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Ranked But Bypassed: What 11 Brands and Tens of Millions of Data Points Reveal About AI Search in the Philippines

Ranked But Bypassed: What 11 Brands and Tens of Millions of Data Points Reveal About AI Search in the Philippines

An original observational study tracking GA4 and Google Search Console data across Philippine, Australian, North American, and South African brands from January 2023 to June 2026.

Search visibility and website visits
may be beginning to separate.

97-98%

of the searchers who see these brands in google don’t click through
High Confidence

>80%

of the searchers who see these brands in google don’t click through

High Confidence

6

of the searchers who see these brands in google don’t click through
High Confidence

20-30x

of the searchers who see these brands in google don’t click through
Directional

~18mo

of the searchers who see these brands in google don’t click through

Hypothesis

The short version: Philippine brands still rank on Google. Google is still showing them at scale — tens of millions of impressions annually. But 97 to 98 percent of people who see them in search don’t click through. A new traffic source called “AI Assistant” appeared in their analytics for the first time in 2026. And in Western markets operating 18 to 24 months ahead of us on the AI adoption curve, organic search — once a primary channel — has contracted by as much as 80 percent. The shift is not coming. For some brands and markets, it has already arrived.

What This Study Measured — and What It Cannot Claim

This is an observational study, not a controlled academic experiment. It uses anonymized first-party analytics data from 11 brands that LeapOut Digital has managed, supported, or analyzed. No brand names are disclosed. Brands are referenced by market and industry type only. This research reflects direct access to first-party analytics — not external, synthetic, or modeled data.

11

Brands across 4 countries (PH, AU, US, CA)

7

Philippine brands across 6 industry categories

3.5 yrs

January 2023 to June 15, 2026
The seven Philippine brands cover sports retail, toy and lifestyle retail, cultural lifestyle, premium home furnishing, pet specialty retail, food and FMCG, and consumer electronics. The four offshore brands — from Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa — serve as a directional reference, not a predictive model for what the Philippines will experience. Markets differ in AI adoption pace, search behavior, infrastructure, and language dynamics.
Three data layers were used: GA4 user acquisition channel data (how users first arrive), the “AI Assistant” channel in GA4 (which Google introduced in 2026 to identify AI-referred sessions), and Google Search Console performance data for four brands covering impressions, clicks, and click-through rates over the past 12 months.

Important limitations before you proceed
This study does not control for changes in paid media spend, campaign activity, app launches, platform migrations, seasonality, or brand events that may independently shift channel mix. Several brands showed Direct traffic spikes of 83–96% in 2026 H1 consistent with platform migration events rather than AI behavior — these are disclosed and excluded from relevant analysis. All findings are directional signals requiring further brand-level investigation, not definitive causal claims.

Key Terms — A Plain-Language Glossary

For CEOs, CMOs, and brand leaders who are not digital analytics specialists, here is a plain-language explanation of the eight most important terms in this study.

Glossary of Terms Used in This Report


AI Assistant (GA4 channel)
A channel classification Google Analytics 4 began using in 2026 to identify sessions where the first referral came from an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Copilot.



Direct Traffic
Sessions where no referral source is detected in GA4. Includes typed URLs, bookmarks, saved links, dark social, app traffic, and AI-assisted navigation — but cannot be attributed to AI alone without additional data.



Organic Search Share
The percentage of total users whose first interaction came through an unpaid search engine result. This study tracks share (%) rather than absolute numbers to allow fair comparison across brands of different sizes.



AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
The practice of structuring content to be surfaced and cited by AI-powered answer systems — including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity — not just indexed by traditional search engines.




AI Overview

A Google feature that displays an AI-generated summary at the top of search results. When triggered, it may satisfy a user’s query before they scroll to organic listings — potentially reducing click-through.


Unassigned Traffic

Sessions GA4 cannot attribute to any standard channel group. Growth in Unassigned traffic is not proof of AI referral, but when it rises alongside AI Assistant traffic, Direct growth, and CTR compression, it becomes a signal worth investigating.


CTR Gap

The difference between a site’s actual click-through rate from search and the expected rate for its average ranking position. A brand ranking at position 9 with a 2% CTR when benchmarks suggest 6–8% indicates something above the listing may be satisfying the query.


