Pinterest may be on the cusp of an IPO, and it’s evolving a lot to make sure it can generate revenue to satisfy investors. It’s often been said that if you aren’t paying for a service, then you are the product. Pinterest is taking a different approach for its users by making them both the product and the customers.

Taking On Search with Users as the Product

Pinterest has played in the same realm as Facebook and Twitter for awhile now by being another media platform where brands can share Promoted Pins and get in front of users through search and their feeds. Now, Pinterest is focusing even more on its strength in search (2 billion searches per month) by allowing advertisers to buy keywords at scale, similar to how they buy Google Search. Those keywords paired with 400 other signals Pinterest can target by turn Pinterest into a strong search platform.

For advertisers this means, having a robust Pinterest presence full of their products as optimized as possible—think Rich Pins—and then driving people to them on one platform.

Pinterest is less a social network and more of a search engine with the results already on the same website. It lets users find the tips, tricks and products they need to get something done. That makes it prime for search by matching intent with relevant results, and that’s something advertisers can tap into.

Becoming an eCommerce Destination with Users as the Customer

There’s been no shortage of Buy Buttons on social networks, but successful launches of Buy Buttons on social networks have been incredibly rare, except for on Pinterest. Pinterest now has 20,000 merchants offering 10 million products that can be purchased through Buyable Pins.

But it isn’t stopping there. It now has a Pinterest Shop experience that allows users to find curated pins on the best stuff available for purchase, and they can search for products based on retailer, items that are on sale, shipping deals, popularity and so on.

Pinterest is working to help users turn interest into action by making finding products easy and purchasing just as simple, especially with the launch of Shopping Bag, which allows users to buy multiple products from different retailers with one payment. It’d be a miss for retailers to dismiss Pinterest’s offering and what it is turning into.

Defining what Pinterest Is

Pinterest began as an inspiration platform. Now, it’s looking like an inspiration to fruition platform. And that combination is one marketers should be paying attention to.

Facebook and Twitter have tried to connect users to products directly on their platforms with Buy Buttons, but that hasn’t unfolded as hoped. Pinterest may actually be able to do it—combining intent to purchase on one platform at scale. That’s a big deal, especially ahead of a potential IPO.