When businesses speak about using semantic search, they refer to improving their ability to understand user intent and interests behind a search. The better the search engine and websites can anticipate the reason for a search, the easier it becomes to deliver highly relevant search results.
Bloomreach uses a highly effective recall system and algorithm that does an excellent job of putting semantic search to work for businesses. These capabilities help to transform the product discovery process, creating an engaging online experience for potential customers.
Let’s look more closely at the role of semantic search in eCommerce.
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What is Semantic Search? Understanding Semantic search
The meaning of semantic search refers to the ability of a search engine to interpret the meaning and context behind a search phrase to deliver superior results. Semantic search is powered by vector search. Vector search, in turn, helps to determine how relatable different words and phrases are, so that search engines can determine how different terms are connected.
Is Semantic Search The Same Thing as AI Search?
The answer: sometimes
Semantic search is closely related to neural search. With neural search and dense neural retrieval, search engines employ AI to better draw connections between terms and understand relationships between users’ queries and information found online.
These types of search show infinite improvements over traditional keyword-based search. Different words and phrases can carry different meanings depending on context and intent. Keyword-based searches cannot pick up on these subtle shifts, which degrades the quality of the search results returned. Semantic search dives into context, improving the quality of the results.
Bloomreach’s Semantic Search Capabilities
Bloomreach remains at the forefront of the industry in its capabilities for. While many eCommerce platforms can help to connect products and retrieve products based on customer searches, Bloomreach has significantly better recall.
The Bloomreach system employs AI to better understand user interests and products that will entice them and tracks users so that the products returned for searches are more applicable for users, thus improving product discovery and increasing conversion rates. With decades of data and information available to inform Bloomreach’s AI, Loomi, the capabilities far outpace the competition.
Implementing Semantic Search with Bloomreach
Businesses that work with Bloomreach can start building their semantic search capabilities immediately. The platform will work off various inputs, including product data, business priorities, and customer buying patterns. This information can then be used to start improving searches and driving better customer results.
Consider, for example, how The Vitamin Shoppe used Bloomreach capabilities to power their business. By using Bloomreach to improve the search results delivered to customers and using the platform’s AI technology to boost the products shown to customers, the business increased the revenue per visitor by 2% and saw a 7.73% increase in the search add-to-cart rate. For our own client, Thrifty White Health Essentials, using customer intent data to drive email marketing campaigns resulted in a +190% increase in email marketing-attributed revenue.
The Impact of Semantic Search on eCommerce
When customers engage with websites online, they want to experience a frictionless browsing and buying experience. In other words, when they make searches, they want to find what they seek instead of repeatedly adjusting their search and struggling to find the right products or information.
What Are The Benefits of Semantic Search with Bloomreach?
When businesses pair their sites with quality semantic search, they also boost the user experience and the conversion rates. Customers are happy to track down the items they need, get exposed to products they will likely appreciate, and interact with content that speaks to their precise situation. With this type of positive experience, customers become more likely to make purchases and otherwise engage with the site.
Although other platforms try to deliver the same level of results, they fail to measure up to the standard set by Bloomreach. Bloomreach focuses on innovation and staying at the forefront of the industry, which allows them to offer products that competitors cannot produce. Since Bloomreach also offers all the needed capabilities in one place, they outpace those like Algolia that find their system increasingly outdated and complex.
With Bloomreach, businesses do not have to worry about extra fees for product listing tools and personalizing capabilities adding up. Instead, customers just get access to some of the best search intelligence and opportunities for personalization.
Building Your eCommerce Store with Semantic Search
Semantic search will continue to power eCommerce in the future. The better businesses can understand the interest of their customers, the easier it will be to guide them in product discovery and increase their purchases and your revenue. AI capabilities and machine learning, however, remain still in their infancy, with improved features on the horizon in coming years.
Fortunately for businesses considering Bloomreach, these capabilities often appear with the Bloomreach platform first. As a leader in innovation and discovery, Bloomfield continues to update their platform and look for new ways to better serve businesses and their customers.
Conclusion
If you are interested in powering your eCommerce store with semantic search, our eCommerce development agency wants to hear from you. With a platform that has been specifically designed to help eCommerce businesses thrive in an increasingly competitive online space, you can see what these new capabilities can do for you. Give us a call today.
