Exciting images are a must for online retailers, as they bring customers closer to the products they are thinking of buying. Fraser Robinson, founder & CEO of Taggstar.com, explains how his company can help you raise your game
Please tell me about your business
Taggstar is an app that any online publisher can install on their website to make their images interactive, with the ability to turn images on their site into an engaging shopping experience.
They can create ‘exact match’ affiliate links with a ‘Buy’ button, replicating the ‘Get the Look’ concept that is already happening within print. This in turn opens up a variety of performance-based marketing opportunities for online sellers.
Currently images are the most valuable piece of real estate on a web page, but they often remain non-interactive, unexplored and underused. With internet journeys evolving from being search-based to one of discovery, Taggstar seeks to open up the untapped potential that exists within online images, helping to make them navigable, interactive and socially networked.
Who is the product aimed at?
Any online publisher, from established media houses to independent bloggers, can install the Taggstar technology on their website.
For online retailers and brands selling online there are a variety of applications and possibilities. At the moment Taggstar is focused on the fashion ‘shopping’ category, but we have the ability to quickly move into other verticals with categories such as interiors, sport, travel and automotive scheduled for launch soon.
What are the benefits of using it to an eCommerce business?
Firstly, online retailers can install Taggstar to make product images on their site more social. The Taggstar toolbar provides the functionality for allowing online customers to share product pictures to social networks, which can introduce a peer-to-peer influence model and help create more engaged shoppers.
Online retailers are increasingly looking at ways to make their site shopping experience more inspirational and Taggstar can really help with creating that experience. We hope that in the future customers will also be able to share their own product images and videos via the Taggstar toolbar, as a personal review and endorsement.
Additionally, ecommerce businesses are also able to join Taggstar’s network of 200+ retailers and have their products added to its image database. This enables online retailers to promote their products at the point of inspiration, in a highly visual manner.
Since images will always appear in a current and relevant way, potential customers are captured at a crucial moment within their online journey, which can be an incredibly effective way of driving conversion rates.
Currently, Taggstar is seeing an 8-10% click-through rate on its product tags, which online retailers will know is far higher than engagement rates for more traditional online advertising.
How much does it cost?
To the publisher, Taggstar is completely free to install. For the seller, Taggstar functions much like an affiliate network with all links being commercial, sold on a CPA basis.
How does it work?
Once a publisher has installed Taggstar, the technology crawls the entire site and ‘activates’ all images. When a publisher places a ‘tag’ or ‘hotspot’ on an image, a balloon or small window will open displaying ‘exact match’ items.
In the background, Taggstar’s proprietary image search technology scours hundreds of thousands of product images from its network of 200+ retailers, and displays results based on colour swatch and product tags.
Within the Taggstar toolbar publishers can also embed other images and videos, link to other articles or pages, and write content and comment.
Take me step-by-step through how I buy and install it
We offer a simple two-step process for installing Taggstar. The first step is to sign-up to Taggstar.com; the second is to copy and paste a few lines of Java script into the HTML into your website, which simply creates a signpost for Taggstar’s image network. Shortly, we will be releasing plug-ins for all of the major blogging platforms as a quick install alternative.
The Taggstar technology is highly customisable and ecommerce businesses that require a more bespoke solution can get in touch with us directly for individual support. Additionally, ecommerce businesses who are interested in joining our image network should also get in touch.
What do I need to do once it is set up?
Once the Taggstar technology is installed, you can immediately begin tagging, creating and sharing via the toolbar.
Is there anything else I should know?
A great deal of innovation is in the pipeline, but tightly under wraps at the moment. Moving forward there will be increasing opportunities for merchants to promote images of their products to a far wider and highly engaged audience. So please continue to watch this space.
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