GEO — Generative Engine Optimization

A related term referring to optimization for large language model-based search tools and generative AI interfaces. GEO and AEO are often used interchangeably, with AEO focused on factual Q&A retrieval and GEO on broader generative outputs.

The Central Finding: Visibility and Visits May Be Separating

The core observation of this study is not that search is dying. It is that the reliable relationship between appearing in search and receiving a website visit shows early signs of weakening.

Across all four brands with Google Search Console access, click-through rates sit between 1.6% and 2.3%. These brands appear in search. They rank. Google is surfacing their pages. But across a combined 59 million search impressions over 12 months, fewer than 1.3 million visits resulted. Roughly 97 to 98 out of every 100 people who saw these brands in Google search did not visit the website.

A brand can still rank well on Google while receiving significantly fewer visits than its impression volume would historically have suggested. Visibility and traffic are no longer reliably the same thing.
There are several plausible explanations. AI Overviews — Google’s AI-generated answer summaries appearing above organic listings — may satisfy queries without requiring a click. AI tools outside Google may be changing how users approach a search session. Zero-click behavior may be growing across more query types. This study cannot isolate a single cause. What it can observe is the pattern.
Search Journey Comparison
Traditional search journey
User has a question
↓
Goes to Google
↓
Sees organic listing
↓
Clicks → visits website
↓
GA4 records: Organic Search
Emerging AI-influenced journey
User asks an AI tool first
↓
Gets answer — brand mentioned or not
↓
May open Google — sees AI Overview
↓
No click — or navigates directly to brand
↓
GA4 records: Direct · Unassigned · AI Assistant

The Western Control Group: A Directional Warning

The offshore brands in this study are not presented as a forecast for the Philippines. They are included as a directional reference: a longer time series of the same channel-mix signals now appearing at early stages in Philippine data.

The Western Control Group: A Directional Warning

Figure 1 · Western Control Group
Figure 1 · Western Control Group
Organic Search Share vs. Direct Traffic — North American Brands (2023–2026 H1)

The inverse relationship between declining organic share and rising Direct traffic. The Canadian brand (solid lines) shows the more pronounced pattern. Observe how the two lines cross as AI adoption accelerated.

* 2026 data covers January 1–June 15, 2026 only. Direct traffic growth may reflect AI-informed discovery, brand campaigns, dark social, or other factors — not AI alone. The inverse correlation is observational, not causal proof.

The most pronounced pattern belongs to a Canadian online retailer. In 2023, organic search was its primary channel at 55.14% of user acquisitions. By mid-2026, that share had contracted to 10.51% — a relative reduction of more than 80%. Over the same period, Direct traffic grew from 21.48% to 75.97%. The brand’s total user base grew throughout. This is not a brand in decline. It reflects a fundamental shift in how users arrive.


A US activewear brand showed organic search share declining from 20.73% in 2023 to 10.38% in 2025, with Direct traffic rising from 25.81% to 57.94% over the same period.

 

Important Interpretation Caveat
Direct traffic growth has multiple possible causes: AI-assisted discovery, brand campaigns, app traffic, saved links, dark social referrals, and tracking limitations. This study cannot attribute Direct growth to AI behavior alone. What the data shows is a consistent inverse relationship — as organic share contracts, Direct share expands — across brands in both Western markets and, to a lesser degree, in the Philippine data.

The Western Control Group: A Directional Warning

Figure 2 · Philippine Market
Figure 2 · Philippine Market
Organic Search Share — Philippine Brands (2023–2026 H1)

Five Philippine brands with clean channel data. The picture is more stable than Western markets — but shows variation by industry and early softening in 2026 H1 for some brands.

Brands with anomalous 2026 H1 Direct traffic spikes consistent with app launches or platform events are excluded. Null values indicate a data gap. The food/FMCG brand's dominance reflects an informational content model distinct from retail or transactional brands.

Philippine brands in this study are not experiencing the same scale of organic compression as Western markets. Several brands maintained or grew organic search share across 2023 to 2025. This is the correct starting point — the data does not support a claim that Philippine organic search is in broad decline.

What the data does show is a pattern of early-warning signals that appeared in Western brands 18 to 24 months before meaningful organic compression began. If that pattern holds in the Philippine context — and it may not — brands that monitor these signals now will have more options than those that wait.

