product, price, promotion and
place. These are known as 4 P‟s. For a company the 4 P‟s means that they need to sell the
right product, at the right price, with the most effective promotion tools at the right place
(Tuten & Solomon, 2014). In social media marketing, a fifth element can also be added in the
4 P‟s, which is participation. Participation mean that the existing customers will create/bring
new customers by participating in the sharing of the marketing process (Tuten & Solomon,
2014).

3. E-COMMERCE:

The history of E-commerce is closely related with the history of internet. Online shopping
became possible when the internet was opened to public. The first web page in the world was
published in August 1991 (Brügger, 2009). It was a simple, text-based web page. It had a few
links and the main goal of the page was to introduce World Wide Web to the people. Three
years later, in 1994, the World Wide Web Consortium was established, and HTML was
defined as the standard language for web pages. Since then the internet has been
developing. The latest websites are more colorful, sophisticated and more interactive unlike
the older ones. The World Wide Web has transformed the way business is conducted. It has
opened new way of communication for individuals and business, enabling global reach and
easy access. According to (Hoffman, et al., 1995), the web has become popular than other
internet services because of its ability to facilitate sharing of resources and information
globally.

Prior to web, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was used in the electronic marketplace by
owners and buyers to interact electronically. EDI allowed companies to perform varies
business functions electronically. Since its arrival, the Web has gradually replaced those
(linked with EDI) proprietary networks making it possible for all business, regardless of their
size, to access the global market and reach their customers and other businesses. The web
is becoming more important as an infrastructure and a tool that has enabled business to
conduct commercial functions (Wen, et al., 2000). In short, Web is providing a medium that
facilitates two-40 way communication between different actors. It has the technology that
allows businesses to use it for various purposes: as a sales tool, as a distribution channel, as
a customer support portal and as an informational retrieval source. It has established a global
commercial marketplace for both suppliers and consumers that can operate internationally
without time restrictions. It has revolutionized the whole commerce and business industry.
For fully understanding the concept of „electronic commerce‟ or e-commerce, one has to
understand the broader concept of e-business. E-business is about creating connections and
information sharing through electronic means, both internally in the organization and
externally (Chaffey, 2011).
So, e-business is all about activities that involves connecting employees through an internet
platform to improve information sharing, facilitating distribution of knowledge, supporting
after-sale services, etc. E-business is a broad term that includes both e-commerce and m-
commerce (mobile commerce) (Tawfik & Albrecht, 2008). There are nearly as many
definitions of e-commerce as there are contributions to the literature. According to one
definition, „E-commerce is the process by which people use electronic means to do business
or do other economic activities. It is the process whereby traditional trade is carried out by
electronic methods‟ (Qin, et al., 2014). Turban shares a similar view and defines e-commerce
as, “Electronic Commerce (EC) is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging
products, services and/or information via computer networks, including the Internet” (Turban,
et al., 2006). Unlike the others, Schneider has defined e-commerce in terms of data
transmission, “Business activities conducted using electronic data transmission over the
internet and the World Wide Web” (Schneider, 2006). Laudon and Trever focused more on
the relationship between actors conducting business and defined e-commerce as, “E-
commerce is the use of the internet and the Web to transact business. More formally, digitally
enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals” (Laudon
& Traver, 2003) All these definitions are based on the same concept, yet they employ
different definitional approaches. Laudon & Traver (2003) limit e-commerce to transactional
business online whereas Schneider‟s (2006) defines it in a broader term and includes
business activities. The present study will take the view that e-commerce is a means of
selling goods/services through a website.

Figure 12: E-Business versus e-commerce

As seen in the above picture, e-business in an organization covers all operating activities
conducted over a data network, for example the internet. E-commerce is limited to the online
retailing implying financial transactions, so we can say e-commerce is a sub-part of e-
business (Biccler & Saelens, 2015).
There are various types of e-commerce website that focuses on different areas of business
activities. One of the most common e-commerce websites is a business web portal. The main
idea of these websites is to provide business information to its internal staff, prospective
customers and business partners. Another common type of e-commerce website is a
transactional website. This type of website can operate a range of business activities, for
instance online payments (Carney, 2005).
Transactional websites provide online auctions services and enables interactions between
sellers and buyers as well as between buyer. E-commerce has truly revolutionized the way
business is being done all around the world. The continuous development of how the internet
is used has made e-commerce one of the most important platforms for sharing business
information both within an organization, business to business, and business to customer
(Chong & Bauer, 2000). Due to the advancement in internet technologies and e-business, an
increasing number of traditional organizations are deciding to enter the internet market by
adopting e-commerce, resulting in effects such as increased profits, high business volume
and more competitive pressure (Chen, et al., 2013). Other benefits of adopting e-commerce
are lower cost of trading, faster and better-informed business decisions, and less importance
of geography (Smith, 1998).

3.1 Categories of e-commerce

E-commerce is generally classified according to the nature of the relationship between the
participants (Laudon & Traver, 2003); (Schneider, 2006) (Turban, et al., 2006). Three most
famous ways to categories e-commerce are given as: Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-
to-Consumer (B2C), and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C). These categories are valid for
offline businesses as well.

3.2 Business-to-Business (B2B)

When a business sells goods or services to another business, it is known as B2B. It mostly
refers to supply chain (Gibson & Edwards, 2004). Before the advent of Web, B2B existed in
the form of EDI over proprietary networks. With the arrival of Web, it became possible for
businesses to link regardless of their size and location at affordable prices. B2B generally
includes wholesale transactions and is characterized by large volumes, fast delivery times
and possibly late payments. It generally leads to higher profits through cost savings, reduced
transaction costs, lower advertising cost, lesser delivery costs, better supply chain
management, and better information exchange (Barnes-Vieyra & Claycomb, 2001).

3.3 Business-to-Consumer (B2C)

The practice of selling goods or services from businesses to individual consumers is known
as B2C. It is also known as e-tailing (Turban, et al., 2006). The practice of B2C emerged only
after the arrival of web and is appealing to both retailers and consumers (Ariguzo, et al.,
2006). The basic aim of B2C e-commerce is to acquire new customers, to gain international
exposure, to advertise, to overcome location disadvantage, to provide online support, to gain
cost savings, and to gather customer information (Golden, et al., 2003)

3.4 Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)

Customers selling goods or services to other customer is known as C2C. Well known
examples of C2C are the online auctions and online communities where people can find
customers for their goods and services. It can also be called Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
when the end user is a business. Both C2C and C2B can be viewed as a kind of B2C
(Chaffey, 2011); (Turban, et al., 2006).
In conclusion, the rapid growth of the internet and the advent of Web have led to many
changes in the way business is done, resulting in the e-commerce phenomenon.
3.5 Benefits of e-commerce
Doing business online has tremendous advantages. Companies can broaden the scope of
sales from local to global, increase sale opportunities, decrease transaction costs, operate
24/7, access narrow market segments, exchange information swiftly and accurately, enhance
brand image, and improve the ability to keep a strong customer relationship (Chaffey, 2011);
(Turban, et al., 2006). Online businesses will also have better information management,
improved understanding of the market, increase integration of the suppliers and vendors, and
extended global reach. Information regarding the behavior and preferences of individual and
potential customer can also be accessed and used through e-commerce. Consumers can
also have access to a larger market with more choices to select from. This helps in finding
more affordable goods and services, more choices, time saving and ability to shop 24/7
(Chaffey, 2011).

