Australia’s R.M. Williams and their leather boots have become a wardrobe staple for many people, leading to their expansion into various international retail locations.

To drive further growth, R.M. Williams wanted to reach new audiences globally who actively sought luxury fashion and quality apparel. Pinterest emerged as a key player for helping to engage their target audiences, particularly men.

To turn this vision into a reality, R.M. Williams collaborated with agency partner WiredCo who played a pivotal role in helping position the brand in the digital landscape.

R.M. Williams strategically designed their creative and media planning for all demographics, with ads for both male and female shoppers in mind. They produced a line-up of best practice creative, spanning over 10 ads, using formats including carousel, video and static ads. The ads focused on product close-ups, lifestyle imagery, gift guides and videos showing their products in action.

To help fuel sales, the video and static ads were further enhanced with direct links. Direct links offer a frictionless user experience and help brands expedite the path to purchase. When a shopper clicks on your ad, it skips a close-up of the ad and instead takes them directly to your website.

They ran their campaign from October through December, capturing shoppers as they curated their seasonal wishlists in the build-up to and throughout the festive shopping season. They focused on interest and keyword targeting related to Christmas lifestyle and gifting, iconic boots and also summer style (for Australian and New Zealand markets) to ensure they met customers across all categories while they shopped on Pinterest.

The campaign achieved high engagement across all demographics, with the male audience cohort seeing particularly strong results against its benchmarks¹.

The response to the carousel ads in the US was particularly high. The campaign engagement rate was 55%, 10x greater than the US retail benchmark¹. Notably, engagement among men was five times higher than that among other demographics¹.

In the summer campaign in Australia, R.M. Williams observed a 5% higher efficiency in optimised cost-per-click rates (oCPC) among men compared to women, accompanied by a 16% increase in optimised click-through rates (oCTR) for the same demographic¹. Similarly, in the UK's campaign, efficiency among men was 7% higher in terms of oCPC¹. 

These results underscore the active and engaged male audience that exists on Pinterest, with the success among this cohort amplified by a clever, hyper-targeted audience strategy. Furthermore, including direct links in R.M. Williams’ marketing strategy enabled customers to seamlessly move from inspiration to action in a single click.

Tips for your next campaign

Try these Pinterest best practices to help get more out of your ads.

1. Try direct links for yourself. Reduce the steps to take shoppers from discovery to action with one of Pinterest's latest performance ad formats. Direct links are designed to help expedite the path to purchase — instantly directing users from Pinterest to your website in one click.

2. Ensure relevance with a cohesive URL destination. Create a consumer journey that's easy and frictionless — make sure your ad directly links to the product you're advertising. If the shopper has clicked on it, it means they want to see the exact product that's featured in the picture.

3. Produce visually compelling creative with clear, concise text. To attract shoppers with direct links, the imagery you use is essential. People will skip the ad close-up — so make sure it's light on text and attention-grabbing enough for people to shop directly from their feeds. Check out Pinterest’s creative best practices for more top tips.