Product recommendations shoppers actually want

Search Analytics: The Three Reports That Tell You What Shoppers Actually Want

Your shoppers are telling you what they want, in the search box, every day. The reports are in your store. You have not read them.

Three reports tell you what shoppers actually want: what they searched for, what they searched for and found nothing, and what they searched for and never clicked. Those three reports are the search analytics that matter, and everything else is noise.

The three reports

Shopify's Search and Discovery app provides three reports that tell you what shoppers actually want. The first is searches by query, which shows what shoppers searched for and how often. The second is no results, which shows what shoppers searched for and found nothing. The third is no clicks, which shows what shoppers searched for and never clicked. Together, the three reports show demand, gaps, and relevance failures, and everything else in search analytics is noise.

The reports cover the last 30 days, and they update daily. They are not a one-time audit. They are a feed, and the feed changes as the catalog changes, as the seasons change, and as the shoppers change. A report that is read once and forgotten is a report that was never read.

The reason these three reports matter is that they are the only reports that show intent. A shopper who searches is a shopper who knows what they want, and the search is the statement of that intent. The reports are the record of what the shoppers asked for, and the store's job is to answer.

What searchers are worth

Constructor's study of 609 million searches across 113 sites found that searchers are about 24 percent of visitors and about 44 percent of revenue. A shopper who searches is a shopper who knows what they want, and they buy more than a shopper who browses. The search box is the highest-intent surface on the site, and the shoppers who use it are the ones most likely to buy.

That is why a failed search is expensive. Algolia found that about 81 percent of US shoppers abandon a site after an unsuccessful search. A search that returns nothing is not a neutral event. It is a shopper leaving, and they usually do not come back. The zero-results rate is the number that measures how many shoppers the store is losing to its own search.

The target is below 5 percent. If more than 5 percent of searches return no results, the store has a catalog gap, a vocabulary gap, or a search configuration problem. The shoppers who hit it are leaving, and the store is losing the revenue they would have brought.

What each report tells you

Searches by query tells you what the shoppers want. The top queries are the products, categories, and terms that the shoppers are asking for, and they are the terms the store should be optimizing for. A query that appears often and converts well is a query the store is answering. A query that appears often and converts poorly is a query the store is failing.

No results tells you what the shoppers want that the store does not have, or does not have under the name they used. A query with no results is either a catalog gap, which means the store should stock the product, or a vocabulary gap, which means the store should add the term as a synonym or a search term. The distinction matters, because the fix for a catalog gap is a purchase order and the fix for a vocabulary gap is a configuration change.

No clicks tells you what the shoppers want that the store has but does not show well. A query with results and no clicks means the shopper searched, got results, and clicked none of them. The results were irrelevant, or the shopper did not trust them, or the product they wanted was not in the results. It is a relevance failure, not a catalog gap, and the fix is in the ranking, not in the catalog.

Reading the reports as a routine

The reports should be read weekly, not monthly. A weekly read catches the new queries that appear when a product launches, a season changes, or a campaign drives traffic. A monthly read catches them after the shoppers who asked for them have already left.

The read should be a short list of actions. The top five no-results queries get a decision: stock the product, add the synonym, or accept that the store does not carry it. The top five no-clicks queries get a ranking review. The top five queries by volume get a check that the results are still good. Three lists, five items each, and the search is better than it was last week.

The search box is the place where shoppers tell the store what they want. The reports are the record of what they said. A store that reads them is a store that listens. A store that does not is a store that guesses, and the guess is usually wrong.

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Frequently asked questions

Which three search reports matter?

Three reports: searches by query, which shows what shoppers searched for; no results, which shows what they searched for and found nothing; and no clicks, which shows what they searched for and never clicked. Together they show demand, gaps, and relevance failures.

Where do I find these reports in Shopify?

Shopify's Search and Discovery app provides all three, for the last 30 days. The reports are in the app, under the search analytics section, and they update daily.

How much revenue comes from searchers?

What happens when a search returns nothing?

Algolia found that about 81 percent of US shoppers abandon a site after an unsuccessful search. A search that returns nothing is not a neutral event. It is a shopper leaving, and they usually do not come back.

What is a good zero-results rate?

Below 5 percent. If more than 5 percent of searches return no results, the store has a catalog gap, a vocabulary gap, or a search configuration problem, and the shoppers who hit it are leaving.

What does a no-click result mean?

A no-click result means the shopper searched, got results, and clicked none of them. The results were irrelevant, or the shopper did not trust them, or the product they wanted was not in the results. It is a relevance failure, not a catalog gap.