3.6 Limitations of e-commerce

There are also some limitations to doing business online for both the businesses and the
consumers. For businesses, the technology is still in the process of evolution and lack
universal standards for security, law and quality (Schneider, 2006); (Turban, et al., 2006).
(Napier, et al., 2003) pointed out some general market issues including language, political
environment, and currency conversion as few of the major limitation for a business running e-
commerce. Traditional business also faces problems in integrating with e-commerce (Turban,
et al., 2006); (Schneider, 2006). Also, the benefits accrued to a company due to use of e-
commerce is not clear. This ambiguity may cause many companies to fail or not to invest in
e-commerce (Turban, et al., 2006). The consumers are also concerned about the security
and privacy of their personal data and many consumers wants to feel and touch the product
before purchasing (Napier, et al., 2003) (Turban, et al., 2006).
3.7 Drop shipping
E-commerce and global trade have resulted in increased market competition. As a
consequence of this high competition, demands for fast deliveries of low-cost and high-quality
products, and services have augmented (Fawcett, et al., 2000). Accordingly, companies must
continuously strive towards improving and enhancing the efficiency in the supply chain in
order to achieve competitiveness (Chaffey, 2011). This has caused a high competition
amongst the supply chains, rather than the end-products (Chaffey, 2011). Consequently, an
efficient order fulfilment.

becomes of great importance, which is considered as one of the most complex tasks for
electronic retailers (Ayanso, et al., 2006). Order fulfillment includes all the process that
concerns the customers‟ order; receiving the customer order, managing the order, picking
and packing, delivering the order, and additional after sale customer services (Pyke, et al.,
2001). The process of order fulfilment for e-tailers is different from a traditional brick-and-
mortar retailer (hereafter retailer), due to the larger amount of small orders (Pyke, et al.,
2001). Both e-tailers and retailers are pressured by the shrinking product (Santamaria, 2004).
So, in an effort towards improving the efficiency of order fulfilment and stabilizing the financial
position, e-tailers commonly transfer the order fulfilment to other actors. This can be
accomplished by outsourcing the warehouse to a third-party logistics provider. Alternatively,
by drop shipping, where the distributor ships individual orders directly to customers on behalf
of the e-tailers, while exploiting the e-tailers information and features (Tarn, et al., 2003). The
practice of drop shipping was mainly used by mail-order firms and companies selling bulky
and large products (Netessine & Rudi, 2001). It requires an extensive amount of real-time
communication within the supply chain, therefore it was not very successful previously
(Netessine & Rudi, 2001). However, with the advancement of e-commerce and the improved
communication, drop shipping has become a common means to fulfil online orders (Ayanso,
et al., 2006).
Ricker and Kalakota (1999) have defined drop shipping as consumer direct fulfilment (Ricker
& Kalakota, 1999). According to another definition it is outsourcing inventory to another party
(Chen, et al., 2011). A more thorough definition of drop shipping is; “...an arrangement
whereby the retailer forwards customers’ orders to the wholesaler, distributor, or
manufacturer, that fills customer orders directly from its own inventory”. (Randall, et al.,
2006). (Ayanso, et al., 2006) further refers to drop shipping as a virtually joined supply chain
of multiple actors, that has become a method to achieve efficient e-fulfillment. One of the
many benefits of drop shipping, is the removal of large investments in warehousing and
inventory. This enables the e-tailer to focus more on actual sales and not worry about the
operational tasks (Ayanso, et al., 2006). All the operational tasks related to drop shipping are
performed by the drop shipper (Ayanso, et al., 2006).

Figure 13: Traditional order fulfilment versus Drop shipping

The above figure shows the difference between a traditional setting and a drop shipping
setting. In drop shipping, the products are forwarded directly from the distributor to the
customer. In this way, the e-tailer disclaims their responsibility of the inventory. But all the
information passes through the e-tailer (Netessine & Rudi, 2001). An integrated information
system is required between the e-tailer and the distributor to manage the e-fulfilment
efficiently (Khouja, 2001).

3.8 Advantages of drop shipping

Many e-tailers failed to succeed in their businesses because of the high warehouse
investments, so by utilizing drop shipping these e-tailers could diminish warehouse and
handling related costs and could have a higher chance to succeed (Randall, et al., 2002). By
drop shipping the e-tailers can avoid costs related to inventory, warehouse and logistics
(Randall, et al., 2002). Drop shipping is easy to start. Anyone with a laptop and an internet
connection can start a drop shipping site with minimal funds (Oberlo, 2019). Drop shipping
also enables the e-tailer to just focus on marketing and design, rest of the work can be
outsourced. Moreover, the e-tailer can decrease its costs due to the distributor gaining
economies of scale in transportation (Randall, et al., 2002). Also, the economies of scale in
transportation could be attained through serving different e-tailers (Netessine & Rudi, 2001).
The distributor also benefits from the drop shipping as they can increase sales (Randall, et
al., 2006). This increase in sales counters the decrease or fluctuation in demand for the
distributor (Chen, et al., 2011). The fluctuation in demand is also stabilized by the distributor
stocking inventory for several e-tailers at its own premises thus pooling the demands
(Randall, et al., 2006). Likewise, the e-tailer can also take benefit from the distributors‟
improved planning, as it increases the product availability (Randall, et al., 2002).

3.9 Disadvantages of drop shipping

Despite the many advantages, e-tailers have to be aware of the trade-offs when engaging in
drop shipping (Randall, et al., 2002). Another potential risk involved in drop shipping is
fragmented orders. It is a result of customers ordering from several distributors, it can lead to
either increased shipping costs or longer delivery times due to order consolidation (Khouja &
Stylianou, 2009). By engaging in drop shipping, e-tailers are divesting part of their control to
distributors which increases the associated risks subsequently (Randall, et al., 2002). E-
tailers also risk losing the product margin, as the distributor generally increases the order
fulfilment price with ten to fifteen percent (Randall, et al., 2002).

