Epsilon audiences now available on Pinterest with improved match rates

Pinterest announced on November 5, 2025, a new integration with Epsilon and Epsilon Clean Room that enables advertisers to activate privacy-safe audience segments directly on the visual discovery platform. The collaboration provides a 3-day average service level agreement improvement compared to historical workflows and a 5-15% average match rate improvement.

The integration allows advertisers to push custom audience segments from Epsilon Clean Room to Pinterest in what the company described as "just a few clicks" without requiring spreadsheets or manual uploads. Advertisers in the United States, United Kingdom, and France can currently access the functionality. The automated delivery system creates schedules for audience refreshes and end dates, with Epsilon ensuring each segment reaches the correct account.

According to the announcement, audiences become available on Pinterest within 24-48 hours after creation in Epsilon Clean Room. This represents a significant acceleration compared to traditional audience activation methods, which typically required manual file transfers and longer processing times.

The technical infrastructure relies on Epsilon's COREid technology, which powers the Epsilon Clean Room platform. The self-service audience builder provides access to 7,000+ person-level attributes for creating relevant audiences using either advertiser first-party data or Epsilon proprietary third-party data. Advertisers can combine and enrich their data by securely connecting first-party information with trusted partners and Epsilon's proprietary data to improve reach, accuracy, and match rates on Pinterest.

Epsilon Clean Room operates as a secure environment where multiple parties can analyze and activate audience segments while maintaining privacy controls. Clean room technology has emerged as critical infrastructure across the advertising ecosystem, particularly as privacy regulations restrict traditional data sharing methods. These secure environments allow data collaboration between different parties while maintaining strict privacy controls, preventing direct exposure of individual-level customer information.

Pinterest reached 600 million users in the third quarter of 2025, with revenue growing 17% year-over-year to $998 million. The platform has positioned itself as a destination for users planning purchases and projects, with 39% of Generation Z users preferring to start shopping searches on Pinterest rather than traditional search engines. This planning mindset creates opportunities for advertisers to reach consumers during high-intent moments.

The Epsilon integration addresses several key challenges facing digital advertisers. Match rate improvements allow brands to reach more of their target audiences on Pinterest's platform. Higher match rates directly translate to expanded campaign reach, as more first-party customer records successfully connect with Pinterest users. The 5-15% improvement means advertisers can potentially reach thousands or tens of thousands of additional customers depending on audience size.

Service level agreement improvements reduce the time between audience creation and campaign activation. The 3-day acceleration enables advertisers to respond more quickly to market opportunities, seasonal moments, or competitive dynamics. For time-sensitive campaigns around product launches or promotional periods, faster activation speeds can determine campaign success or failure.

Full-funnel reporting in Pinterest Ads Manager provides measurement capabilities from awareness through conversion. Advertisers can track how Epsilon-powered audiences perform across multiple metrics, including impressions, engagement, click-through rates, and attributed conversions. This measurement infrastructure operates within Pinterest's existing analytics framework, requiring no additional implementation from advertisers.

Publicis Groupe finalized its acquisition of Epsilon on July 2, 2019, at a net value of $3.95 billion after tax step-up, according to the company's announcement. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, stated at the time that the acquisition "completes our sets of assets harmoniously, with data capabilities that are second to none, and propels the Groupe as the global leader of personalized experiences at scale."

The acquisition positioned Epsilon at the core of Publicis Groupe's organization, serving as the unique data-tech platform for delivering personalization at scale. Bryan Kennedy, who served as Epsilon's CEO at the time of acquisition, joined the Groupe Executive Committee and reported directly to Sadoun. The integration aimed to turbocharge Publicis Communications, Publicis Media, Publicis Sapient, and Publicis Health operations through Epsilon's data capabilities.

Publicis has continued investing in identity-driven marketing capabilities, including the March 2025 acquisition of Lotame, which strengthened identity resolution by combining 2.3 billion global profiles. These acquisitions reflect industry-wide movement toward first-party data strategies as privacy regulations restrict third-party cookie usage and traditional tracking methods.

Pinterest has expanded its advertising technology throughout 2025. The platform launched Top of Search ads on September 25, which achieved 29% higher click-through rates compared to standard campaigns during testing. Local inventory advertising enables retailers to display real-time pricing for in-stock merchandise within shoppers' local store radius, integrating with retailer inventory management systems.

The platform's Performance Plus campaigns demonstrate strong adoption among mid-market and smaller advertisers. Retail advertisers spending on Performance Plus campaigns experienced an average 24% higher conversion lift compared to those using only traditional campaigns. Among mid-market and smaller managed advertisers, Performance Plus campaign adopters exhibited an average 12% higher monthly growth rate in spending on Pinterest post-adoption compared to non-adopters.

Pinterest has established programmatic access through partnerships with Index Exchange and Criteo, expanding inventory availability across multiple demand-side platforms. These integrations follow IAB Tech Lab's standardized ads.txt protocol for authorized digital sellers, ensuring transparency and trust in the advertising supply chain.

The Epsilon partnership adds another dimension to Pinterest's data collaboration capabilities. By integrating directly with a major data provider, Pinterest reduces friction in the audience activation process while maintaining privacy standards. Advertisers can leverage Epsilon's extensive consumer data assets without manual data transfers or complex technical implementations.

Clean room technology continues proliferating across the advertising ecosystem. NIQ launched its data clean room on Snowflake on October 2, 2025, enabling marketers to enrich first-party data and measure campaign outcomes across global markets. LiveRamp expanded measurement capabilities on October 23, allowing retail media networks to analyze Meta advertising through its Clean Room platform.

