• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 2, 2016

Pinterest has enlisted Millward Brown Digital to help show marketers the real power of its Pin-based network. WPP’s marketing research unit has produced Pinterest-specific data for years, but this makes the partnership official. 

Per the deal, “We can now provide comprehensive and actionable audience level insights,” said Jon Kaplan, Global Head of Sales at Pinterest.

Among other tools, Millward Brown’s Brand Lift Insights offering will measure the impact of Pinterest brand campaigns.

Specifically, it should help brands figure out how Promoted Pins shift consumer brand perceptions and the degree to which consumers become more aware of brands after being exposed to Promoted Pins.

The pin-sharing platform also increased the number of keywords and specific interests that advertisers can sell against.

Pinterest also took the opportunity, on Monday, to show off some impressive findings.

In one study, Walgreens experienced a higher than 15% lift in positive brand perception, brand favorability, and purchase intent for a key category among a targeted audience of females age 18-24. 

In another, conducted for L’Oréal, the brand saw an 18% lift in new product awareness for their new Lumi Highlighter makeup product, as well as a 27% lift in message association, and 25% lift in purchase intent. 

Partly as a result of these impressive figures, Pinterest’s business prospects are looking bright. Indeed, the image-based social network reportedly expects to rake in $3 billion in revenue in 2018. If accurate, that would be dramatically higher than the roughly $100 million in revenue Pinterest reportedly took in last year.

Pinterest is betting its windfall on a successful international expansion. Already, during the first half of 2016, the company is expecting international users to account for more than 50% of its overall audience, a source tells The Wall Street Journal.

Following the lead of Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest recently began inviting every small- and medium-size business in the country to join its self-serve ad platform.

This year, Pinterest will have 54.6 million domestic users -- up 9% by eMarketer’s count. As has long been the case with the platform, the vast majority of is users (81.2%) are female.