Currently, Cloudinary boasts a customer base of 7,000, with 800,000 users managing visual media on our AI platform. A remarkable trend indicator is that, between April and June, the overall video platform’s bandwidth grew by more than 140 percent. Many brands, such as Bleacher Report, Mediavine, Nintendo, Fiverr, Guess, Hinge, Finalsite, Outbrain, Salsify, and Taboola, are interacting with their audiences in a more in-depth and authentic manner through video. Of significant help is AI, which greatly simplifies cross-channel, resource-intensive workflows and collaboration in real time.

In today’s digital world, engaging online content is key for catching audience attention. At ImageCon 2020, Cloudinary’s annual conference, Yaron Reichert and me, Jackie Rosenzveig, hosted a session titled ’Handling Media at Scale Using Automation and AI’, which delved into the following:

The health and economic crisis caused by the pandemic continues to transform the e-business landscape. Jointly with Internet Retailing, Gary Ballabio, Cloudinary’s Head of Technology Partnerships, recently moderated the webinar Navigating the New Normal of Digital Commerce. Panelists from Wunderman Thompson Commerce and Incisiv spoke to the emerging and evolving trends along with a focus on three themes:

As we spend more time at home, many of us are adopting pets for the joy, companionship and a surprising range of health benefits. In Australia, where our nonprofit customer PetRescue is located, there’s a shortage of pets to adopt. Last August, the Guardian reported that dog shelters in Australia emptied and adoption fees for puppies were running as high as $AUS1800.

A product’s benefits and usage, including its value proposition, features, and instructive details, are best demonstrated through video. Product-video types vary, depending on the funnel, channel, and audience, the most popular ones being demos, reviews, installation, and how-tos.

E-commerce is a dynamic business. Shoppers are constantly browsing sites for the best deals or for the latest of their favorite products, adding to wish lists, and exploring product recommendations from friends and influencers. On the other hand, online vendors are always on a tear to try to draw in shoppers and convert clicks to cash with various techniques, such as by reducing page-load time, posting compelling product images, and aggressively targeting ads.

Measuring the level of interest your videos generate helps you produce compelling content. The measurement and optimization approach must, however, address the various aspects of each video, including the A/B test hypothesis and iterations. A high engagement rate spells effective videos; a low engagement rate calls for content improvement.

User-generated content (UGC), aka user-created content (UCC), is material—images, videos, audio, text—that is posted by online audiences at will, often on social media. Such content frequently and indirectly promotes products and services for the organizations concerned, lending more credibility than conventional advertisements.

The Hub is decentralizing the creative process through its two-sided online marketplace that changes the way brands hire creators. The old model of committing all creative resources to one agency of record has proven time-consuming and expensive. Additionally, brands are limited to content that is only as good as the handful of people on that agency’s team.

With videos becoming more and more paramount for promoting online sales, we at Cloudinary Labs are building technology to help grow the business of e-commerce retailers. This series of blog posts delves into a few use cases that promise to boost retail revenue online across the patron’s browsing journey through the e-commerce site.