However, regulatory bodies have issued cautionary guidance. The Federal Trade Commission warned on November 13, 2024, that data clean rooms present complicated privacy implications despite marketing claims. The regulatory body emphasized that default clean room configurations typically lack privacy-preserving characteristics without appropriate constraints. The commission's technical analysis revealed that clean rooms can add new avenues for data leaks and breaches.

Epsilon has expanded partnerships across the advertising ecosystem. The company integrated Proximic by Comscore in March 2024 to implement enhanced contextual data solutions for Epsilon Digital, providing insights into content across connected television, audio, desktop, and mobile touchpoints. These partnerships align with industry movement toward privacy-first advertising as traditional identifiers face deprecation.

The Pinterest integration represents another step in Epsilon's strategy to position its data assets across major advertising platforms. By establishing direct connections with platforms like Pinterest, Epsilon reduces implementation barriers for advertisers managing campaigns across multiple channels. This approach mirrors broader industry trends toward streamlined data activation and measurement.

For advertisers, the integration offers practical benefits beyond match rate and speed improvements. The self-service nature of Epsilon's audience builder enables rapid testing and iteration of different audience segments. Advertisers can create multiple segments based on various combinations of first-party and third-party attributes, then evaluate performance directly in Pinterest Ads Manager.

The availability across three markets—United States, United Kingdom, and France—reflects Pinterest's international expansion priorities. Pinterest's second quarter 2025 results showed Europe revenue growing 34% and Rest of World revenue increasing 65% year-over-year, demonstrating momentum outside the core U.S. market. Epsilon's presence in these markets enables consistent audience targeting capabilities across geographies.

Advertisers interested in accessing the integration must contact their Epsilon account representative to establish the connection. Pinterest also provides resources through its team for advertisers seeking to activate first-party audiences on the platform. The company has invested in advertiser education, launching Performance Essentials certification in April 2025 to increase advertiser proficiency in conversion tracking, catalog integration, and measurement methodologies.

The integration arrives as Pinterest continues positioning itself as both a discovery platform and commerce destination. The company has introduced artificial intelligence features for personalized shopping experiences, including dynamic AI-generated collages from fashion Pins and AI-powered boards combining editorial curation with algorithmic recommendations. These product developments complement advertising capabilities by increasing user engagement and commercial intent.

Timeline

• July 2, 2019: Publicis Groupe finalizes Epsilon acquisition for $3.95 billion, positioning Epsilon as core data-tech platform
• March 16, 2024: Epsilon partners with Proximic by Comscore for enhanced contextual data solutions across digital channels
• November 13, 2024: FTC warns data clean rooms present complicated privacy implications despite marketing claims
• January 28, 2025: Pinterest expands programmatic access through Index Exchange and Criteo partnerships
• March 9, 2025: Publicis announces Lotame acquisition to strengthen identity-driven marketing with 2.3 billion global profiles
• September 25, 2025: Pinterest launches Top of Search ads achieving 29% higher CTR in testing
• October 2, 2025: NIQ launches global data clean room on Snowflake for ad measurement
• October 23, 2025: LiveRamp enables retail media networks to measure Meta campaigns through Clean Room platform
• November 5, 2025: Pinterest announces Epsilon Clean Room integration with 3-day SLA improvement and 5-15% higher match rates
• November 17, 2025: Pinterest reaches 600 million monthly active users with 17% revenue growth

Summary

Who: Pinterest integrated with Epsilon and Epsilon Clean Room to provide direct audience activation capabilities. The collaboration involves Pinterest as the visual discovery platform serving 600 million monthly active users, Epsilon as the data provider owned by Publicis Groupe since 2019, and advertisers in the United States, United Kingdom, and France as the initial beneficiaries. The integration utilizes Epsilon's COREid technology and Clean Room infrastructure.

What: The integration enables advertisers to activate privacy-safe audience segments from Epsilon Clean Room directly to Pinterest through an automated workflow. The system provides access to 7,000+ person-level attributes for audience creation, delivers a 3-day average SLA improvement compared to historical workflows, and achieves 5-15% average match rate improvements. Audiences become available on Pinterest within 24-48 hours, with automated scheduling for audience refreshes and end dates. Full-funnel reporting operates through Pinterest Ads Manager.

When: Pinterest announced the integration on November 5, 2025. The functionality became available immediately for advertisers in the three initial markets. Epsilon's parent company Publicis Groupe acquired Epsilon on July 2, 2019, establishing the data infrastructure foundation for partnerships like the Pinterest integration.

Where: The integration operates across three markets: United States, United Kingdom, and France. Advertisers access Epsilon Clean Room's self-service audience builder to create segments, which then activate directly on Pinterest's advertising platform. The technical infrastructure relies on cloud-based clean room technology that maintains data privacy while enabling secure audience matching and activation.

Why: The integration addresses key challenges in digital advertising including audience match rate optimization, activation speed, and privacy-compliant data collaboration. As privacy regulations restrict traditional tracking methods and third-party cookies face deprecation, clean room technology provides infrastructure for data collaboration without exposing individual-level customer information. For Pinterest, the partnership expands advertiser capabilities and addresses demand for first-party data targeting. For Epsilon, the integration extends data asset distribution across major advertising platforms. Advertisers benefit from faster campaign activation, higher audience reach, and simplified workflow compared to manual processes.