Poorly performing searches
Searches with high refinement rate
Google Analytics standard search report
Searches with low click or add to basket rates
Google Analytics Enhanced ecommerce tracking
Requires enhanced ecommerce tracking to be set up properly
Google Analytics does not calculate add to basket rates. However, add to basket rates can be approximated by comparing the ratio between impressions and adds to basket
Searches with low click or add to basket rates at top positions
This report helps identify if search rankings are suboptimal.
Google Analytics Enhanced ecommerce tracking
Note, this report is rarely available as it requires an additional custom dimension with the search term added on product level.
Searches with zero results
Google Analytics event tracking
This tracking is rarely used. Please check if and how this is set up for each shop.
The example below is a custom implementation at Waitrose. Waitrose send Google Analytics tracking events on each results page. The label includes the search term and the event value is the number of the number of results,
Understand shopper needs and expectations in search
Search refinements per search term
Reviewing what shoppers did after searching for a specific term can shed light onto what they meant. This analysis is particularly helpful for terms that show poor performance without apparent reason. Often that's generic terms that promote different products than what shoppers had in mind.
In the example shoppers refine ‘vegan’ to more specific subcategories, indicating choice overload.
Compare to simpler searches, e.g. ‘carrots’. Most refinements are completely different intent, indicating that shoppers
Customers often point to exit rate as a metric for search accuracy. In practice exit rate does not seem well correlated with search accuracy. Unhappy shoppers are more likely to rephrase their intent or use the category navigation than exit the shop directly. In some cases high exit rate can even point to good search accuracy, i.e. shoppers found what they were looking for but were disappointed with the products or pricing.
Google Analytics search terms report
This report is available by default for all Google Analytics implementations.
Top categories per search term
Reviewing which categories are typically viewed/bought after a specific search helps identify the relative importance of different interpretations of ambiguous searches. For example, in the following example search "tomatoes" on Waitrose it becomes clear that showing fresh tomatoes is key in this search. Only chopped tomatoes and salad tomatoes could be relevant. For all other tomato-related products shoppers would search with more specific terms. Further from comparing the impressions in the search results (=the screen real estate assigned to that category) and the add to basket rate (=the actual need from shoppers) we can infer that too much space is assigned to chopped tomatoes and tomato sauce.
Google Analytics product list performance report
Note, this report is rarely available as it requires an additional custom dimension with the search term added on hit level.
Top products per search term
Google Analytics product list performance report
Note, this report is rarely available as it requires an additional custom dimension with the search term added on product level.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.