There’s no denying it–the Internet is a behemoth of visual media. In fact, there are more than 50 billion photos on Instagram and at least 800 million videos on YouTube. At this point, it’s safe to say we’re collectively obsessed with snapping, editing, uploading, sharing, and viewing photos and videos online.
There’s so much media sitting in cyberspace that no one person could possibly keep track of it all. Heck, it’s tough to keep track of all the photos of yourself online. Even if you’ve forgotten about that embarrassing photo from prom 2008, the Internet probably hasn’t. (Might want to go check on that…if you can remember your Myspace password, that is.)
And while you personally don’t need (or want) to track down every image of your likeness on the Web, the opposite is true for brands and their products. While often undervalued, product imagery plays a massive role in consumers’ purchasing decisions. It’s such a crucial part of the buyer’s journey that about 75% of online shoppers report relying on product photos when deciding on a potential purchase.
There are many ways brands can benefit from monitoring, protecting, and updating their product imagery on retailer sites across the Internet. In this post, we’ll share tips for optimizing retailer product pages using PriceSpider’s Brand Monitor Image Monitoring module to drive conversions and protect brand integrity.
Why should brands care about their product imagery?
Oftentimes, retailers maintain full control of product presentation on their sites. They choose how product imagery appears, which images/videos are used, and what format they’re shown in. This isn’t detrimental if brands and retailers can communicate clearly and set expectations for product presentation, but unfortunately, that’s often not the case.
Instead, many brands leave the process entirely up to retailers–often because they don’t prioritize imagery monitoring or feel that they have the resources to do so. This can result in the retailer displaying low-quality product description pages (PDPs) for the brand’s products. Some potential faults of these subpar pages might include:
- Incorrect hero images
- Non-compliant images (low resolution and/or showing the product from an undesirable angle)
- Insufficient number of images
- Incorrect images for the listed product
When this happens, a retailer is actively harming your brand. Poor or non-compliant product imagery can lead to several negative consequences, including:
- Lower conversion rates: If your product looks bad or shoppers can’t see it in detail, they’re less likely to want to purchase it. Consumer standards are higher than ever, and people want high-quality products. They also want to know exactly what they’re getting when they buy them.
- Higher return rates: Product imagery goes a long way in setting appropriate expectations. If customers order a product and don’t get what they expected, they’re going to return it. That’s not good for your brand or the retailers selling your products. And if it happens enough times, it could potentially sour your relationship with them.
- Damage to brand reputation: Speaking of soured relationships, there’s no quicker way to alienate both potential and existing customers than falling short of their expectations. Maintaining accurate, high-quality imagery helps ensure that shoppers both perceive your brand as reputable and understand exactly what they’re buying. Failure to do so will eventually erode your brand image, leading to customer dissatisfaction and plummeting sales.
For all the reasons listed above, it’s crucial for brands to take an active stance and enforce compliance with their product imagery guidelines across the Internet.
How to ensure high-quality product imagery and drive conversions
Now that we’ve covered why image monitoring is important, let’s take a look at what you can do to ensure your brand’s product imagery is on the up and up.
The first thing you need to consider is that it’s impossible (or at least, highly impractical) to manually track your product imagery across every retailer website. This could be a full-time job in itself, and even then, it would still be incredibly difficult for one person or even a small group to manage every existing PDP for your products.
That’s why you need a digital solution that can scour the Web for you and keep track of everything you need to know to prevent non-compliance and increase conversion rates. Luckily, PriceSpider’s proprietary crawling technology and our Brand Monitor Image Monitoring module have you covered. Here are three key things you should be doing to consistently maintain high-quality, compliant product imagery across the Internet.
1. Monitor your product imagery on every retailer and seller website
The quality of your products’ PDPs on retailer and seller websites is a major factor in how well the products will sell and how visitors will perceive your brand. If you don’t know what imagery is being displayed on those PDPs, there’s a major gap in your marketing and sales capabilities. That’s why you need to be able to keep track of every PDP for your brand across the Internet–because the better your visibility, the better your ability to convert visitors into buyers.
Whereas most solutions just monitor hero images, Brand Monitor’s Image Monitoring module monitors the entire image carousel–including hero/primary and secondary images–and scans for unapproved or incorrect imagery. It also tracks the order of images in the carousel and identifies any images that have been created by retailers or sellers. In addition, the module can be used to monitor competitor PDPs, so you can see how others in the market are displaying their products.
2. Analyze the data and set up alerts
When it comes to anything on the digital shelf, data rules the roost–and the same holds true for product imagery. But like we mentioned before, it’s a nearly impossible challenge to track down all the PDPs for your products across the Internet, much less capture and utilize meaningful data from them. You need a tool that captures and displays up-to-date, actionable metrics about all of your product imagery and proactively alerts you when something is amiss. That way you can spend more of your time analyzing KPIs and less time searching for them.
Ideally, the solution you use should be able to present you with as much data as possible about your product imagery. It should also update that information as frequently as possible. Brand Monitor captures the highest quality crawl-based data on the market, searching and monitoring data as if it were a customer visiting a retailer or seller’s site. Plus, it crawls the Web and refreshes data once every day, so you always have access to the latest stats.
From there, you can analyze key metrics like which imagery (or what amount of imagery) converts the best, how many retailers are non-compliant, the number of images displayed by retailers, and more. The module will also automatically alert you when one of your monitored products is displayed with unapproved or incorrect imagery. This highly specific data allows you to optimize every PDP for better conversion rates and improved KPIs.
3. Engage retailers and sellers where needed
Monitoring and analyzing your product imagery is important, but what about when it’s time to take action? That’s when you need enforcement capabilities, which include streamlined communication with retailers and sellers, as well as the ability to provide evidence of non-compliance.
Using Brand Monitor simplifies the enforcement process from beginning to end. You can set up custom email templates that are ready to deploy whenever non-compliant imagery is detected, enabling you to quickly contact retailers and sellers to resolve the issue. What’s more, Brand Monitor Image Monitoring automatically captures screenshots of the imagery in violation, so you can show them exactly where and how to correct the problem. In addition, flagged issues can be assigned to your team members directly within the module to ensure timely resolution.
Take control of your product presentation
If you’re not actively monitoring and updating your product imagery across retailer and seller websites, you’re leaving your brand’s fate in their hands. Taking this kind of passive stance can lead to lower sales, more returns, and damaged relationships with customers and retailers alike. PriceSpider’s Brand Monitor Image Monitoring module can help you actively prevent non-compliance, maximize conversion rates, and improve the customer experience everywhere your brand’s products are sold online.
Want to learn more about Image Monitoring and how it can help your brand?
Talk to an Expert About Brand Monitor’s Image Monitoring Capabilities Today.
