Dive Brief:

• Pinterest is rolling out a “crazy fun” search tool to help its users better find pinned products.
• The social media platform is working to generate revenue and the search tool comes on the heels of the debuts of promoted pins and shoppable buttons.
• Pinterest is expected to hit $2.8 billion in revenue this year.

Dive Insight:

With its many recent product additions, Pinterest is making it clear that it wants to be taken seriously among the advertising world.

The photo-saving platform on Monday launched a search feature that goes beyond the search with text queries users have had until now. According to Adweek, though marketers won't initially be able to purchase visual search ads as they have with text search ads, Pinterest hasn't ruled that out as a possibility.

"Pinterest is positioning itself not only to make gains on Google in terms of intent-driven search, but also to compete with major e-commerce platforms as well," Greg Andersen, president of Rapp U.S., told Adweek.

In a blog post Pinterest described how the new search tool functions, writing, “When you spot something in a Pin that you want to learn more about, tap the search tool in the corner. Then select the part of the Pin you’re interested in, and we’ll show you Pins just like it. You can even filter your visual search results by topic so you find exactly what you’re looking for. So if you zoom in on that lamp, you can discover what it’s called ('Antiqued Metal Funnel Pendant'), and where you can find it (Restoration Hardware). If you want to know more—like how to get a table like that—just resize your selection and move it around to instantly see more Pins.”

Ben Kennedy, group director of mobile at Integer, told Digiday. “It will help attract a larger share of search advertising money. This play appears to reinforce the foundation behind additional paid products that allow advertisers to buy space to be the first product within search. It is also showing the importance Pinterest is placing on being a search engine first.”