increasing conversions with relevancy, merchandising & actionable insights

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Founded in 2007

Over 600+ clients across the globe, well over 100 are Miva merchants

Integrated with Miva, our first customer was a Miva merchant.

SearchSpring developed the very first search engine for a Miva customer.

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MIVA HERITAGE

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TRUSTED BY OVER 125 MIVA MERCHANTS

RELEVANCY, MERCHANDISING, & ACTIONABLE INSIGHTSWe’ll discuss what we’ve learned from working with hundreds of clients.

INCREASING CONVERSION

WITH

of our enterprise clients are making these crucial mistakes...

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More than 50%

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Not enabling Google Analytics to track site search.

Mistake #1

But why should you care about tracking site search behavior?

MORE THAN

50%

In most online retail industries, search is responsible for

of total revenue.

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WHY?

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the opportunity to provide input, automatically resulting in a more relevant shopping experience.

SEARCHGIVES SHOPPERS

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They know what they want, and are likely to buy if they can find it at a fair price.

SEARCHUSERS

ARE MOTIVAT

ED

If you’re not getting insight into search problems, you’re likely leaving a lot of money on the

table.

INSIGHTS HELP

YOU RECOGN

IZE :

Marketing opportunities e-mail and social campaigns for highly popular search categories and products

Purchase opportunities start selling products shoppers want that you don’t currently carry

Pricing opportunities recognize overpriced products.

Failed searchessearches may be yielding “no results” pages for various reasons.

Synonym opportunities are your visitors using spellings that you haven’t thought about yet?

Merchandising opportunities reordering products, adding banners, etc.

But what if your site search is barely used? LESS THAN 5%

Poor search box placement & stylingMistake #2

While there are industries that have very low search usage,

LOW SEARCH VOLUME CAN BE

SOLVEDwith proper placement and styling technique.

Poor placement and styling can dramatically decrease search usage.

Adjustments to placement and styling are fast and cheap.

Search allows shoppers to give input, thereby making their experience more relevant.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Although it may seem to be common knowledge, many people still don’t understand that this icon means search.

COMMON MISTAKESearch box collapsed by default. Only the magnifying glass icon is shown.

“The transition to the search icon is not as smooth and without perils as designers may want…”

“The magnifying glass alone makes it much harder to locate the search.”

~NNGroup.com

BEST PRACTICEUse search box instead of an icon.

“Mobile drives nearly half of ecommerce traffic”

~2015 MarketingLand Report

COMMON MISTAKESearch box hidden in mobile view, for example, inside a hamburger menu.

“Revenue per visit increased 34%, average order value jumped 24% and conversion rates for pages shopped via site search increased 8.75%”

~InternetRetailer.com

BEST PRACTICEExpose your search box. This will drastically increase usage. Floating or “sticky” search boxes perform better.

COMMON MISTAKEPoor contrast between search box and website background.

Minimal designs sometimes sacrifice usability. While these designs are nice to look at, they often hide the search box unintentionally.

“Increasing the contrast of the field’s border, input text, search button, etc. can make it pop out on the page.”

~Baymardcom

BEST PRACTICEIncrease contrast with background and border color. Minimal design can easily be retained.

COMMON MISTAKESearch box placement does not match industry conventions.

When it comes to placement, pay attention to what the biggest brands are doing. There’s a surprising amount of diversity in search placement by industry. Apparel is almost always in top right, travel is generally in the center below the header. These conventions are expected by shoppers.

BEST PRACTICEPay attention to the trends set by biggest industry players.

Poor relevancy due to inefficient or nonexistent merchandising efforts.

Mistake #3

While global relevancy issues aren’t easy to fix, there are simple, quick, and effective solutions that target high-value opportunities.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Merchandise those search results to increase relevancy.(Find out which products are highest converting)

Place banners on these search results pages to display promotions directly related to those search terms.

DISCOVER MOST COMMON SEARCH TERMS

Manually merchandise results on those pages.

Manage synonyms where relevant.

Utilize redirects to get people to appropriate category pages.

DISCOVER VERY LOW CONVERTINGSEARCH TERMS

Product PagesSearch Results Pages

This is still a tactic that is underutilized. It does more than introduce shoppers to new products. It creates a more relevant, engaging experience that will motivate them to return.

USE PRODUCTRECOMMENDATION SOFTWARE

Shopping CartOrder Confirmation Page

SHOW RECOMMENDATIONS IN

The best user experience is the experience that is the most relevant to the shopper.

Use banners to display promotions for those brands or products

Merchandise products on these pages based on insight into shopper behavior(clicks, conversions, searches, etc.)

OPTIMIZE BRAND & CATEGORY PAGES

Not using insight to act on high-value opportunities

Mistake #4

Introduce house brands to take advantage of high-performing products and categories.

Make sure you’re using merchandising to put your high-margin products and house brands at the top of your search and category pages.

Promote your house brands and highest margin products in product recommendations and banners.

USE YOUR INSIGHTS TO MOTIVATE INFORMED TACTICAL BUSINESS DECISIONS