Hawksearch x Virto Commerce
B2B commerce teams that want search results shaped by merchandising priorities, not just relevance scoring, often look to Hawksearch for its strong reporting and merchandiser-facing tools. Virto Commerce’s search architecture is open by design, built around a provider interface that any search engine can connect to, so Hawksearch can be integrated through Virto’s APIs.
About Hawksearch
Hawksearch is a site search and merchandising platform known for giving marketers and merchandisers direct control over search results, sorting, and facets, alongside detailed reporting on search behavior and conversion. It includes AI-driven recommendations and is built to let non-technical teams adjust how products are surfaced without engineering involvement.
Hawksearch has existing connectors for platforms including Optimizely, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, though it does not currently offer a pre-built connector specifically for Virto Commerce.
How Virto Integrates with Hawksearch
Virto Commerce’s Search module is provider-agnostic, meaning any search engine that exposes an API can, in principle, be connected by implementing Virto’s ISearchProvider interface — the same way Elasticsearch and Algolia are connected today. Hawksearch does not currently have a pre-built Virto-specific module, so connecting it would involve building a custom provider implementation, or routing product data to Hawksearch and search results back through Virto’s APIs rather than through a ready-to-use connector.
The integration approach generally covers:
- Sending Virto’s product and catalog data to Hawksearch for indexing
- Receiving search and merchandising results back from Hawksearch and rendering them within Virto’s storefront experience
- Determining whether this is built as a custom ISearchProvider implementation or as a separate API-based integration outside the core Search module
Note: This integration is not a pre-built module. Speak with a solution partner to assess feasibility and scope for your specific implementation.
Implementation Approach
Virto Commerce integrates with enterprise systems through a combination of APIs, middleware, and integration accelerators — designed to reduce implementation effort while preserving the flexibility that enterprise-specific workflows require.
Because Hawksearch does not have an existing Virto module, this integration would require more custom development work than providers with native modules already in place.
Key considerations: whether a custom ISearchProvider implementation is the right approach or a separate API integration makes more sense, how product and catalog data will be kept in sync with Hawksearch’s index, and the development effort required given the lack of an existing connector.
Use Cases
Giving merchandisers direct control over search results
Commerce teams that want non-technical staff to adjust search ranking, facets, and featured products without engineering support may be drawn to Hawksearch’s merchandiser-facing tools. Building a custom connection from Virto would let merchandisers manage search behavior through Hawksearch while still working from Virto’s catalog data.
Merchandising teams could gain more direct control over search behavior, though this requires custom integration work since no pre-built module exists today.
Getting detailed search analytics and conversion reporting
Businesses that want deeper visibility into search behavior and its connection to conversion may value Hawksearch’s reporting tools. A custom integration would need to route relevant commerce data from Virto to support that reporting.
More detailed search analytics become available, at the cost of additional implementation effort to build the connection.