4. INTRODUCTION OF THE COMPANY

4.1 GonChas.com
The website selected for the thesis is called GonChas.com. The word “GonChas” is basically
a Balti word that means clothing. Balti is a language spoken in the Northern part of Pakistan.
The company was launched in 2016 as a drop-shipping website. GonChas has generated
over $270,000 in revenue since its launch. It also has over 10,000 customers from all over
the world with the majority of them from the United States of America. It mainly deals with
cheap women clothing and accessories but there are also clothing for men and children. The
items for women include bags, dresses, jewelry, shoes, swimwear, tops and bottoms. While
for men the e-shop has bags, shoes, tops and bottoms. It also has a small collection of
clothing and outwears for children. There are no employees of the company, the author is the
sole worker and owner. The website is built on WordPress and uses a plugin called “woo-
commerce” that enables online purchases on the site. In addition to that, there are many
other plugins that help in the smooth running of the website. The theme used for designing
the website is called Flatsome. It has been personalized by the author. The aim of the
website is to outsource cheap clothing items from Chinese ecommerce site aliexpress.com
and to sell them on gonchas.com for a profit. The working of the website is discussed in the
following sections.

4.2 Situation analysis

Situation analysis is a collection of methods used to analyze an organization‟s internal and
external environment to understand its capabilities, customers, and business environment
(Ryan & Jones, 2009). It consists of several methods of analysis. This section will only
discuss the five parts of the analysis that includes: company, competitors, customers, goals
and key performance indicators (KPIs).

4.3 Business

The first part of situation analysis deals with the business itself. In this part the business
needs to evaluate its objectives, strategy, capabilities and target audience. Also, the business
needs to decide what products to promote and whether or not those products are suitable for
online promotion. In the case of GonChas, the target audience is present online and also the
products are suitable for online promotion. Hence the most suitable way to reach the target
audience is through online promotion. Also, the site has been running for a few years and has
presence on most of the major social networking platforms. This thing is helpful in reaching
new potential customers and staying in touch with the current ones. The shop has been
running and is generating some revenue since its launch. An overview of the sales and
orders for a selected period has been shown in the figure below.

Figure 14: Sales of GonChas last year (01.05.2018 up until 31.01.2019)

The figure shows the gross sale made during the period of nine months. The left column
shows the number of orders placed, while the right column shows the total amount of cash
collected for the orders. Other things worth mentioning are the shipping costs, refunds and
average monthly sales. All this information has been displayed with different colors on the
graph. The marketing done during this period was mostly influencer marketing. The details of
the strategy are discussed in the influencer marketing strategy section.
4.4 Competitors

There are so many similar websites to GonChas, on Pinterest, that have very similar products
and method of business. For the sake of this thesis, a few of those competitors have been
selected based on similar products and marketing strategy.

The author has done marketing for some of these websites and has knowledge about the
strategies used and the method of business. Most of these competitors have a large budget
so they are doing marketing on most of the major social media sites and, they are using
AdWords. This information has been acquired using Chrome extensions called Facebook
Pixel Helper and BuiltWith. Facebook Pixel helper detects whether Facebook Pixel
(JavaScript code for tracking website activity) is implemented or not while BuiltWith provides
information about tracking codes of other similar websites like Google Analytics, AdWords,
etc. The traffic data has been acquired from third-party website worthofaweb.com. They use
Alexa rank to estimate traffic figures.

Company Pricing Traffic/Month Items sold Year in

Business
Cichic.com higher 220,000 Clothing and Since 2012
Accessories
Fulchic.com higher 210,000 Clothing and Since 2015
Accessories
Sammydress.c lower 200,000 Fashion, Since 2011
om beauty and
household
items

Table 2: Major GonChas competitors

The analysis done by the author has shown that most probably these websites are using paid
advertising (AdWords, Media.net) and all of them have website analytics in place. By doing a
general google search it can be found that most of these websites have a bad customer
review and most of the customers have complains about the quality of the items received and
delivery times. Regardless of all negative reviews, these sites are maintaining a good traffic
and social media presence.

4.5 Customers
For doing the customer analysis demographics (age, education, gender) and psychographics
(interests, lifestyle and habits) are used. The data is acquired from google analytics and
Pinterest analytics. Pinterest analytics gives very valuable information about the users that
interact with the business.

This information is of both the people who have done a purchase through Pinterest and other
people who have followed, liked, shared or commented on the products from the domain
gonchas.com. As can be seen in the graph below, above 80 percent of the people that
interact with GonChas are female. The age group also is diverse as GonChas is popular
among both young and middle age women.

Figure 15: Total audience for the month of April 2019

GonChas has its biggest audience in the USA. As can be seen in the figure below USA
makes more than 57 percent of the total audience GonChas get. The rest of the audience is
split in different countries with all having less than 5 percent of the audience per country. This
information is very useful while making the marketing strategy.

The countries where GonChas is not famous can be targeted for new customers while in the
country where it already has a good audience can boosted more and the number of
customers from that country can be increased by targeting people having similar interests.
 Figure 16: Top location of the audience of GonChas

The psychographic data has been acquired from google analytics. According to the data
acquired there are three major categories of people who interact with GonChas. The first one
is “Affinity Category (reach)”. Affinity Categories are interest of people that can be used to
reach potential customers to make them aware of the brand. The second category is “In-
Market Segment”. The users in these segments are more likely to buy products and services
in the respective category. The final one is “other category”. This category contains the
interest of users who are outside the main categories and can be used as a source of
additional information for targeting new potential customers (Hines, 2014). The figure below
shows the interest of users in the three main categories.

Figure 17: Interest overview of the audience of GonChas

These categories of interests match most of the interest data from Pinterest analytics. These
data will be used in the Pinterest ads section for targeting the audience. The data from
Pinterest analytics for interest of audience is shown below.
 Figure 18: Categories and interest of GonChas‟s audience

According to all the data the first buying persona is a female in her 20s, 30s, and 40s, living in
the USA. She is a student or a job holder having interest in fashion and shopping online. She
is a user of Pinterest and uses it for getting inspiration. The second persona is in the same
age group that includes women that are interested in DIY and crafts, home décor, fashion,
beauty and wellness living in the USA. DIY stands for “Do it yourself” and means activities for
which there is a choice between doing it oneself of hiring someone else (Hill, 1979).