What is holding strong

A Philippine food and FMCG brand maintained organic search share above 89% across all four data periods. A Philippine consumer electronics brand held above 70% with near-perfect consistency. A Philippine cultural lifestyle brand grew organic search share from 33.91% in 2023 to 39.25% in 2025. These brands are not under visible AI-related pressure — yet.

What is beginning to soften

A Philippine premium home furnishing brand showed organic search declining from 8.21% in 2023 to 3.01% in 2026 H1, while Direct grew from 28.96% to 61.5%. A Philippine sports retailer showed GSC clicks declining sharply in April and May 2026 in a pattern consistent with expanded AI Overview activity — though query-level data would be needed to confirm this.

The early-warning signals appearing now

Three signals appear consistently across the Philippine dataset in 2026 H1 that were not present in 2023. First, Unassigned traffic grew between 20 and 30 times from 2023 baselines across multiple Philippine brands. This is not proof of AI referral — but when it rises alongside AI Assistant traffic and higher Direct share, it is a pattern worth investigating. Second, the “AI Assistant” channel appeared in GA4 for five Philippine brands in the first half of 2026. Volume is small — between 1 and 89 users per brand — but the classification’s existence is significant. Third, GSC click-through rates for the two Philippine brands with Search Console access sat at 1.9% and 2.3%, low relative to their average ranking positions of 8.6 and 9.1 respectively.
Figure 3 · Channel Shift Analysis
Figure 3 · Channel Shift Analysis
Direct Traffic Share: 2023 vs. 2026 H1 (Non-Anomalous Brands)

Direct traffic growth across five brands where anomalous platform events have been excluded. Growth may reflect AI-influenced discovery, brand campaigns, dark social, or other factors — attribution to AI alone requires further investigation.

* Excludes brands with Direct spikes consistent with app launches or platform migrations. 2026 data is Jan 1–Jun 15, 2026 only.

What the Search Console Data Says: Rankings Are Holding, Clicks May Not Be

Google Search Console measures three things central to this study: impressions (how often a page appears in results), clicks (how many users visited from search), and CTR (clicks as a percentage of impressions). All four brands with GSC access rank on the first or second page of Google for primary queries. None is experiencing a ranking crisis. The issue is the relationship between ranking and traffic.

2.3%

CTR for PH Cultural Brand (Avg. Position 9.1) on 35M annual impressions

1.9%

Philippine brands across 6 industry categories

1.6%

CTR for US Brand (Avg. Position 11.8) on 3.1M annual impressions

Published benchmark studies suggest that organic listings at positions 8–10 typically generate CTRs in the range of 6 to 9%. The brands in this dataset at those positions are generating 1.9% to 2.3%. That gap — if not explained by brand, vertical, or query mix alone — is consistent with something above the organic listing satisfying a meaningful proportion of queries.

Figure 4 · Google Search Console
Figure 4 · Google Search Console
Actual CTR vs. Pre-AI Benchmark — All 4 Brands with GSC Access

All four brands rank well. The gap between actual CTR and benchmark expectations is consistent with zero-click behavior or AI Overview interception — but requires query-level validation to confirm causation.

Benchmark CTR figures are estimates based on published industry position-CTR studies and are illustrative only. [Citation needed: Backlinko / Advanced Web Ranking]. Actual CTR from GSC over the 12 months ending June 2026.

Figure 5 · GSC Trend — Canadian Brand
Figure 5 · GSC Trend — Canadian Brand
Impressions vs. Clicks: The Widening Gap (Indexed to 100)

Impressions remain relatively stable while clicks decline over 12 months — a pattern consistent with AI Overview interception. Query-level data would be needed to confirm this interpretation.

Data indexed to 100 at June 2025 for comparative clarity. Chart is representative of the observed trend, not exact daily values. The widening gap between lines indicates declining click yield per impression.

The Canadian brand in the dataset provides the clearest GSC illustration. Its impressions have remained relatively stable over 12 months. Its clicks have declined by approximately half. When impressions hold while clicks fall, the standard interpretation in search analysis is that something above the organic listing is intercepting the query — consistent with AI Overview behavior, though this cannot be confirmed without query-level analysis.

GA4's Confirmation: The AI Assistant Channel Now Exists

Figure 6 · Confirmed AI Traffic
Figure 6 · Confirmed AI Traffic
AI Assistant Channel — Confirmed GA4 Appearances (Jan 1–Jun 15, 2026)

GA4 created this classification when AI-referred traffic crossed a threshold its systems could categorize. These are users who clicked a link within ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Copilot. Volume is early-stage; the classification itself is the significant finding.

