How Product Metadata Results in More Conversions

By David Iscove, Manager of Solution Architecture and Implementation at globaledit

AI isn’t a buzzword anymore, it is a powerful marketing tool that brands like TUMI are implementing to drive personalization and increase online conversions. Deep machine learning and analysis of consumer trends allow brands to process customer data across channels in order to refine targeting, tailor messaging, and offer product recommendations with greater personalization. AI-driven analytics are impacting the customer experience dramatically, but what is the glue that connects a person’s shopping interest or ‘likes’ to the appropriate product or product range? The answer lies within our favorite topic…metadata!
For every aspect of consumer trends that AI interprets, it needs organized product data to make the perfect recommendation. In this way, brands actively drive customers to ‘discover’ products instead of passively delivering only the results of a specific customer search. If a brand is not putting effort into optimizing their product metadata, they limit their ability to offer relevant, alternate recommendations and their programs ultimately fall flat based on only servicing a ‘passive’ search. By passive, I mean the results of a direct query by the user. In this way, a search for ‘SKU123’ only returns the result of ‘SKU123’. With relevant product metadata actively fueling consumer algorithms on the backend, a search for ‘SKU123’ can return ‘SKU123’, ‘SKU123a’, ‘SKU123b’, even ‘SKU124’ (if appropriate).
More product metadata = more SKUs availability to consumers = more conversions
It saddens us that product metadata doesn’t get the same visibility as “cool” new consumer engagement toys labeled under the AI banner. This is partly due to the fact that metadata has historically been considered the domain of the stuffy administrative librarian. The bottom line is that these headline-grabbing AI strategies wouldn’t be possible without product metadata and it is the creative teams that are the ones best suited to capture and drive the influence of this information during production and post production. There is a ton of first-hand knowledge that only creatives have access to that, if applied, can empower marketers to do a lot more than just search and find assets. The creative team is the real driver behind successful AI strategy.
In our last masterclass, we dove deep into specific techniques creatives can use to capture rich product-driven metadata for use downstream. The most forward-thinking brands are leveraging this data to analyze how specific creative operations decisions directly drive conversions. In doing so, they learn how to optimize future eCommerce production towards greater efficiency and effectiveness, turning what seemed like a disconnected workflow into valuable data. This is what we call eComm gold.
If you’re a creative professional wanting to harness this power, I highly recommend you watch our last masterclass. I dive into some of the specific techniques that you can perform to capture and enrich your workflow with product-driven metadata.
It’s time to make the header of the file just as important as the visual payload. I’ll explain that in greater depth in an upcoming blog.