4.6 Goals

Having a well-defined and well formulated goal is important for every business. The method
of goal setting used for GonChas is called SMART. Smart is an acronym for Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (Macleod, 2013). The first part of this goal
setting method is “Specific”. GonChas is aiming to double its sales by the end of this year.
The measurable part aims at increasing the monthly traffic to 50,000. Keeping in mind the
past performance of the site, the attainable part of the goal is to achieve $30,000 in revenue
per month. Relevant part of the goal aims at reaching more customers through Pinterest, as
it‟s the main source of traffic for GonChas. Time-bound part of SMART method is very
important as all these goals have to be within a timescale. So, by using the current marketing
strategy and improving it further GonChas‟s main goal is to achieve all these goals within 1
year. All these goals will help in achieving the final goal, that is to get maximum customer
satisfaction and making good profit. The marketing strategy is discussed in detail in the
Findings and Discussion section.

4.7 Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators are the fundamental navigation instruments that are used by
managers to understand whether their business is going on the path they planned or its going
off grid (Bernard, 2012). The first set of metrics used as KPIs, that will show how the ad is
delivering are CTR, CPC, Clicks, Reach and Impressions. They are discussed in the
marketing section in detail. The second set of metrics will show the return on investment. It
will tell how much of the resources were invested and how much is the acquired benefit. This
metrics includes Spending, Revenue, Conversions Rate, etc.
The final set of metrics will use the data acquired from the second set (Spending, Revenue)
and evaluate the overall financial viability of the marketing campaign. The metrics that include
in this set are Gross margin, Profit, Return on Ad Spend, and return on investment (ROI). All
these terms will be explained in the marketing section.

4.8 Working of the website

As mentioned earlier, the business model used by GonChas is drop shipping. The author
outsources viral items from Pinterest and other online sources and sell them on GonChas for
a profit. The most important part of this business model is finding the right items. Without the
right items, this method of business can be very costly and low in profit. Therefore, the items
put for sale on the website must be viral and sell good. This can be done by various ways
depending on the target audience. As the focus of the website for marketing is Pinterest so
most of the items are taken from the trending and viral items on Pinterest. That is one of the
main sources of the most items on GonChas. The second method is finding out the best-
selling items on a similar website like GonChas. It can be done by searching for similar items
on Pinterest and then going to the respective website and finding the best sellers. The
bestselling items from a competitors‟ website can then be outsourced and offered for a
cheaper price. Once a viral item has been selected, it is then outsourced on a Chinese
website, in case of GonChas, AliExpress has been used.

AliExpress (www.aliexpress.com) is a leading global e-marketplace that is made up of small

business sellers that offer a huge variety of consumer products that have good value for
money. It is dedicated to bringing products in more than 20 categories to its millions of
registered users in more than 220 countries and regions (Y.Zhang & Y.Zhou, 2015). The next
crucial part is finding the items on AliExpress. There are several ways to find and outsource
the products on AliExpress.

4.9 Using google image search

One of the most common methods, used by the author, for finding any visual item on internet
is by using google image search (Google, 2019). This option helps in finding most of the
websites where an image or item is present. The first step in using this method is to have the
image address. Image address is an internet address that points directly to a specific image
(Tineye, 2019). The image address can be found by right clicking on the image. Once the
image address has been found, it should be copied and searched using the search box on
google.com. The below figure shows how to get the image address. One important thing to
note here is that the image address should end with .jpg, .png, or some other image format
extensions. Some of the image addresses can have extra characters or numbers at the end
that must be removed for getting accurate results.
 Figure 20: How to copy an image address

Shipping time is the time duration taken by an item from its point of origin to the point of
delivery. This time varies depending on the country a customer resides. It is also very crucial
as all the customers are International. So, it has to be made sure that the seller can deliver
the items within a reasonable time frame. On GonChas, the average delivery time for USA
and EU is 15-35 business days. This is just an average time period decided by the author
from his personal experience. Another important thing to remember is the buyer protection.
Buyer protection ensures that the customer will receive their order on time and as described.
In case, the shipping is delayed, or the item is not as described, the customer gets a
compensation (Aliexpress, 2019). Most of the sellers on AliExpress offer buyer protection.

4.10 Using AliExpress image search option

The other method for finding items on AliExpress is using the image search option. This is a
newer and easier method and is only available on AliExpress App. For using this method, the
user needs to take a picture of the item, they want to search. The picture can either be taken
directly by the phone‟s camera or downloaded on the phone from its source and then
uploaded to the AliExpress App image search. The below figure shows the home screen of
AliExpress mobile App. The small camera sign on the top right is the one used for image
search. Once it is clicked, the camera of the phone opens and gives the user option to either
take an image or upload one from the phone gallery. Once an image is selected, the App
searches for similar items on the shops and displays a list of the closest items to the
uploaded image.
 Figure 23: Home screen of AliExpress mobile App

4.11 Contacting the Seller

Once the right seller has been chosen, next step is to send the seller a personal message
asking them for some discount for drop shipping their products. Based on the author‟s
personal experience, in most of the cases, the seller agrees to offer 5-10 percent sale on the
selected items if the order will exceed 5 items. The other important thing to ask the seller is
the stock of the item and the sizes available. The seller must have enough stock of the item
and all the sizes. From the authors personal experience once, an item gets viral on Pinterest,
the amount of sales can be very high so in case the seller does not have enough stock, it is
wiser to find another seller with enough stock. Also, the sizes of items are important as a lot
of people from different age groups buy online. Another thing worth doing is asking the seller
for real images of the items because most of the time the product is displayed on some
model, so it is wise to get the real images of the product just to be sure it is the same product
as displayed on the model. As mentioned earlier during the image search section, a lot of
sellers use the same image of an item, so it is very tricky to find whether the real item looks
the same or not. In most of the cases, the real product looks very different than the one
displayed. So, either the seller has to send real images of the item or some products need to
be ordered from the seller, just to make sure the quality of the product is good. After getting
all this information and making sure the seller has enough stock and the item is same as
being displayed, it is time to decide the pricing.
4.12 Deciding the Price
One of the most important part of the whole process is deciding the price. Business with the
most success and experience in e-commerce are beginning to realize that the key
determinants of success or failure are not merely a good website design and low prices but
good service quality (Yang & Jun, 2002). So, the main aim is to charge a reasonable price
but provide the best possible customer experience. From the authors personal experience,
the pricing of the item can vary depending upon the price the seller is offering it for. The
pricing model used for GonChas is markup pricing. In this method all the costs of purchasing
or producing are calculated and then a desired markup is added as the profit (Sammut‐
Bonnici, et al., 2015). For the items under $10, the price is doubled. For items between $10
and $20, an additional $5 to $8 are added over the original price. In case the prices are over
$20, an average margin of 30 percent profit is added. Some of items are special, in high
demand and of very good quality. These items can be sold for a profit margin. They can bring
good profit and can help in improving the overall sale targets. But in general, the final price
should be covering all the expenses related to the running of the website, its marketing, etc.
and leave a margin of profit according to the markup pricing mentioned in the last paragraph.
After the pricing is decided, the item can now be added to the drop shipping website.