The AI Assistant channel was not present in any brand's 2023 or 2024 GA4 data. Its first appearance in 2026 H1 — across 6 brands including 5 Philippine brands — marks a measurable threshold, not a peak.

Figure 7 · Signal to Monitor
Figure 7 · Signal to Monitor
Unassigned Traffic Growth — Philippine Brands (2023 vs. 2026 H1)

Unassigned traffic grew 20–30× from 2023 baselines across three Philippine brands. This is not proof of AI referral. When it rises in parallel with AI Assistant traffic, Direct growth, and CTR compression, it becomes a signal that warrants investigation.

Absolute percentages remain small (under 3.5%). The growth multiple — not the absolute level — is the notable signal. Possible explanations include AI-referred visits, tracking gaps, unrecognized referral sources, and GA4 attribution changes.

Why Some Brands Are More Resilient — The Branded Content Principle

Two Philippine brands maintained organic search shares above 70% across the full study period. Understanding why they appear more resilient is as strategically useful as understanding why others are under pressure.

Both brands share a specific characteristic: their users predominantly arrive via informational and branded content intent. People search for content associated specifically with those brands — recipes, usage guides, product specifications — rather than for a category or competitor comparison.
The Branded Content Principle
A search that pairs your brand name with a task or content type — a recipe, a how-to guide, a product specification — is more defensible than the equivalent generic query. The generic query for “best karaoke machine” or “chicken recipe” belongs to whoever AI decides to cite. The branded equivalent — your brand name plus that content type — is more likely to belong to you. The more specific and brand-dependent the search intent, the more resistant that content is to AI interception. Build content only your brand can own.

Even so, these more resilient brands are not showing zero signal. One shows Direct traffic growing from 5.18% in 2023 to 9.03% in 2026 H1. Another shows AI Assistant traffic appearing for the first time in 2026 H1 and Unassigned traffic growing five-fold over two years. The resilience is real and present. The signals suggest that monitoring — not complacency — is the appropriate response.

The AI Search Vulnerability Matrix

Across 11 brands and 3.5 years of data, five recurring channel-mix patterns emerged. This is a working descriptive framework derived from this dataset, not a statistically validated classification system.

Type 1 · Lowest Current Pressure

The Content-Dominant Brand

Organic search share above 70%, driven by branded informational content. Users search by brand name or brand-specific content type. Most resilient to category-level AI interception.
Watch for: Gradual Direct traffic growth. AI Assistant appearing at low volume. Unassigned slowly rising. Early signals even for resilient brands.

Type 2 · Moderate, Mixed Signals

The Transitional Brand

Organic share 20–50%, holding or growing in share but with total traffic volatility. Mix of branded and category-level query intent. Most Philippine retail brands fit here.

Watch for: Unassigned traffic accelerating. AI Assistant emerging. Total organic volumes declining even as share holds. Act now.

 

Type 3 · Higher Exposure

The Paid-Dependent Brand

Organic was never a primary channel. Organic share below 10% and declining. High-consideration purchase categories where AI is commonly consulted before purchase.
Watch for: Direct traffic surging past 50% without a platform or campaign event. Organic below 5%. AEO strategy review warranted.  

Type 4 · Significant Compression (Offshore)

The Western-Market Reference

Was organic-dominant. Organic share declined sharply over 2–3 years. Direct now primary. Brand health may be intact — search no longer reliably delivers the visit.
What occurred: Organic held through 2023–2024, then compressed in 2025. GSC impressions diverged from clicks. Direct became the primary acquisition channel.

Type 5 · Requires Audit First

The Anomalous Signal Brand

Direct traffic surged to 80–96% due to app launches, PWA rollouts, or platform migrations — not AI behavior alone. Organic decline may be real but must be disentangled from platform events.
Required action: Audit platform events before attributing Direct growth to AI. Distinguish structural change from technical attribution shifts.

Target State · Build Toward This

The AI-Visible Brand

Optimizing for AI discovery alongside traditional SEO. Structured, authoritative content designed to be cited by AI tools. Monitoring AI Assistant, Unassigned, and Direct as leading indicators.
What to build: AEO and GEO alongside SEO. Brand authority signals. Multi-channel traffic not dependent on a single search session converting.  

