Pinterest Becoming a Major Internet Traffic Driver

Pinterest, an up and coming bulletin board type website where users can “pin” ideas and products from both on and off line, is becoming a major retail traffic driver. The site’s growing popularity is helping it to refer growing numbers of users to retailer sites. According to data from Compete, Pinterest’s traffic quadrupled between September 2011 and December 2011, which in turn translated to increased referral traffic to retailers featured on the site. The site attracted 7.51 million unique visitors in December alone.

According to internal data from Monetate, Pinterest has now become one of the top five Internet referral sources for several apparel retailers, driving more traffic than Google+. Monetate also reports that referral traffic from Pinterest to five retailers studied rose 389% from July to December 2011. Sales conversion rates have yet to be revealed, so the true benefit to retailers is unknown.

Pinterest is just two years old and has a 58% female user base. According to the site, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.” Pinterest was named one of the top 50 websites in 2011 by Time.