Point. Shoot. Shop.
When it comes to visual search, a picture speaks a hundred words. Here’s how retailers are upping their search rankings and cutting short the journey from discovery to purchase. The year was 2018 and the marketing team at low-cost, Swiss airline easyJet was eager to tap into the fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) social media users get by […]
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When it comes to visual search, a picture speaks a hundred words. Here’s how retailers are upping their search rankings and cutting short the journey from discovery to purchase.
The year was 2018 and the marketing team at low-cost, Swiss airline easyJet was eager to tap into the fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) social media users get by seeing friends holidaying at exotic locales. At the time, Instagram didn’t have any ad options to convert this audience. So easyJet decided to build their own visual search tool with agency VCCP and app developer Travelport Digital. It made it possible for people to search for flights to unknown destinations with just a picture. Using image-recognition technology, the airline would match a photo of a location from anywhere in Europe, suggest the nearest airport and pre-populate the booking form to suggest flight options with the most competitive prices.
Earlier this year, Snapchat expanded its repertoire of its visual search with an update to a feature called Scan. If you aim your camera at clothes, Scan can recognise the style and recommend something similar that you can add to your wardrobe. This year Google also announced a special feed for “deals” in its Shopping tab. Eligibility for a deals badge is based on promotions, sales prices and price drops. Alongside, it launched custom features for retails to maximise their promotions by using the Merchant Center. Recent integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce are working to enhance what merchants can do across Google properties. Bing shot back with a shopping tab with details where users can compare buying options, check out the price history, see excerpts from expert reviews and view product specifications.
Pushing pictures
The easyJet campaign was ahead of its time. Marketers were still crunching the numbers on which keywords would get them the best results. Just a year earlier, Pinterest bet on the future of search without the need to type into a search bar. In 2017, Pinterest Lens was still in beta; the company had teamed up with Samsung to leverage the power image search feature through an artificial intelligence assistant called Bixby. “A lot of the future of search is going to be about pictures instead of keywords,” Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann had said, at the time. Some interesting trivia; Silbermann worked at Google on AdSense before co-founding Pinterest.
Google officially launched Google Lens in October 2017 pre-installed into the Google Pixel 2.
Soon, it became a buzzword for technology companies. In 2019, Salesforce announced Einstein Visual Search for stores and product catalogues built in the Cloud.
How it works
Think of it as a tool to drive discovery and accelerate the steps in between search, selection and purchasing. Key players in the space include search and social engines like Google, Snapchat, Amazon, Pinterest, Bing and retailers like ASOS, eBay, Home Depot, and Forever 21, etc.
Visual search uses real-world imagery to tag and track items over the internet. Using computer vision, machine learning and optical character recognition, the software first identifies the object in the image and searches for similar items. For eCommerce stores and brands, this is a fairly untapped content market that can improve search rankings.
The first step experts suggest is implementing a Schema markup, a form of microdata. Once added to a webpage, the schema markup creates an enhanced description or a rich snippet that appears in search results. Add alternative text because it helps search engines understand the context and meaning of a picture. This will also help in case the image fails to load on the screen. Ensure you have product markup on the host page with the meta-data minimum requirement, license details for the image show up as a badge. When it comes to search, the more details the better.
Next is now
The proliferation of visual AI has led to a number of software solutions for marketers who are new to the space. Slyce calls itself a cross-platform visual search partner. The technology works best for brands that have hard-to-describe products that have visual appeal like home decor and furniture but have clients across automotive, industrial and FMCG categories. For example, the technology company works with Macy via their mobile app. Customers can snap a photo of any item to find visually similar products available online and in-store. ViSenze is a visual search provider used by some of the largest companies like Rakuten, ASOS and UNIQLO. The company specialises in catalogue intelligence and smart recommendations to improve product discoverability. Bazaarvoice acquired Curalate, a search and social tool, last year to enhance their offering of shoppable UGC website galleries. Consumers scroll through images and videos of real people wearing or using the products of their clients. At any time, they have the option to stop scrolling and click to buy because of the easy, accessible eCommerce integration.
Conclusion
Google remains the search engine giant, capturing 92.6 per cent of searches worldwide. Currently, marketers must compete not just with their competitor brands but must keep up with changing rules of search engines to rank higher, consistently. Visual search is still in its infancy but emerging quickly as a space where multiple players are competing not just to leverage the latest technologies but also to integrate with retailers. The future of mobile shopping does not use words.
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