Answering the Questions This Data Raises

Is Google ending?

Not in any timeframe this data suggests. Google’s impression volumes for brands in this study remain large — 15 million and 35 million impressions annually for the two Philippine brands with GSC access. What this data suggests is that the reliable conversion from Google impression to website visit may be weakening for certain query types, not that Google’s role as the primary discovery engine is disappearing. Google may still satisfy the search. The brand may no longer receive the visit.

Should Philippine brands pay attention to ChatGPT and Perplexity?

The more immediate measurable risk in this dataset is from Google’s own AI Overviews, which appear to be active in the Philippines and contributing to CTR compression. That said, the AI Assistant channel now appearing in Philippine brand GA4 data confirms that traffic from external AI tools is real and growing. Treating it as a future concern is inconsistent with what the 2026 H1 data shows.

Is the Philippines headed where Western markets are?

The same channel-mix signals that appeared in Western brands in 2023 are present in Philippine brands in mid-2026. Whether they follow the same trajectory depends on AI tool adoption rates here, the pace of Google AI Overview expansion, and how Filipino search behavior evolves. Based on pattern similarity alone, the hypothesis is a lag of roughly 18 to 24 months — but this is a hypothesis, not a research finding. The brands that acted during Western markets’ equivalent window are the ones managing a strategy today. The brands that waited had fewer options once the pattern became obvious.  

What Philippine Brands Should Do — Ranked by Urgency

The response is not to abandon SEO. It is to expand it. SEO asked: does Google rank us? The question now expanding alongside it is: does AI recommend us? These are not the same question — and for some query types and some brands, the gap between them is already measurable.

 

Type 5 · Immediate · Next 30 Days

Establish your current signal baseline

  • Add AI Assistant, Unassigned, and Direct as monitored weekly metrics in GA4
  • Pull 12 months of GSC data and compare Impressions vs. Clicks trends — is the gap widening?
  • Test your top 20 organic queries in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — does your brand appear?
  • Check whether your primary commercial queries now trigger AI Overviews in Google PH

Short-Term · 90 Days

Start optimizing for the answer, not just the rank

  • For every query triggering an AI Overview, ask whether your brand is cited — and what content change would make it so
  • Audit key pages for structured data markup — FAQ, HowTo, Product schema
  • Add author credentials and publication dates to primary content pages — basic AEO hygiene
  • Identify which content only you can produce and own — invest there first

Medium-Term · 6 Months

Build AI visibility alongside search visibility

  • Create content structured to be retrieved by AI systems — clear, factual, specific, with explicit source signals
  • Build brand mentions and citations across trusted external sources AI tools reference
  • Diversify traffic before organic compression arrives — email, community, direct relationships
  • Set a quarterly AI brand audit: ask five AI tools your customers' questions and record results

Strategic · Ongoing

Reframe the success metric

  • Stop measuring only rankings. Start measuring AI citation frequency alongside organic position
  • Treat rising Direct traffic as a signal requiring investigation, not just a reporting line
  • Brief leadership on the impressions-to-clicks gap — one of the most commercially important metrics in 2026
  • Build content that only your brand can own and only AI can cite you for
One of the most important marketing questions for the next several years: does AI recommend us? Most brands don’t yet know the answer — and that gap is where the competitive advantage lives.

Research Integrity: What This Study Can and Cannot Claim

Findings · Confidence Table
Finding Confidence Basis and Caveat
GA4 now classifies "AI Assistant" as a distinct traffic channel High Directly observable in GA4 data across 6 brands. Reproducible by any analyst with account access.
Philippine brands are receiving early AI-referred visits Medium AI Assistant channel is confirmed. Volume is early-stage (1–89 users per brand in H1 2026).
CTR is lower than pre-AI benchmarks for ranking positions observed Externally Supported Observed in GSC across 4 brands. Benchmark comparison depends on third-party CTR studies with inherent variance.
Unassigned traffic may include AI-influenced visits Directional Correlates with other AI signals in this dataset. Not causal proof. Multiple alternative explanations exist.
Direct traffic growth is partially AI-influenced Directional Inverse correlation with organic observed consistently. Direct growth has multiple causes — cannot be attributed to AI alone.
AI Overviews are contributing to CTR compression in PH Externally Supported April–May 2026 GSC cliff aligns with AI Overview expansion timing. Query-level analysis needed to confirm.
PH brands are 18–24 months behind Western markets Hypothesis Based on pattern similarity only. Not a controlled comparison. Market differences may produce different outcomes.

