Search bar inside the mobile menu: +$81,050/month
Test run byOliver KenyonConversionwise
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsOliver Kenyon put a search bar at the top of the mobile mega menu and reported +$81,050 per month in revenue. Revenue per session rose by $0.05, forecast at +$972,600 per year. Data showed search had the highest revenue per click and most users opened the menu first.
- +$0.05 revenue per session, a small lift per visit.
- +$81,050 per month in revenue, which implies very high traffic.
- +$972,600 per year, which is a forecast.
- Sample size, test length and search usage were not shared.
The change
A search field is added to the top of the open mobile menu.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The open menu listed Men, Women and Sale with arrows, then a few secondary links. Search was only available from the icon in the header.
Variant
A search field sat at the top of the open menu, above the same category links. Shoppers could search without closing the menu.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- putting search where most users already go meets high-intent shoppers earlier.
- searchers often know what they want, so making search easier to reach tends to pay.
- on a big store, a few cents per session adds up to large monthly totals.
Caveats: No sample size, duration or significance was shared. A $0.05 per-session lift is small and easy to mistake for noise without significance data.
Who ran it
Oliver Kenyon (@oliverkenyon) shared this test on X. The numbers and screenshots are theirs.
View the original post on X
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we place a search field at the top of the mobile menu, then revenue per visitor will rise because shoppers who open the menu reach search, our highest-value path, sooner.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Search exit rate
- Category page visits
- Conversion rate
- Who should test it
- Stores with large catalogs where search users convert well and most mobile users open the menu. Small catalogs with a few categories may see little change.
Questions
Should the mobile menu include a search bar?
In this test, adding search to the top of the menu raised revenue per session by $0.05, reported as $81,050 per month. Search was the store's highest revenue-per-click path.
Is a search icon in the header enough?
This store already had a header search icon and still gained from a visible field in the menu. A full field may get used more than a small icon.
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