Signals capture

Catalog sync gives you the shape of your store. Signals capture gives you the shape of demand against it: what shoppers are searching for, what they're adding to cart, what they're buying. Activating it takes one toggle in your theme editor.

What signals capture does

The VeryQuery embed runs quietly on your storefront and records two kinds of activity.

Search queries
When a shopper types into your search bar, hits Enter, or lands on a search-results page, the query string is sent to VeryQuery.
Cart-adds
When a shopper hits "Add to cart" on a product page, the embed records which item was added.

Both signals feed your intelligence map: hot regions are where shoppers are looking and considering, cool regions are the long tail, gaps surface searches with no good catalog match.

Order signals are captured separately via Shopify's order webhook (no theme embed needed for orders); see Shopper actions we capture for the complete picture.

Capture runs in every mode

Capture isn't a separate embed. It's built into the one VeryQuery app embed and runs whenever that embed is on, no matter which Search mode you pick. The Search setting only decides what shoppers see:

Keep my search, collect insights
Your theme's search (or another provider's) stays untouched. VeryQuery quietly captures queries and cart-adds for your intelligence map, changing nothing visible to shoppers. This is the default.
Show VeryQuery's results
VeryQuery also replaces your search-results page with a ranked grid. Queries are recorded as part of serving those results, and cart-adds are still captured. See Storefront search.
Build my own with the VeryQuery API
Your developer renders VeryQuery results in your own theme. Same capture in the background. See Render your own search.

So you never have to manage capture separately: turn the VeryQuery embed on and it's collecting, whichever search mode you choose.

Activate the embed

  1. In your Shopify admin, open Online Store, Themes.
  2. Click Customize on your active theme.
  3. In the theme editor's left sidebar, click the puzzle-piece icon labeled App embeds.
  4. Turn on the VeryQuery embed.
  5. Click Save in the top right.

Capture is now live (in whatever Search mode the embed is set to — it defaults to "Keep my search, collect insights"). The next search anyone runs on your storefront, and the next item anyone adds to cart, will appear in your VeryQuery dashboard within a few seconds.

Verify it's working

Open your storefront in a private browser window, run a search for something you know is in your catalog, and watch the Search Queries page in your dashboard. The query should land within a few seconds, tagged with shopify as the source. Add an item to cart from a product page; the cart-add will appear on the same page tagged the same way.

What gets captured (and what doesn't)

Queries
The query text, an anonymous session ID (regenerated per browser tab session), the source path the query came from, and a timestamp.
Cart-adds
The product ID added, the same anonymous session ID, and a timestamp.
Not captured
Shopper identity, customer account, email, IP address, browser fingerprint, or any data tied to a person across visits. The session ID resets when the shopper closes their tab. Cart quantity, prices, and order details are also never recorded by this embed.

Cart-add edge case

Most modern Shopify themes use AJAX for cart-add (the cart updates without a full page reload). The VeryQuery embed sees those reliably. A small number of older themes still use a form-submit-and-navigate flow where the page reloads on cart-add; those flows aren't captured, because the embed has no chance to see the request before the page navigates away. If you suspect this is your case, your theme's cart-add JavaScript will tell you (look for /cart/add.js; if you see it, you're fine).

Privacy and consent

The capture embed is treated as analytics under privacy frameworks. If you use a cookie or consent banner, configure it to gate analytics scripts and the embed will respect the shopper's choice. We don't use cookies, sell data, or share queries with anyone outside your org.

Turning it off

Capture runs as long as the VeryQuery embed is on. To stop it, disable the VeryQuery embed in the theme editor's App embeds panel and Save. New queries and cart-adds stop flowing immediately; existing signals already in your property aren't affected. (Changing the Search mode doesn't stop capture — only disabling the embed does.)

Multiple themes

If you switch to a different theme, you'll need to enable the embed in that theme's editor too. Themes carry their own app-embed settings.

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