Just yesterday Pinterest officially launched its web-based analytics tool! This is truly great news! It was about time we get such figures coming directly from Pinterest itself, instead of having to rely on other third-party tools. The Pinterest analytics platform is absolutely free and allows site owners to track the engagement of their website visitors on the social network.

Such data can be extremely valuable especially for business accounts (which were launched a few months back) because it will help identify how exactly people interact with the content originating from their websites.

Here’s what the new analytics can tell you:

• how many pins have been pinned and repinned from your site
• how many people have pinned and repinned from your site
• how many times your pins have appeared in the main feed, in search results or on boards
• how many people have seen these pins
• how many impressions the content has generated
• how many people have visited your site from Pinterest
• a selection of your most recent, most repinned and most clicked pins

You can set a custom date range so that you can see how your activities have changed over time. You can also download the data allowing you to easily present the numbers offline.

These metrics may not (yet) be as robust as the ones provided by third-party applications such as Pinfluencer or Curalate, but I am pretty sure that Pinterest will in time add more features such as for example identifying who the most active and influential pinners are or analytics for each board.

Still, the new tool provides some great benefits to dig into Pinterest engagement. Here they are:

#1 Insights into what content your audience exactly likes

Not just for businesses, but even for me as a blogger the data offered from the analytics can be extremely helpful. It allows me to identify what content my audience likes the most and shares on Pinterest so that I can, firstly, understand what my readers enjoy, and secondly, so that I can focus exactly on that type of content. The same applies for businesses who are keen to find out more about customer preferences and needs. They will know what people are pinning from their websites so that they can make informed decisions and use there more of the popular and less of the unpopular content. To track this you just need to know what and when exactly you are pinning and then compare pins’ performance.

#2 A stronger content strategy that drives more traffic

These new web analytics will be of great help for brands to more effectively shape their content strategies. Knowing what pins people find most interesting, companies can make sure they add more images of this type on their website and then pin them so that they can boost traffic coming from Pinterest. And let’s not forget that Pinterest is a truly great tool for that - it is said to drive more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined!

#3 No need to pay for third-party analytics service

The new tool (which is free!) will aid small businesses who do not have the resources to pay for sophisticated analytics software or for agencies to measure the results for them, but they will instead be able to analyse their activities themselves.

The analytics are only available for those who have gone through the verification process of their website. If you haven’t verified your site yet, follow the instructions here - it’s a very simple process and the benefit is that everyone will know your profile is the official (verified) Pinterest account for that website.

So where to find the analytics?

First you need to make sure that you have switched to Pinterest’s new look (if you haven’t, here’s how to).

Then head over to the right corner of Pinterest’s homepage where your name is and you will find the analytics in the drop-down menu that shows up. That’s it!

This is what it looks like:

The new analytics tool may not yet be as sophisticated and comprehensive as some would want, but it is a great first step towards providing businesses and individuals with relevant data to measure and evaluate their Pinterest efforts in order to understand what works and what doesn’t.

What’s more, such a tool can help PR and social media managers encourage more businesses to get on Pinterest, because now they can offer them performance facts and figures – clients always want to know what they are getting out of their social media activities (ROI, ROI, ROI :-P).

Have you tried the tool yet? What do you think?