Though Pinterest has yet to generate money, it has caught the eye of big investors, strategic partners, and has even managed to snag key companies with the purpose of improving its personnel and underlying technology.  Proof of how well Pinterest is doing is the recent $225 million Series E round of funding led by Fidelity Investments.

The new round of funding will be used for global expansion, but even before it raised the money, Pinterest has been expanding its reach to foreign soil.

The Hires Behind Pinterest’s International Intentions

In May of this year, Pinterest launched its first localized in the UK.  What makes this different is that it delivers UK content to UK users, plus there’s a British English language setting to make Britons feel more familiar with the service.

“[M]ore UK Pinners and pins will be suggested to UK users on the site. Also, when a new person in the UK joins Pinterest, they’ll now see other Pinners in the UK. In addition, search results will feature more UK content. Finally, Pinterest is making sure that people in the UK can access the service in British English. We’re hoping this will lead to more British pinners discovering things they love on Pinterest,” the company said.

With this localization effort, Pinterest hired Sarah Bush back in September as its UK country manager.

• Sarah Bush : UK proper

Bush joined Pinterest from Vestiaire Collective, a fashion website for pre-owned luxury goods, where she also held the position of UK country manager.  Aside from managing the UK arm and directly reporting to Matt Crystal, head of international at Pinterest, Bush also oversaw the blogging campaign Pin it Forward launched in the UK.  The blogging campaign enlisted 300 bloggers that shared inspiration through boards and pins.

Bush also has a marketing background from previously managing European marketing, business director and editorial functions at e-commerce site Shopstyle by Popsugar..

A month after the UK invasion, Pinterest launched its first non-English site in France. Though French as a language setting has been available since 2012, a French localized version is still better.  This will allow French Pinterest users to discover more local pins and pinners.  And just like in UK, Pinterest also launched Pin it Forward France for bloggers.

The French version launched simultaneously on web, iOS and Android.

• Stéphanie Tramicheck : French love story

Pinterest hired Stéphanie Tramicheck as its country manager in France.  Tramicheck is a co-founder at Quittance.com and former country manager of France for Etsy before joining Pinterest.

Pinterest’s partnership with Telefonica, though it doesn’t pay off in profit just yet, allows the network to reach more people in Latin America and Europe, as Android phones sold by the carrier come with a Pinterest widget.  The Pinterest widget allows users, even those unregistered, to discover pins right from the home screen.  Plus, Pinterest gets updated in the background so pins are always new.

• Tokyo or bust

Another region Pinterest is eyeing for global expansion is Japan, and it seems more likely after Tokyo-based Internet giant Rakuten invested $50 million in Pinterest during a $100 million total funding round back in May, just as Pinterest established its first overseas office.

Analytics

But aside from global expansion, Pinterest has been busy improving its service.  In March, Pinterest unveiled an updated design, as well as its own analytics platform.

The new look now allows Pinterest users to explore boards without leaving the page, see related pins, bigger pins, and keeping your place when browsing pins.

While the interface refresh is a perk for users, the update to Pinterest’s analytics platform is a boon for marketers and retailers. Before the update, if you wanted to analyze what people are pinning from your site, you used a service like Piqora, previously known as Pinfluencer. But Pinterest now has its own analytics platform, called  Pinterest Web Analytics, to help website owners learn more about their visitors.

This is just another tool Pinterest offers for business owners.  Other Pinterest tools include Pinterest for Business so more people can discover people’s business, the Pin It Button and widget which allows people to easily share content they find on websites or mobile apps.

• Not ready for big business

But will Pinterest’s analytics platform be able to cut it?  What will it mean for third-party analytics providers?  Piqora is not threatened by Pinterest’s analytics platform, in fact they see this as a compliment to their own offerings.

“Pinterest analytics is designed for small business and pro users, like wedding planners,” Piqora CEO Sharad Verma says.  ”Not designed with an enterprise customer in mind.  Ours is core metrics — our analytics are very advanced.  I think it’s important for them to demonstrate the value of traffic coming from Pinterest.  It’s a good step before asking for money from brands.  Our goal is to be very complimentary to Pinterest.”