In recent years, a handful of ecommerce companies have been exploring the possible applications of visual search, the process of using an image rather than keywords as a search term to discover more information about what is in the picture, or to find images that are similar to it.

Although visual search has existed for more than ten years, we have only had the processing power and amount of data to see its true potential in the last year or so.

This report will explain how visual search and image recognition technology can offer marketers greater insight into their customers, how they can be harnessed to improve the customer experience and how marketers can get involved in this exciting new development in ecommerce.

It has been written with the needs of marketers in ecommerce in mind, though marketers working in search or social media will also find it useful.

The report will:

  • Explain what visual search is, how it works and how it can benefit ecommerce marketers
  • Look at how companies are using visual search and image recognition tools in different ways
  • Explain how images shared on social media or visual discovery platforms can offer greater insight into customer sentiment than text alone
  • Consider how different tools powered by machine learning can predict trends and help marketers make better creative
  • Give practical advice on how marketers can prepare for a world where visual becomes more mainstream

Econsultancy would like to thank the following people for their contribution to the report:

  • Devendra Chandani, Co-founder, Intello Labs
  • Josh Drasta, Sales Director, APAC, Linkfluence
  • Manish Goyal, Head of Business Development and Partnerships, Xtage Labs
  • Dan Harrison, Entrepreneur and former Director of Operations for a visual search business
  • Lou Jordano, CMO, Crimson Hexagon
  • Zsofia Kerekes, Product Manager, Catchoom
  • Tom McGrath, Senior Product Manager, Crimson Hexagon
  • Sarah Painter, SEO Director, Merkle
  • Anbumunee Ponniah, Executive Architect and CTO with Rapid Solutions Center, IBM Watson Customer Engagement
  • Jes Scholz, International Digital Director, Ringier AG
  • Oliver Tan, CEO and Co-founder, ViSenze
  • Dawn Varghese, Retail Industry Leader, IBM Watson Customer Engagement
  • Amy Vener, Retail Vertical Strategy Lead, Pinterest