4.13 Putting the item for sale:

After finding the right seller and deciding the price of the item, the item is now put on the
website for sale. There are two methods for importing the items from AliExpress to the target
website. Firstly, it can be done manually by copying the images and other information from
AliExpress and pasting it on the target website. Second method is by using some plugin to do
it automatically. There are few free and paid plugins in market that can help in importing the
desired products from AliExpress with ease. In both the cases, it should be made sure that
the images used do not have any watermarks, the images are high quality, the size of images
is not very big or small, etc. All these things can have an impact on the overall user
experience, so it has to be made sure that the user gets the best experience possible,
whether it is about the display of the item, navigation on the website or product details like the
sizing and material details. Once the item is published on the website, it can now be
promoted on Pinterest. Two major marketing methods will be discussed in the following
section. The first one is Pinterest ads and the second one is influencer marketing. The author
has used both the methods for promoting items from GonChas.com on Pinterest. All the
results and findings will be discussed, along with recommendations for the best practices to
get the desired results.

5. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS:

5.1 Planning Marketing Strategy:

Everything related to marketing should start with a careful planning of a campaign. A

campaign has to have a well-defined objective. Especially, if social media is going to be used
for the campaigns, the marketers need to further plan who they want to reach out to and what
kind of social media strategy they are going to execute. During the execution process
marketers needs to be ready to adjust the strategy according to the responses (Tuten, 2008).
Kaplan (2010) advises marketers to choose social media platforms based on the target group
and the message that they want to convey. He also points out that, choosing an existing
social media application has many benefits because of the existing user base. The reason
why this can be a hard task is the fact that the landscape of social media is constantly
changing. The social media networks that were popular a few years ago are not popular
anymore and similarly many new social media networks have emerged in the past few years.
All these rapid changes in the industry puts a high pressure on marketers to keep their
marketing strategies up to date and bring on changes with the changing landscape.
In order to create the right campaign and stay up to date on social media, Tuten (2008) has
formed a list of questions for social media marketers that will help them in understanding
what they really need, in order to find the right tools for their campaigns. Few important
questions are: “Does the culture of social media fit your brand‟s positioning or fit with how
your brand wishes to be percevied? Do you know where your customers and prospects are?
Are the relevant communities open and welcoming to brand participation? What opportunities
exisit within each community for brand promotion? Do you have resources of time and money
to commit to the campaign? Do you have a hook, a conversation starter, a point of
engagement – something that will inspire interaction with your brand? Are you willing to take
risks?” (Tuten, 2008).
Once you have answered these questions and selected the right social media platform, it is
time to carefully make the communication plan. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) provide some
good principles about being social. First principle is to be active

taking part in discussions and sharing with the community something of value or interest.
Secondly you should also understand the nature of the channel and by being interesting with
your content, humble with your position and behaving “informally” you should aim to blend in.
However, in social media network like LinkedIn, it may still be wise to keep the
communication professional. Last principle is to be honest (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).

5.2 Performance Measurement

As mentioned in the situation analysis section, performance measurement is one of the most
crucial parts of the marketing strategy. It provides valuable information about the goals and
the performances of the ad campaigns. This information can then be used to find out whether
the set goals are being achieved or not. In the following section, the metrics available in
Google analytics and the Pinterest analytics metrics is discussed.

5.3 Google Analytics Metrics

Google analytics is a free analytics service offered by google that gives useful insights into
how users find and use a website (Kaushik, 2009). It gets all the data from a unique code that
has to be implemented on the website whose data is required. The code is a small JavaScript
code that runs when a user opens the website. Precisely, it can be said that Google analytics
helps marketers make important decisions based on the data collected from the users. Few
of the most used metrics available in Google analytics are as below:
 Users
 Sessions
 Session duration
 Bounce Rate
 Conversion Rate
Figure 25: Google analytics homepage showing common metrics

The above figure shows the Google analytics home page for GonChas. The first two metrics;
Users and Sessions are the crucial ones, as they are closely related, and their difference has
to be understood good. A Session is defined as the time range between a user‟s first request
on the website to the last one. It is basically a single visit, consisting of one or more
pageviews, along with other events, for example, ecommerce transactions, etc. While the
metric Users gives figure of unique visitors who have visited the website during the selected
time range (Kaushik, 2009).

5.4 Pinterest Ad Metrics

A part of the marketing will be done through Pinterest Ads, so it is important to familiarize with
the Pinterest Ad Metrics. They can be accessed easily on the Pinterest ads manager page.
Pinterest also has the most common metrics like other similar websites. The ones that will be
used in our study are as below:
 Click through rate (CTR)
 Cost per click (CPC)
 Cost per mille (CPM)
 Impressions
 Engagements
 Spend

These metrics give valuable information for evaluating the ad campaign. Although these
metrics are very useful, it should not be used as a final resource for deciding the performance
of a campaign rather more weightage should be given to the conversion and return on
investment.

5.5 Pinterest Advertising strategy:

After carefully going through every step of the marketing strategy, it is time to make the
Pinterest advertising strategy. For effectively launching a marketing campaign, it is necessary
to have a strategy. The strategy varies depending upon the type of business, as every
business is unique. This chapter will deal with the findings and discussions about Pinterest
marketing and advertising.

5.6 Pinterest Business account:

The first prerequisite for advertising on Pinterest is a Pinterest business account. It is free to
sign up for a business account and gives access to tools like analytics and a special business
profile. It also gives access to use the Pinterest advertising. Any business can, either, sign up
for a new account or if they already have an account upgrade it to a business one. The sign-
up process is very easy and straightforward.

Steps to create a Pinterest business account are as below:

1. Go to the Pinterest business homepage and click Join as business
2. On the sign-up page, put your email and password and click create account.
3. On the next page you will be asked to choose a language and country.
4. Next step is writing the business name and select the type of business.
5. There are nine options to select from namely professional, public figure, media, brand,
retailer, online marketplace, local business, institution/non-profit and other.
6. Next step is putting down the website address. This step is not mandatory so if the
business does not own a website, it can be skipped.
7. The next step gives the option to connect other social media account with the Pinterest
business account. Currently only three other social media accounts can be connected,
namely, Instagram, Etsy and YouTube. This step is also not mandatory and can skipped for
later.
8. Next step asks about that topics that best describes the business. At least one topic has to
be selected in this step.
9. The setup process ends here.
 Figure 27: The sign-up page for Pinterest business account

The next step is adding a profile picture. It can be done by hovering over to the profile icon on
the top right and clicking settings. The optimal size of is 165 x 165 pixels. Choose an image
that best represents the business. It can be the business logo. Complete the about section
with some information about the business. If the business has a physical location, fill it in the
location option. Claiming website helps in getting access to analytics and information about
the users that interact with the business.

