increase in Search Clicks
including all product clicks on Search Engine Result Pages, Autocomplete and Related Products modules
percentage point increase in Search Success Rate
from 48.6% to 55.8%
decrease in Time to Success
from 47.7 sec to 43 sec
decrease in Zero Result Search Rate
from 8.1% to 4.6%
increase in Search Clicks
including all product clicks on Search Engine Result Pages, Autocomplete and Related Products modules
decrease in Time to Success
from 47.7 sec to 43 sec
percentage point increase in Search Success Rate
from 48.6% to 55.8%
decrease in Zero Result Search Rate
from 8.1% to 4.6%
The A/B test was conducted on a DIY website part of a group that has more than 250 stores across Europe.
The goal was to see the impact of the full Prefixbox Search Suite, which includes Merchandizing, Rich Autocomplete, Related Searches, Related Products and all features turned on (Synonyms, Dynamic Re-Ranking).
To quantify the impact of Prefixbox, an A/B test was conducted with a control group of Prefixbox’s full Search Suite, and a treatment group leveraging only the Elasticsearch full-text search engine with no additional features or optimizations applied.
Test setup | Treatment (basic search engine) | Control (Full Search Suite) |
---|---|---|
Modules | Elasticsearch full-text search | Semantic Search Engine Rich Autocomplete Merchandizing Related Searches Related Products |
Additional Features | - | Dynamic Re-Ranking Synonyms |
Based on the results of the A/B test, the Prefixbox full Search Suite resulted in a substantial improvement in key search metrics such as Zero Result Search Rate, Search Success Rate, Time to Success and Search Click Rate.
While retailers focus on topline metrics like E-commerce Conversion Rate and Revenue, it's also important to look at underlying search relevance metrics that influence the search user experience.
Since search users generate around 60-70% of online revenue and are 4-5 times more likely to make a purchase on a typical DIY site according to our data, conversion rate heavily relies on how often shoppers can find what they’re looking for.
Increasing the number of sessions with search that are successful (where a shopper finds what they are looking for) and how quickly they find it, will increase conversion rate and improve user experience.
More successful search sessions result in increased conversion rate.
When people find what they’re looking for, they spend more money and purchase more frequently.
North Star Analytics
Increase the number of search sessions where users find what they’re looking for.
Shorten the time users spend between starting a search and finding the right product.
For more details, visit the Search Analytics product page.
Altogether, the control group (with Prefixbox’s full Search Suite) received 24% more clicks on products on the Search Result Engine Pages, Autocomplete box and Related Products combined.
Search Success Rate is the proportion of sessions with any type of engagements (click or cart events on products) on any of search modules (search results, autocomplete and related products) on the Search Result Engine Page.
In other words, the ratio of sessions where users found what they were looking for went up by 7.2 percentage points.
Time to Success (TTS) shows the median number of seconds between the first interaction with the search function and a shopper’s first click on the Search Engine Results Page (product clicks and cart events included).
A 9.7% (4.6 second) decrease in the TTS clearly shows that shoppers found what they were looking for more quickly, improving the user experience.
Zero result searches occur when the search engine returns no products for a given search query. Turning on advanced modules like Related Products, Merchandizing, and advanced features like Synonyms decreased Zero Result Search Rate from 8.1% to 4.6%, by 52%.
Prefixbox conducted an A/B test on a DIY client's site to evaluate the impact of Prefixbox’s full Search Suite.
The test focused on measuring impact via north-start search relevancy metrics that impact top-line metrics like conversion rate and revenue.
The results showed significant improvements, including a 24% increase in Search Clicks, a 9.7% decrease in Time to Success, and a 7.2 percentage point increase in Search Success Rate and a 52% drop in Zero Result Search Rate.
Boosting Revenue and Transactions: Related Categories in action at Rossmann.