Search Analytics on the Search Overview Screen | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• How to use analytics to measure success
• How to find Search Analytics metrics on the Search Overview page
• How the Search Overview page supports the core values of Search

How to use analytics to measure success

There are three key value drivers for any search experience from an analytics perspective:

• Driving more clicks and conversions
• Increasing discoverability
• Reducing support costs

You can utilize the Search Analytics metrics available in the platform to measure success in each of these areas. It’s important to consider each of these in the post-launch optimization phase of your build. You can tailor the actions you take to improve the experience to the key performance indicators for the brand.

You can view snapshots of these metrics to understand current performance of the experience, but you should also look to identify trends. Analyzing trends allows you to make informed improvements backed by data compiled over time. For example, if you notice the Click Through Rate is low for a given query or set of related queries, you could update the CTA (or add an additional CTA) for the vertical containing results associated with that query. You could then track the effect of this change on Click Through Rate over the next few weeks and compare it against the Click Through Rate from the previous period. This change is an example of identifying a trend in analytics metrics and taking action to drive more clicks and conversions through the experience.

How to find Search Analytics metrics on the Search Overview page

One place in the platform you can find Search Analytics metrics is on the Search Overview screen. To access this screen, navigate to Search > Overview. At a high-level, the Search Overview screen contains visualization of the most relevant Analytics metrics for an experience. These metrics can be used to support the value drivers of Search and to strategically improve the experience (structurally or by adding/updating content in the Knowledge Graph, for example).

You can utilize the top filter bar to filter on the following parameters:

• Date Range (default is “Last 30 Days”)
• Search Experience (default is “All Search Experiences”)
• Traffic (default is “External Traffic”)
• Configuration Label (default is “Production”)

The Date Range options are “Last 7 Days”, “Last 30 Days”, “Last 90 Days”, or any custom range you’d like to use. The Search Experience options will show all experiences built in the account (i.e. will only show the name of one experience if you do not have multiple builds). You can either select a single experience from these options or select “All Search Experiences”. The Traffic options are “External Traffic”, “Internal Traffic”, or “All Traffic”. You’ll learn in the Understanding IP Filtering unit how to set “Internal Traffic” for an experience. The Configuration Label options allow you to specify whether metrics should show for “Production”, “Staging”, or “All”.

Any filtering you apply will flow through to all metrics and visuals present on the Overview screen.

In the top section of the Search Overview page, you can view Total Searches, Searches with Knowledge Graph Results, Clicks, and Total Value (all showing metrics from Last 30 days as well as percentage change compared to the previous period by default) - see definitions for each of these metrics below:

• Total Searches - the number of non-blank searches conducted in the experience.
• Searches with Results from Knowledge Graph - the number of searches conducted in the experience that returned a result powered by the Knowledge Graph. This does not include results returned from Third Party Verticals.
• Clicks - the number of clicks within the experience.
• Total Value - total value driven by the Search experience, as determined by the monetary value of Conversion Actions set up in the platform. You learned about how to set up Conversion Actions and what they mean in the Conversion Tracking unit in the Analytics module.

Beneath the top section, you can see the trends over time of the same metrics designated by color (Total Searches, Searches with Results from Knowledge Graph, Clicks, and Total Value).

Below this visualization, you’ll see three headers - Customer Intelligence, Cost Savings, and Revenue Generation.

Each of these headers corresponds to a core value of Search - providing a new source of customer intelligence, lowering support costs, and increasing conversion rates. You learned about these pillars in the Why Site Search is Important module .

In the highlighted “Recent Searches” table above, you’ll see all searches conducted in the experience (or experiences, based on your configuration/filtering selection) with the most recent appearing first. You can also view where the user is searching from geographically and the device used (monitor icon for Desktop, phone icon for Mobile). Finally, you’ll see an icon next to each action taken (i.e. a CTA click) if the event is considered “Cost Saving” (piggy bank icon) or “Revenue Generating” (rocket icon) - these are dependent on the Conversion Actions you’ve configured. In the screenshot above, the “Cost Saving” icon is shown for the Row Expand events because of the account’s Conversion Tracking configuration.

You can use the drop-down in the top right of the highlighted box to select a specific vertical to filter on (i.e. show only searches conducted in the “Locations” vertical).

In the “Recent Searches” table, you can view more granular information such as results returned for the query by vertical, applied query filters, and any associated Analytics events (such as a CTA Click or Row Expand) by clicking on the arrow underneath the search query. We’ll cover all of the Analytics events that are tracked in an experience in the next unit.

Beneath “Recent Searches”, you’ll see the second table containing customer intelligence data, “Searches by Result Type”. This table allows you to view the total number of searches where each Entity Type was returned.

If you click on any Entity Type, the graph will update to show the delineation of filters applied to return that Entity Type (in this case, First Name and Last Name as filterable data points for Advisors).

In the “Cost Savings” table, you’ll see Search Terms (normalized - with capitalization, punctuation, and white space removed) ordered by Conversion Value (in descending order). “Cost Savings” events are determined by the Conversion Actions you’ve set up through Conversion Tracking. For example, if you’ve set up a Conversion Action for the Row Expand event as “Cost Savings” and a user searching for “activate card” clicks on an FAQ (i.e. triggers the Row Expand event), this value will be attributed to the “activate card” term under the “Cost Savings” table.

At the bottom of the “Cost Savings” table, you can select “view all” to see the full set of terms in Report Builder.

The final table on the Search Overview screen is the “Revenue Generation” table. In this table, you’ll see Search Terms (normalized - with capitalization, punctuation, and white space removed) again ordered by Conversion Value (in descending order). As with “Cost Savings”, you can select “view all” at the bottom of the table to see the full set of terms in the table in Report Builder.

Remember – as you learned in the QA module , you always want to make sure to test that analytics are working properly before going live!