5.7 Pinterest ad account

Pinterest ad account is an optional pay-for-placement service that offers marketers the
chance to reach their targeted audience. It has got all the tools needed for making ad
campaigns. In addition to driving awareness, brands using Pinterest ads see results in terms
of sales. More than half of Pinterest‟s users have made a purchase after seeing some
business content of their interest (Pinterest, 2018). The process of creating an ad account is
very easy. From the top right of the home page of normal business account the ad account
can be accessed. Once the option Ads is selected, the screen below will pop-up. The name
of the account and the country is selected depending on the location of business and the
billing address.
 Figure 29: Pinterest ad account page

The next step is setting up the billing. The billing page looks like the screen below. Here the
name of the business, address, city, postal code, phone number, etc. are filled. Once the
information is filled, the next step is filling the payment method. Pinterest accepts Visa,
MasterCard and American Express for payments (Pinterest, 2019). After filling the payment
method, the ad account is ready to get started.

Figure 30: Setting up billing information screen

5.8 Pinterest Tag

Another important point to mention here is the Pinterest tag. It is a piece of code that
advertisers can add to their websites to help track the actions of visitors (Pinterest, 2019).
The process of implementing Pinterest tag is very similar to Facebook and Twitter‟s version
of conversion tracking. The process of implementation can be found in the Conversions tab
of the Ads menu, that can be accessed from the top left of the home feed. It is important for
two main reasons:

1. It allows advertisers to understand the overall impact of their campaigns and promoted
pins. It also allows Pinterest to monitor the conversions and give the advertiser a more
refined and more accurate data.
2. It allows the advertisers to retarget the audience coming to their websites using Pinterest.
As can be seen in the figure below, the Pinterest tag, consists of two parts: the base code
and the event code. The base code is needed to track measurable events. This code has to
be implemented in the domain. The event code tracks specific actions that occurs on the
advertiser‟s website. This code should be placed on the pages where specific events can
occur, for example, the product pages where a visitor can add something to cart, checkout,
etc.

Figure 31: Pinterest Tag installation screen

The Pinterest ads are also called Promoted Pins. Once the ad account is ready, ad
campaigns can be made from the top left corner of home feed. Setting up and ad campaign
has three steps. The first step has been shown in the figure below. The important thing to
consider here is selecting the right type of campaign. Pinterest has categorized the campaign
into three depending on the objective. The first one is Build awareness campaign. Under
this category is the Brand awareness. This option helps new brands in reaching targeted
audience for promoting their brand, products or a service. Another option under the Build
awareness campaign is Video views.

This one is straight forward as this campaign brings view on a video that is on Pinterest. The
second category is Drive consideration. Under this category the first option is Traffic. As
the name suggests, this campaign is specifically designed for marketers who want to drive
traffic to their websites. The next one under Drive consideration is App install. This is for
advertisers who want to promote their Apps. The last category of campaigns is Get
conversions. This option is suitable for e-commerce website as all the conversions can be
tracked using the Pinterest tag. After selecting the desired campaign a few more details are
required in the campaign details section, as can be seen in the below figure. These details
include: Campaign name, Daily spend limit and Lifetime spend limit. As the name suggests,
the Daily spend limit is the maximum amount the campaign can spend in one day while the
Lifetime spend limit is the amount the campaign is approved to spend in total (Pinterest,
2019). Once these details are filled, the use can go on to next page by clicking the continue
button.

Figure 32: Setting up ad campaign step number 1

This step is very important as the target audience is selected on this page. As can be seen in
the figure below, the available targeting options include Genders, Ages, Locations,
Languages, Devices, Interests and Keywords. All these features are selected according to
the metrics data from both Google and Pinterest analytics. It also gives information about the
potential audience for the selected targeting options.
 Figure 33: Setting up ad campaign step number 2

Once the right audience has been selected, the user can move on to next step. This is the
final step and here the user needs to select the product for promotion. After selecting the
product and making sure the destination URL is working, the campaign can be launched.

5.9 Pinterest Advertising Plan:

Out of the gathered data from the above chapters, the following advertising plan has been
formed. This part will deal with the preparation, launch, evaluation and other details about
Pinterest advertising. The advertising plan consists of the following points:
1. The company GonChas allocates an investment of $100 for the advertising campaign.
2. The length of the campaign is one week.
3. The two buying personas mentioned in chapter 4.5 are used.
4. The interests and professions for targeting are taken from Google and Pinterest Analytics
data.
5. The main goals are: acquire traffic, increase conversions and increase sales.
6. The final evaluation is based on total profit made and the return on investment.

5.10 Campaign objectives

The main objectives of the ad campaign are to drive traffic that can convert and increase the
sales of items. These objectives can be divided into two phases and it is important to
understand the objectives of each of them. The first phase is the consideration phase. In this
phase, the objectives are getting more traffic on the site and engaging the audience. The
second phase is the Conversion phase. As the name suggests, the objectives of this phase
are more product sales and more conversions (Kim, et al., 2011). Conversions can be any
activity that is done on the site by the user, it can be signing up for the newsletter, following
the brands‟ social media accounts, watching a video, spending a specific amount of time, etc.
(Kim, et al., 2011).

5.11 Audiences
Four types of audiences can be selected for an ad campaign, namely:
 Site visitors
 Engaged audience
 Actalike audience
 Custom audience

Site visitors are the group of users that visits a site. They can be the visitors going to the site
through the products shared on Pinterest or the ones visiting the site through Pinterest ads.
There is also an option of including or excluding traffic sources for this audience (Pinterest,
2019). The site visitors on GonChas were 15000 per month during the launch of the
marketing campaigns and above 95% of the site visitors were coming from Pinterest.
Engaged audience is the group of users that engaged with Pins from the domain of the
website. These users can be the ones that have saved, liked, commented or shared any of
the products or pins from the domain of the website (Pinterest, 2019). According to the
Pinterest analytics data GonChas has 40800 engaged audience per month. This number
keeps on changing and depends on the number of products shared, clicked, liked, or saved
every month. Actalike audience is an audience that behaves similarly to the audience that a
website has (Pinterest, 2019). This audience can be a target for new potential customers.
Custom audience is a special type of audience that can be uploaded to Pinterest audience.
This is basically a list of customers that is taken from the website or any other targeted
audience taken from a similar site (Pinterest, 2019). Site visitors and engaged audience is
targeted in the ad campaign. GonChas has a list of over 10,000 customers who have done
purchasing from the site. The data of these customers can be uploaded on Pinterest and
used as a custom audience for improving the targeting.

