Is there ROI in Image Search?

[rustybrick]

Nacho (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/member.php?u=130) and I were chatting the other day about ROI and Conversions with Image Search. Nacho believes that image searches can be as good in terms of ROI as compared to web search. I personally feel that if someone is using image search, they will not be as qualified a shopper as someone using web search (and even more so, shopping search). Of course, as search engines build image search into the web search front end (invisible tabs approach), then it might return a better ROI, IMO.

I wanted to know if anyone has thoughts on this? If you have data to track image search conversion rates, that would be awesome.

Thanks.

[Nacho]

Barry,

This is a great topic! I'm glad you started a thread on it.

First, for some of you who don't know how to get optimize your site for Image Search, here is a great article on it called "How To Optimize Your Images For Image Search (http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040513HowToOptimizeYourImagesForImageSearch.html )" by Garret French (dated 05-13-2004).

Don't forget to check their forum for follow-up (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=101562) discussion on the topic.

IMO, conversion starts when the buying process starts, that could be when the users turns on the computer or when he or she starts using search (image or web), not just when he/she hits your site and goes all the way through until order confirmation process has been completed. Remember the buying funnel process.

There are consumers that like to touch, smell, taste things first . . . . the internet makes it difficult for that of course. So for example, someone looking for a tuxedo, might look through images first to find things like quality + style before going into details of price, brand or others.

I read a great book once, it is called, "Don't Make Me Think (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0789723107/104-4679790-7121514?v=glance)" by Steve Krug and learned just this.

To some businesses increasing ROI means adding an extra dime to the end result, for others it has to match the same level of return percentage-wise or money-wise. It's all up to you. You can also increase your company life ROI by lowering your "Customer Acquisition Cost" by getting more new customers through image search that could of never found you if you hadn't optimized for it. So, specially if you have a dynamic site, I say do it and increase your traffic through image search, test and see the return. I have and one of my sites that gets 3-4% conversion rate from it (taken from orders/image search traffic from Google).

You should be doing all Internet strategies as possible, rather than choosing the best ones. . . . search engine marketing of course ;)

[rustybrick]

As a wanna be numbers guy who took many statistical courses, I need data.

Knowing when someone is on "buy mode" must be assumed at some level. So an assumption is made that when you have a visitor to your e-commerce site, that visitor is in "buy mode". Assumptions are the basis of statistics, I think that is why I love the math so much.

Anyway, so if you assume that a visitor is always in buy mode - which I think is a fair assumption, then you can quantify the numbers.

You want to qualify your traffic. That means you want to make sure your visitors are in "buy mode". As you can see, this is getting a bit circular, I am sorry about that.

Bottom line. Does image search bring in qualified visitors (visitors ready to buy)? If so, then your conversion rates should be similar to web search visitors.

[littleman]

How can there be an ROI when there is no I?

[Nacho]

Good point littleman. Although investing time for SEO is not really a direct "I", perhaps the title of this thread should be "Are there conversions in Image Search?"

[Calad32]

Thinking more about the state of mind and the intent of the image searcher. Not sure even if someone is searching for a new 'A Series Vaio' (got one btw and loving) is going to be swayed by an image on ukaseriesdirectfabbylaptops.co.uk. I think they have more than likely already decided where they are going to purchase said item and are looking for additional images.

C>

Is there ROI on image search? Yes, for the company promoting its optimisation services... or is that a little too obvious.