Image licensing startup GumGum is introducing a new ad unit to go along with all of those celebrity pics that it helps to distribute. Next time you come across a paparazzi shot of Lindsay Lohan on the Web, you might see a ShopThisLook badge next to the image courtesy of GumGum. Click on the badge and window will pop up with shopping links for clothes and accessories similar to what Lohan is wearing in the picture. When possible, GumGum tries to match the exact same pair of jeans, dress, or shirt.
GumGum tracks images that reach 25 million people a month across the Web. It has data on which images are spread around and viewed the most. Using a combination of image recognition technology and human editors, it adds tags to the most popular celebrity photos. These tags then trigger cost-per-click (CPC) links with images from Shopzilla and Shopstyle. There is a lot of human editing that goes into this process. Image recognition techniques are simply not good enough yet to completely automate the process. But all GumGum has to do is tag the most widely distributed images of the most popular celebrities to see if the concept has legs.
Websites that license images through GumGum can either pay for them or use them free with advertising. The ShopThisLook badges will appear in place of the ads for certain images. Website publishers who pay for the images can also opt in to show the badges, in which case they will receive 30 percent of any CPC revenues.
GumGum CEO Ophir Tanz says that in early testing, the badges are clicked on about one percent of the time, but that the click-through rate to an actual item after that is 29 percent. That implies a blended click-through rate of 0.29 percent, and the effective CPM is 90 cents. These numbers are based on a limited sample, and before any effort to optimize them.
(Read our previous coverage of GumGum here and here).
Thanks for the post Erick!
Here are some live examples of ShopThisLook in action:
http://www.infd...much-music.html
http://splashne...-or-flirty.html
http://splashne...amp;x=0&y=0
http://splashne...&bfm_page=0
Interested publishers can apply here: http://gumgum.com/apply
But this is what UK-based ASOS.com been doing for several years?
Wasn’t this the business model for Like.com?
I believe it still is. And a VERY profitable one at that.
Will their drug dealers be linked???? “The heroin look is provided by Bob on the corner of ….” (not saying Lohan is on drugs or heroin or…)
funny
Can’t wait to see if this project is gonna be successful or not..
I’m wondering how profitable a business can be that targets 25 million people with ads for stuff that celebrities can afford versus the average person that is now afraid of losing job/home/credit and saving up for likely at least the short term future.
25 million monthly’s doesnt indicate total impressions but that is at least 25,000 CPM’s @ $.90 =
$22,500 revenue pre month total for gumgum and their publishers.
I’d guess the impressions would be 2-3.5X the number of uniques. but still, not a revenue monster until they enhance the conversion rates.
You underestimate the stupidity of the average person.
This is truly the future of web-apps! Cutting edge tech used to solve something for a target audience and make money in the process.
Non intrusive revenue streams, free service and a target audience that is highly tech adopted.
Brilliant!
Great Idea!
Reminds me a little of http://coolspotters.com/ (via Glenn Wolsey’s website).
This to me feels a little like overlays on videos in that it might get a little annoying and disturb the quality of the image. I am all about monetizing as well but you need to be so careful not to disturb the user experience too much and I think this goes too far
As a gossip media consumer I like this. Niall had speculation that this might cross the line of annoying/disturbing. It possibly could, it will all depend on the design and how sensitive the roll over feature is. A great way to increase conversion rates is to compare the pictured outfit to similar low cost items. This is very cool.. very targeted and relevant for the audience.
great news for gumgum, a revolution in content licensing and a killer ad network…truly awesome
I think this is a great idea. Many people want to get the celebrity look and this site is making it easier to do so. I hope it all works out for GumGum.
How is this not a breach of copyright?
Someone designed that look and if 4 notes can be copyrighted then surely a combination of 4 garments can.
http://musicthi...-channel-4.html
Brilliant. Love it. Best of luck.
go here
http://www.aromatechab.se
Wondering what’s the difference between gumgum’s shop this look and what pixazza is releasing (www.pixazza.com). To be noted, Pixazza just got funding from Google Ventures…