• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 28, 2023

Pinterest’s multiyear ad partnership with Amazon aims to bring more brands and relevant products to its platform. The deal makes Pinterest the ecommerce giant’s first partner on third-party ads, a company spokesperson said Friday.

Paul Kotas, senior vice president at Amazon -- who is credited with making the ecommerce company an “ad giant” -- believes the partnership will make it “easier for customers to discover and buy relevant products through shoppable content.”

Focused on user engagement with shoppable content on Pinterest, the partnership is expected to bring more brands and relevant products to the platform, improve the buying experience for consumers, and offer advertisers strong performance.

The partnership represents a move in a new direction for Pinterest. The integration will take multiple quarters to implement, with a rollout scheduled for late 2023.

Company executives believe the integration will take time to improve monetization. Raymond James Analyst Aaron Kessler published a research note Friday, which said company executives during the earnings call said it may take until “2024 before [Pinterest] sees a more meaningful revenue impact.”

Pinterest reported first-quarter earnings for 2023 on Friday.

The company said global monthly active users rose 7% year-over-year (YoY) to 463 million, while North America users grew slightly at 1% YoY.

Colin Sebastian, analyst at Baird Equity Research, wrote in a note published Friday that “sessions continue to outpace user growth, due in part to improved recommendations and personalization, as well as from expanding short-form video content (30% of revenues vs. 10% of engagement).”

Pinterest reported on Thursday that revenue rose 5% to $603 million year over year (YoY), and adjusted EPS of $0.08 versus $0.02 expected. The company also reported a GAAP net loss of $209 million, or 31 cents per share, up from 1 cent per share in the year-ago period.