Ahead of the festive season, digital food brand Allrecipes added a Save button on each Pinterest recipe page after noticing a big surge in referral traffic from the site. This case study looks at how the digital food brand boosted clicks by 900% in just 3 months on the social bookmarking site.
Case study summary
• Allrecipes added the Save button in Pinterest to make it easier for users to share and use content
• Also featured Pinterest in marketing emails distributed to more than 6m monthly subscribers.
• Emails featured images from popular pins and included strong calls to action, including “Follow Allrecipes on Pinterest” or “Give it a repin.”
• 50,000 recipes saved resulting in 139m Pinterest impressions
• Clicks on Allrecipes’ Pinterest content increased more than 900%.
The challenge
As the world’s largest digital food brand, Allrecipes reaches a global digital community of 30 million aspiring home cooks who discover and share everyday food inspiration. They make it simple for home cooks to connect around shared food experiences.
Esmee WilliamsVP of Brand Marketing, said: We curate relevant and timely content to fuel a dialogue around cooking. By cross-pollinating among Pinterest, allrecipes.com, and email marketing, we create a seamless experience that allows us to connect more deeply with our existing community and reach new audiences.
The solution
Leading up to the busy holiday season, Allrecipes wanted to make sure they were the first place to go for anyone planning a meal. They added the Save button on each recipe page after noticing a big surge in referral traffic from people on Pinterest. They also designed a new page template where the Save button is above the fold adjacent to recipe photos and videos, which made it especially easy for community members to share recipes.
The results
Allrecipes saw dramatic results. Within three months, more than 50,000 recipes were saved resulting in 139 million Pinterest impressions, and clicks on Allrecipes’ Pinterest content increased more than 900%.
“Since we added the Save button to our site, we’ve seen a significant increase in the volume of recipes and videos shared daily—resulting in dramatic boosts in the daily social referrals Allrecipes receives from Pinterest. This makes our content more discoverable, which grows our community.”
The follow-up
After seeing such positive results from adding the Save button to their site, Allrecipes learned that community members were excited to share their food inspiration. To make the sharing process easier, they featured Pinterest in their marketing emails distributed to more than 6 million monthly subscribers. The emails featured images from popular pins and included strong calls to action, including “Follow Allrecipes on Pinterest” or “Give it a repin.”
Pinterest targeted marketing had a dramatic effect on engagement, resulting in more traffic to Allrecipes. In less than a week after the release of the Scoop newsletter, the number of clicks to Allrecipes.com from Pinterest increased 4x, repins and likes of the featured images increased by more than 3x, and reach grew by 2x.
An active group known as the Allrecipes Allstars has contributed to Allrecipes’ success over the years. Allstars create great content, encourage sharing, and help build the Allrecipes community. To recognize these influencers and make them feel comfortable on Pinterest, Allrecipes conducted special sessions to help the Allstars learn and get excited about Allrecipes on Pinterest. They knew that if they got the Allstars excited, others would follow.
