Pinterest is about to receive a new supply of very specific advertising data. The company providing this information knows precisely who is looking to relocate, renovate or purchase a home.
On Wednesday, August 12, 2026, Pinterest and real-estate information service Zillow announced an integration which allows for Zillow Elevate advertisers to access users via Pinterest’s Media Network Connect. This will give businesses utilizing this type of advertising access to some of the most specific housing related targeting data available.
How the Partnership Works
Pinterest’s Media Network Connect is a tool within Pinterest Ads Manager that enables partnerships with external media networks. The tool was created to ensure the safe exchange of first-party audience segments, product catalog data, and conversion events between media networks and brand advertisers. Zillow has been connected to Pinterest’s Media Network, giving Zillow Elevate advertisers access to Pinterest users through this integration.
As a result, Zillow Elevate advertisers can target Pinterest users on the platform based on 34 audience segments, which include buyers, renters, sellers, and homeowners, among others. The segments also include more specific groups, such as fixer-upper shoppers and recent homeowners. Overall, the wide range of audience segments allows targeting users at different stages of the buying journey. For instance, advertisers can determine whether the targeted Pinterest users are first-time home buyers or those looking for renovation services.
It is noteworthy that Zillow’s targeting option is based on the company’s claim that its offering is based on real-time actionable data rather than assumptions. Zillow built its audience segments from real user behavior, such as searching for a specific type of house or calculating a mortgage, instead of relying on broad demographic categories like age or gender. To summarize, Zillow’s advertising tool allows advertisers to rely on users’ intent to buy based on their behaviors on Zillow and more than 200 housing-related signals.
Why Zillow Chose Pinterest First
This deal represents a major shift for Zillow advertising business Zillow Elevate, which previously only used real-estate heavy Zillow.com for its marketing campaigns. This is the first time the company has shared its predictive housing data outside of its websites, and the partnership is notable as Pinterest is the first advertiser to gain access to the information.
Brent Rosso, the vice president of Media Ad Strategy at Zillow, stated that moving was one of the most profound lifestyle choices an individual could make, which required an incredible amount of planning, and many people already utilized Pinterest for this process. Rosso added in the statement that the company was excited to bring this expanded audience insight to marketers, as it allowed them to reach beyond Zillow and engage their consumers at the moment of intent.
Zillow commented on the situation by noting that Pinterest was a platform where individuals were planning their future purchases, and they dedicated a considerable amount of time there doing so. The company highlighted that many users were planning their next move months in advance, finding and saving the perfect color scheme, or researching renovation ideas before leasing and purchasing processes began. In that sense, Pinterest functions much like any other home-planning tool, just on a different platform, one that Zillow says offers a real opportunity.
Early Results From a Pilot Test
Before launching the targeting options to a broader audience, Zillow tested the accuracy of its data by running an experiment with a home furnishings retailer Kohler. According to Zillow, the results of the pilot were strong enough to help justify expanding the approach to more advertisers. Specifically, Zillow’s campaign with the home fixture retailer Kohler delivered 82 percent more incremental reach and a 23.54 percent engagement rate.
While the engagement lift from the campaign is a strong early signal, other businesses shouldn’t assume identical results, since a single pilot reflects one advertiser’s experience in one vertical, with one type of spend. This means there is early evidence that Zillow’s targeting options can outperform standard interest-based targeting, but other advertisers should treat the results as promising rather than guaranteed.
The pilot with Kohler also offers a useful preview of how this kind of targeting might work for other advertisers on Pinterest. Kohler is a home fixture retailer and does not sell real estate, but its products are relevant to people who just bought a home or are in the middle of a renovation. This way, using the targeting options described in the case allows Kohler to reach a specific audience interested in a particular product at a specific moment rather than aim at a larger audience interested in real estate in general.
What This Means for Pinterest’s Ad Business
For Pinterest, this partnership is part of a trend of diversifying its own data and ad offerings by relying on external data and tools. Pinterest has positioned itself as a platform focused on planning, whether it is for a wedding, an entire wardrobe, or, in the case of this partnership, a home renovation. This collaboration allows Pinterest to better target those who are looking to actively make a purchase in a more specific manner than its own data would suggest.