5.12 Optimization and delivery

For the Traffic option, Pinterest ask the marketer to bid for the selected audience. The
minimum bid available on Pinterest of the CPC (Cost per click) bidding model is $0.10, while
the recommended can be anywhere from $1 and above depending upon the selected
audience. Similarly, the minimum bid for CPA (Cost per action) model is $0.10 and for CPM
(Cost per impression) model is $2.00 (Pinterest, 2019).
The advertiser can either put the bid manually or accept the recommended bid from
Pinterest. Manual bidding and CPC model are used for the advertising campaign of
GonChas. The main reason for selecting the manual bidding is the expensive recommended
bid. For the buying persona selected for GonChas the recommended bid was $2.1 per click.

5.13 Ad Formats and Placements

Currently Pinterest offers three ad formats, namely: Promoted Pins, Promoted Carousels,
and Promoted video pins. All of these formats have been discussed below.

5.14 Promoted Pins

A Promoted pin ad is exactly the same as any other pin on Pinterest. It blends good with the
pins on Pinterest and does not affect the user experience. The only difference between a
Promoted pin and a normal pin lies in the fact that the promoted pin has the term “Promoted
by” under the pin followed by the company or brand name.

Figure 34: Promoted Pin example

5.15 Promoted Carousels

Promoted carousels feature two to five images that pinners can swipe through. These multi-
image ads can appear like a normal pin, except for the dots beneath that shows the images
can be swiped. Each image in a carousel ad be different with a different title and description.
This format is great if the advertiser wants to use different images in the same ad (Pinterest,
2019). Below is an example of a promoted carousel.
 Figure 35: Promoted carousel ad

5.16 Promoted video Pins

Promoted video pins are the same as Promoted pins except the normal pin is replaced with a
video. Just like a Promoted pin, it also appears in the home feed and search results.
Promoted Pins has been used in the campaign for the study.
5.17 Campaign Launch and Evaluation
The campaign ran for seven days (May 4th, 2019 – May 11th, 2019) and used all the
allocated budget. A total of two products are selected for promotion. The products are women
summer dresses. The products are chosen according to the current season and demand.
The buying persons, already mentioned in chapter 4.5, have been used. If the interests and
demographics of these buying persons are as below:
 Women‟s Fashion
 Dresses
 Summer dresses
 Women‟s apparel
 Only USA

The ad format selected was Promoted Pins. These ads had one image per product. The
images selected were taken from the seller‟s page on AliExpress.com. The reason for
selection of Promoted pins instead of Carousel ad was because Promoted Pins performed
significantly better than Carousel ads in a test campaign.

Carousel ads had 0.95% CTR with $0.18 CPC while Promoted Pins had an average of 1.80%
CTR with $0.18 CPC. The CPC is the same for both because it was selected manually. One
campaign was selected with the goals of Traffic and Product sales. The campaign targeted
audience with the below interest:
o Home Decor (Interests)
o Women‟s Fashion (Interests)
o Beauty (Interests)
o Women Jewelry and accessories (Interests)
o Women‟s Top (Interests)
o Online shopping (Interests)
o Fashion Trends (Interests)
o Makeup and hair (Interests)

5.18 Traffic Campaign

The settings of ad sets for the traffic campaign was: daily budget $20, CPC of $0.18 was
selected manually, ad placement both newsfeed and search, the interest was narrowed down
to the interests from the Google and Pinterest analytics, audience were only women between
18 to 44, location selected was only USA, English was selected as the language of the
targeted audience, devices selected were Android, iPhone, and web, and normal pacing was
selected for the ad. The Pinterest Ad showed a potential monthly audience size of 42m-
56.8m for the targeting criteria selected. Every ad contained one viral image of the product, a
title and relevant hashtags were used in the description.
 Figure 36: Promoted Pin

The traffic results for one-week campaign is shown in the figure below. All the metrics are
acquired from Pinterest Ads report. The ROI and conversion rate are calculated separately as
they needed data from both Pinterest ads and GonChas site. The number of clicks has been
taken from the Pinterest ads report while the number of sales has been taken from the
GonChas site. The total amount of sales is taken from the GonChas site while the Pinterest
ad gave the total amount spend on the campaigns:

Figure 37: Traffic Campaign Results

A total of 4 orders were placed during this time and the total gross sales achieved by the two
items was $160.85, as seen in the figure below. This amount also includes the shipping
charges. Both the items had free shipping on AliExpress,

so the shipping costs is also included in the total amount of sale. The below data has been
taken from the GonChas website.
Figure 38: Sales overview for the traffic campaign 04.05.2019 up until 11.05.2019

5.19 Overall evaluation of the Traffic campaign

The ad campaign as a whole was not profitable. The promoted items received a total of 744
clicks. The total impressions were 32,460. The CPC was $0.18. One of the items got a CTR
of 2% while the other got CTR of 1.19%. The total amount spent on the ad campaign was
$133.76 for the period of one week. The gross sale during this period was $160, out of which
$75 went into order fulfillment. The overall loss was $48.76 with a ROI of negative 36%.
The campaign was not able to reach the set goals. The overall CTR was around 1.66%

5.19 Overall evaluation of the Traffic campaign

The ad campaign as a whole was not profitable. The promoted items received a total of 744
clicks. The total impressions were 32,460. The CPC was $0.18. One of the items got a CTR
of 2% while the other got CTR of 1.19%. The total amount spent on the ad campaign was
$133.76 for the period of one week. The gross sale during this period was $160, out of which
$75 went into order fulfillment. The overall loss was $48.76 with a ROI of negative 36%.
The campaign was not able to reach the set goals. The overall CTR was around 1.66% which
is lower than the industry standards of 2.69% (Irvine, 2019). The conversion rate was also
very less as only 4 people placed orders out of 744 people who went on the site. It was
calculated by dividing total purchases by the total link clicks. The items promoted were two
summer dresses for women. Both of them were selected from the viral dresses on Pinterest
so a higher conversion was expected from them. The bounce rate was around 63% during
the period of Pinterest ad campaign. That‟s higher than the standard bounce rate for e-
commerce sites. The optimal bounce rate for e-commerce and retail websites is 20%-40%
(Pawel, 2018). There are various reasons for a high bounce rate.

5.20 Influencer Marketing Campaign

As mentioned in the previous sections, one of the methods used for promotion of GonChas is
influencer marketing. This chapter will deal with the details of evaluations and findings of
influencer marketing for GonChas.com.
5.21 Campaign launch and Evaluation
The influencer marketing campaign data has been collected for the first three months of 2019
(January 1st – March 31st). The total budget allocated for influencer marketing was $1000
per month. A total of two influencers were used for marketing the products directly from
GonChas‟s Pinterest account. One of the influencers has 2.6 million followers and the other
one has 2.5 million followers. Both the influencers work in the fashion niche, so it was a
perfect match for the products of GonChas. Most of the Items promoted during this period of
time were from the following categories.
 Women‟s Dresses
 Women‟s Jewelry
 Women‟s bottoms
 Women‟s tops

Every influencer posted 2 pictures of the same or different products every day for three
months. The total traffic received during this period was over 65,000 unique visitors and
pageviews of over 231,000. The following figure from Google analytics show the stats of
GonChas for the selected period of time.

