By Erin, CEO of Forge Digital Marketing
I need to get something off my chest that I’ve been saying to clients for years now, and I’m tired of watching brands make the same mistake over and over again.
If you’re building a Shopify store — whether you’ve got 12 SKUs or 1,200 — and your designer or developer tells you to remove the search function because “you don’t have enough products to justify it,” I need you to respectfully push back. Hard.
Because here’s the thing: the search bar on your Shopify store isn’t just a navigation tool. It’s a data engine, a content strategy goldmine, a conversion optimizer, and one of the most underutilized marketing tools in your entire tech stack. And you’re literally throwing money away by removing it.
Let me explain why.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: Search Users Buy More
Let’s start with the data, because if you know me, you know I don’t make recommendations without receipts.
According to recent ecommerce research, site search users convert at 2-3x the rate of non-search visitors. Some studies put that number even higher — showing search users converting at 4.63% compared to the site-wide average of 2.77%. When only about 15% of your visitors use the search function but those users are generating up to 45% of your total revenue, the math speaks for itself.
Think about that for a second. A fraction of your traffic is driving nearly half your revenue, and the common thread is that they used your search bar.
Amazon sees their conversion rate jump from roughly 2% to 12% when a visitor uses search. That’s a 6x increase. Etsy reports a 3x conversion lift from search users. And these aren’t anomalies — this pattern holds across ecommerce broadly.
Now, obviously your Shopify store isn’t Amazon. But the behavioral insight is the same: when someone types something into your search bar, they have intent. They’re not casually browsing. They know what they want, and they’re ready to buy. Why on earth would you remove the one feature that lets them tell you exactly what that is?
“But We Only Have 20 Products”
I hear this constantly. And I get it — when you’re a small DTC brand just getting started, it feels like overkill to have a search function when your customer could just scroll your collection page in three seconds.
But you’re thinking about search wrong.
Search isn’t just for the customer’s convenience. It’s for your intelligence.
This is exactly the conversation we had with one of our clients, Wild Roman, a men’s skincare brand. When we were building out their Shopify store strategy, the initial instinct was to keep things minimal — clean design, streamlined navigation, no search bar. And sure, from a pure UX standpoint for a brand with a focused product lineup, I understand the logic.
But here’s what that “clean” approach actually costs you:
You lose visibility into what your customers are actually looking for. Without a search bar, you have zero insight into the exact language your customers use when they’re shopping. You don’t know if they’re searching for “tallow face cream” or “natural moisturizer for men” or “anti-aging balm.” Those are three completely different keyword strategies, three completely different content angles, and three completely different ad copy approaches. And without search data, you’re just guessing.
You lose the ability to identify product gaps. When someone searches for something you don’t carry and gets a “no results” page, that’s not a failure — that’s market research being handed to you on a silver platter. If fifty people a month search for “tallow lip balm” on your store and you don’t sell one, you just got a product development signal that most brands would pay a research firm thousands to uncover.
You lose a direct line into your content strategy. The search queries happening on your store should directly inform your blog content, your collection page copy, your FAQ page, your product descriptions, and your ad targeting. This is the voice of your customer, unfiltered.
How Search Data Powers Your Entire Marketing Funnel
This is where it gets really good, and where I see the biggest disconnect between what brands think search does and what it actually does when you integrate it properly into your marketing strategy.
SEO: Let Your Customers Write Your Keyword Strategy
Most brands approach SEO by doing keyword research in tools like Ahrefs or Semrush — and don’t get me wrong, those tools are essential. But they’re showing you what the broader market is searching for on Google. Your on-site search data shows you what your specific customers are searching for when they’re already on your site, already in a buying mindset.
That’s a fundamentally different and arguably more valuable dataset.
When you can see that your customers are searching for “tallow skincare for sensitive skin” rather than just “tallow moisturizer,” you can create blog content, collection pages, and product descriptions that mirror that exact language. You’re not guessing at search intent — you’re responding to it directly.
And here’s the kicker: those long-tail, specific search queries that come from your on-site search? They often have lower competition on Google, higher purchase intent, and better conversion rates when you rank for them organically. It’s SEO strategy built directly from customer behavior, not assumptions.