The partnership also comes at a time when Pinterest has invested significantly in its own AI-driven capabilities to make advertising more efficient, part of a broader push to strengthen its appeal to advertisers. The combination of both first-party and third-party data, as well as Pinterest’s own improvements to ad matching and relevance, should allow the platform to compete more effectively with giants like Google and Meta.
For advertisers, the value is even clearer as the partnership targets a highly specific audience that is actively pursuing a home buying or renovation. Instead of targeting a broad category of demographics, those in the real estate, home improvement, and related industries can appeal directly to those who have demonstrated intent to purchase. Advertisers such as realtors, moving companies, furniture stores, and home improvement retailers can benefit immensely from being able to directly target those that have already shown such interest.
Overall, the partnership signifies a broader trend in the industry with first-party and intent data playing an increasingly important role in targeting audiences outside of the walled gardens of the tech giants. Rather than competing to offer the largest catalog of various kinds of data, companies are beginning to specialize, offering unique solutions for advertisers, such as this partnership, which focuses on the powerful use case of targeting those that have already demonstrated an interest in making a purchase. In the case of Pinterest, the platform’s utility as a planning tool is perfectly utilized, as many of its active users already turn to the service to save and plan their real estate and home improvement projects long before actually making a purchase.
What Comes Next
Zillow has said that the Pinterest partnership is only the beginning of its off-site expansion. The marketplace expects to make its audience data available to more labels and additional audience segments, suggesting that Pinterest may not be the only place where Zillow Elevate advertisers can reach their target market.
Meanwhile, a similar but separate product is being readied on Zillow’s own site. Zillow’s Elevate audiences product is due to launch on its own website in September, also using housing-intent signals to drive its targeted advertising displays. In other words, between the two products’ appearances, first on Pinterest and later on Zillow.com, it seems clear that the real value to Zillow has been in monetizing its own behavioral data.
While this approach probably won’t follow the exact structure of a traditional retail media network, taking first-party purchase and behavioral data and making it valuable to other advertisers is a strategy that makes sense for a housing data company like Zillow. In many ways, it’s simply an extension of the company’s own targeting capabilities built into its service.
As of now, advertisers looking to utilize this type of first-party data targeting can look into joining Zillow Elevate, as the Pinterest partnership’s advertising campaign has already begun utilizing the Media Network Connect integration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: When did Pinterest and Zillow announce this partnership?
The companies announced the partnership on Wednesday, August 12, 2026.
Q2: How does the Pinterest and Zillow partnership work?
Zillow Elevate advertisers can now access Pinterest users via Pinterest’s Media Network Connect, an innovative tool within Pinterest Ads Manager that enables third-party networks to securely share audience data with advertisers.
Q3: What kind of audience segments can advertisers target?
The advertisers can tap into 34 Zillow consumer segments including buyers, renters, sellers, and homeowners, as well as niche groups such as fixer-upper shoppers and recent buyers.
Q4: What data does Zillow use to define these audience segments?
The data is based on predictive housing modeling using real-world user activity and 200+ housing-related signals, not on assumptions about what the customer might want.
Q5: Is this the first time that Zillow has shared its data with third-party partners?
Yes, it is. Zillow previously distributed its predictive housing data only on its own websites and applications. Thus, Pinterest is the first company to gain access to Zillow’s data.
Q6: Did Zillow test this partnership before launching it?
Yes, the companies did. Zillow’s pilot program with Kohler saw an 82 percent increase in incremental reach and achieved a 23.54 percent engagement rate. However, not every advertiser can expect similar results since the pilot was a single campaign.
Q7: Why did Zillow pick Pinterest as its first off-site partner?
Zillow’s management noted that many people engage in Pinterest during the home-buying process. A large part of the process is planning, and Pinterest is a great place to research and gather ideas. Therefore, the company wanted to tap into this rich source of potential customers.
Q8: What is Zillow Elevate Audiences, and when will it launch?
Zillow Elevate Audiences is a product that will be available in Zillow’s platform in September. It will utilize the same housing-intent audiences found in the Pinterest partnership.