Figure 39: Traffic received during first three months of 2019

A total of 456 orders were placed and 648 items were purchased during these three months.
The gross sale amount was $16,423.
Figure 40: Sales on GonChas from 01.01.2019 up until 31.03.2019

5.22 Overall Evaluation of Influencer marketing

The overall influencer marketing campaign was a success. The total amount paid to two
influencers for three months was $3000. The total revenue acquired during this period was
$16,423. Out of this amount, $9000 was spent on fulfilling orders, $3000 was paid to the
influencers, and $500 was paid as the site running expenses. The remaining amount was
$3923. After deducting income tax, $3334.55 was left as profit. So, by using the influencer
marketing on GonChas a total of $3334.55 was made as profit with ROI of positive 111.13%.

5.23 Comparison of Pinterest ads and Influencer Marketing

After the careful examination of both the types of Marketing, the results acquired through
Influencer marketing were a lot better than the results acquired through Pinterest promoted
ads. One of the main reasons for this huge difference is the greater reach of Influencer
marketing as compared to Promoted pins, in terms of the amount spent. In Promoted pins,
every click the ad gets has to be paid, while in influencer marketing, a fixed amount is paid
upfront to the influencer and the clicks/traffic keeps on coming for a long time without any
extra payment. In the case of Pinterest ads, the reach stops once the amount has been used.
The second reason for the difference in results was the limited budget and the short time
allocated to Pinterest ads. The results could have been different if a higher budget and a long
period of time was selected.

CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Social media is becoming an integral part of our everyday life. People are spending tens of
hours every week on social media, either through their smartphones or computers. This thing
has led many companies to spend a significant amount of money on doing social media
marketing. But without a proper strategy and understanding, these marketing campaigns do
not bring any fruits.
The first step in making any marketing campaign is understanding the target audience. All the
visitors to a business are not necessarily the same. These visitors fall in different categories.
Some of them are there to buy, others are just considering buying while few others are not
sure if they want something. So, for targeting the right customers a strong and targeted
marketing plan is inevitable. The second step involves creating the marketing strategy. It
involves a careful analysis of the business. This analysis includes finding the interest and
demographics of the current customers. Because without knowing these traits of current
customers, the business cannot find the potential customers. Setting goals is also an
important part of the strategy. These goals have to be specific, measurable, attainable,
relevant and time-bound. All these points are very important to remember while creating a
marketing campaign. Promoted pins/ Pinterest ads are quite new as compared to advertising
on other social networking sites like Facebook and twitter. For setting up a successful
advertising plan on Pinterest a good marketing strategy has to be made.

All the essential parts of advertising like the interests, demographics, etc. of the target
audience has to be selected very carefully. Another important type of marketing that works on
Pinterest is influencer marketing. By finding the right type of influencers and following the
right strategy, brands can make more profit than other types of online marketing. As in the
case of GonChas, influencer marketing was able to bring in a good amount of profit and
brand awareness. Brand awareness can be measured by a number of KPI‟s. The monthly
engaged users are the users that have clicked, liked, shared, commented, or followed the
Pinterest account of GonChas. Before the launch of the Influencer marketing campaigns, the
number of people getting engaged per month was around 14,400, but after launching the
influencer marketing campaigns, the monthly engagement rose to 30,021. Also, the monthly
impressions for GonChas on Pinterest increased from 300,000 to 938,000.

One of the most important results achieved through this study was the optimization of
influencer marketing. GonChas has been doing influencer marketing since the starting days
but those campaigns were not optimized. All the research done during the course of this
study, has helped in optimizing the marketing campaigns. During the planning phase of these
campaigns a research was done to find the most suitable influencer for the type of products
to be promoted. Proper goals were set, and the metrics were analyzed every day to check
the performance of the campaign. The type of products used, and the timing of post share
were also noted.

This optimization proved to be very helpful and the results achieved by these optimized
campaigns have improved the overall performance of GonChas, in terms of number of sales,
user engagement and brand awareness. The influencer marketing campaigns has also
helped GonChas in increasing the number of followers on Pinterest that went from 11,300 to
12,086. Although this paper provides satisfactory results to give interested people guidance
to successful Pinterest advertising and influencer marketing, but it has its limitations. To start
with, Pinterest is a new form of social media, and there has not been much research work
done on it. So, some of the data has been used from online sources. Secondly, while
identifying the characteristics of influencer marketing, the focus has been on influencers
working in the niche of fashion and lifestyle, which naturally does not show the whole scope
of influencer marketing on Pinterest.

Another limitation while running Pinterest ads was the limited budget and time allocated for
Promoted Pins. A more extensive and thorough campaign could have been launched with a
bigger budget, and more refined results could have been achieved. Nevertheless, one week's
campaign gave valuable information about Pinterest ads, and the knowledge acquired can be
used in planning future campaigns. Also, Pinterest is rapidly changing from month to month,
new features are being added or modified, so readers in the future have to be cautious and
need to check whether the presented information is up to date or not. The information,
tactics, strategies, and frameworks discussed in this thesis regarding social media marketing
can serve as a good example, but the results are not guaranteed.
Further research in the future can include methods on how to integrate influencer marketing
with Pinterest ads. If Pinterest devices a method whereby integrating the influencers and
Pinterest ads, it can bring more value to Pinterest, the advertisers and will encourage the
influencers to make more quality content. Also,

integrating Pinterest ads with other advertising channels such as email, search, etc. can be a
part of future research. Although limited by amount of resources and time, this work tried to
grasp the topic of Pinterest advertising and Pinterest Influencer marketing comprehensively.
The research contributed to furthering knowledge about Pinterest, as it is a fairly new and
does not have much research work done on it. This study also gathered valuable knowledge
on how to plan, launch and evaluate marketing campaigns on Pinterest.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SNSS - Social networking service

RSS - Rich Site Summary
AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
UGC – User Generated Content
VK - Vkontakte
DIY - Do it yourself
PPC - Pay Per Click
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
ROI - Return on investment
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
EDI - Electronic Data Interchange
B2B - Business to Business
B2C - Business to Consumer
C2C - Consumer to Consumer
KPI - Key performance indicators
SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound
CTR - Click through Rate
CPC - Cost per Click
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
CPM – Cost per Mile