Email & SMS: The Klaviyo Connection
Now let’s talk about where this really starts to compound, especially for health and wellness brands running their retention marketing through Klaviyo.
When you have search data from your Shopify store, you can do things in Klaviyo that most brands aren’t even thinking about:
Build segments based on search behavior. If someone searched for “protein powder” on your site but didn’t purchase, that’s a segment. You can build a Klaviyo flow that triggers an email or SMS specifically addressing that search — maybe featuring your top-selling protein options, or a piece of educational content about what to look for in a quality protein supplement.
Create search-based email campaigns. When you notice trending searches on your site — say, a spike in “collagen” or “gut health” — you can fire off a targeted campaign to your full list featuring those products. You’re not blasting a generic “check out our new arrivals” email. You’re leading with what you know your audience is already interested in.
Use search URLs in your email and SMS content. This is a tactic I don’t see enough brands using. On Shopify, you can create direct URLs that link to specific search results — like yourstore.com/search?q=tallow+balm. Drop that link into a Klaviyo email or SMS, and you’re sending the customer directly to a curated results page for exactly what they’re looking for. No clicking through your homepage, no scrolling through collections. Straight to the products that match their intent.
This is especially powerful for SMS, where you have limited characters and need to get the customer to the right products fast.
Inform your automation flows. Your welcome sequence, your browse abandonment flow, your post-purchase flow — all of these can be enhanced with search behavior data. If a customer’s first action on your site was searching for a specific product category, your welcome sequence can dynamically feature that category. That’s the kind of personalization that drives repeat purchases and brand loyalty.
Content Planning: Stop Guessing, Start Listening
Every search query on your site is a content idea. Full stop.
If customers are searching for “how to use tallow balm” — that’s a blog post. That’s an Instagram Reel. That’s an email educational series. That’s a product page FAQ section.
If they’re searching for “tallow vs retinol” — that’s a comparison guide. That’s an SEO-rich landing page. That’s a paid ad angle.
If they’re searching for “skincare routine for men” — that’s an entire content pillar you can build out across every channel.
Without search data, you’re building your content calendar based on what you think your customers want to know. With search data, you’re building it based on what they’re literally telling you they want to know.
The Real-World Application: Wild Roman
Let me bring this back to our work with Wild Roman to make this tangible.
Wild Roman is positioning itself in the natural men’s skincare space — a market that’s growing fast, with consumers who are increasingly ingredient-conscious and doing their research before they buy. This is the exact type of customer who is going to use a search function.
They’re going to search for specific ingredients. They’re going to search for product types. They’re going to search for solutions to specific skin concerns. And every single one of those queries is a data point that we can use to:
- Refine Wild Roman’s SEO strategy to capture organic traffic from the exact terms their audience uses
- Build Klaviyo segments and flows that speak to specific product interests and concerns
- Create targeted SMS campaigns with direct search result links for fast, frictionless product discovery
- Identify content gaps and create educational content that positions Wild Roman as an authority in natural men’s skincare
- Spot emerging product opportunities before competitors do
All from a search bar.
The Bottom Line
I’ve worked with over seventy health and wellness brands at Forge, and the ones that treat search data as a strategic asset consistently outperform the ones that don’t. This isn’t about having a pretty UX element on your store. This is about building a feedback loop between your customers’ intent and your marketing execution.
The average Shopify store converts at around 1.4%. The top performers hit 3.2% and above. The gap between those two numbers is often closed by exactly these kinds of data-driven optimizations — understanding your customer better, speaking their language, and removing friction between their intent and your product.
So if you’re a Shopify brand — especially in the health and wellness space — and you’ve been operating without a search function, or you’re in the process of building a new store and your team is suggesting you skip it: don’t.
Put the search bar back. Start collecting that data. And then let it inform everything you do.
Your conversion rate, your email revenue, your content strategy, and your SEO performance will all thank you for it.
Forge Digital Marketing is a fully remote omnichannel ecommerce growth agency specializing in health and wellness brands on Shopify. We help DTC supplement, nutrition, and wellness brands scale with paid media, SEO, email/SMS marketing, branding, and conversion optimization. Want to talk about how search data could power your marketing strategy? Get in touch.