What This Study Does Not Claim

  • That AI is the sole or confirmed cause of organic search decline in any brand in this dataset
  • That Direct traffic growth is caused by AI behavior alone — platform migrations, campaigns, app launches, and dark social all contribute
  • That Unassigned traffic is AI-referred traffic — it is a signal, not a confirmed attribution
  • That the Philippine market will follow Western markets on the same timeline or to the same degree
  • That the 11 brands in this study are representative of the Philippine market as a whole
  • That organic search investment should be reduced — the data does not support that conclusion
  • That the CTR gap is caused exclusively by AI Overviews rather than featured snippets, PAA boxes, or other zero-click SERP features

Full Methodology and Data Disclosure

Data source: Google Analytics 4 User Acquisition reports (First User Primary Channel Group) for 11 brands under active or historical management by LeapOut Digital. Google Search Console performance data for 4 brands, covering the 12-month period ending June 2026. All brand identities are anonymized; brands are referenced by market and industry type only.
Period: Full calendar years 2023, 2024, and 2025. Partial year 2026 covers January 1 to June 15, 2026. 2026 data is not directly comparable to full calendar years and is presented as a directional signal only.
Primary metric: Percentage share of Total Users by channel, to normalize for brands of different sizes. Absolute volumes are reported where relevant.
Anomaly disclosure: Two Philippine brands and one Australian brand showed Direct traffic spikes of 83–96% in 2026 H1, accompanied by 3–8× total user volume increases. These patterns are consistent with app launches, PWA rollouts, or deep-link campaign events rather than AI behavior alone. Their anomalous 2026 H1 Direct traffic figures are not used to support AI attribution claims.
AI attribution approach: Three proxy signals were used: (1) the confirmed “AI Assistant” GA4 channel; (2) Direct traffic growth in inverse relationship with Organic Search share decline; (3) Unassigned traffic growth as a potential signal — not proof — of AI-influenced visits. None of these signals alone constitutes proof of AI causation.

What We Are Tracking in Edition 02

This is Edition 01 of an ongoing study. For Edition 02, planned for Q4 2026, we are adding: Google Search Console data for additional brands including query-level analysis to identify which specific searches trigger AI Overviews; AI brand mention audits tracking how frequently brands appear in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity answers for category queries; and the PAiVi Index (Philippine AI Visibility Index), a proprietary scoring system in development at LeapOut Digital to measure AI surface presence for Philippine brands across six AI surfaces.
If you manage Philippine brand analytics and want to contribute anonymized data to expand the study’s sample size and industry coverage, reach out to LeapOut Digital. The goal is to build the most credible, data-grounded view of AI search behavior in the Philippine market — and to give Philippine brands the clearest possible picture of what is happening before the pressure becomes obvious.
Picture of Marvin Ortiz
 
 
 
 
Marvin Ortiz
 
Marvin Ortiz is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of LeapOut Digital, a Filipino- and Australian-owned Shopify Plus and AI Commerce agency in the Philippines, and an ICOM network member. With over 16 years of experience, he has partnered with brands from fast-growing startups to Fortune Global 500 enterprises and government organizations, driving revenue growth and digital transformation. LeapOut builds enterprise and headless ecommerce and drives AI Search Visibility (AEO/GEO) and performance marketing for brands, and on a white-label basis for select partner agencies. Client engagements are referenced with permission.
  • Categorized as Featured
Picture of Marvin Ortiz

Marvin Ortiz

Marvin Ortiz is a digital entrepreneur with a wealth of experience working with local and international brands as an e-commerce and digital growth expert. He is the Founder and Co-Owner of LeapOut, the Philippines leading E-commerce SEO and Digital Marketing Agency. He loves to read and hit the beach during his free time. You can get in touch with him on Twitter at @marvinortizph.
Picture of Marvin Ortiz

Marvin Ortiz

Marvin Ortiz is a digital entrepreneur with a wealth of experience working with local and international brands as an e-commerce and digital growth expert. He is the Founder and Co-Owner of LeapOut, the Philippines leading E-commerce SEO and Digital Marketing Agency. He loves to read and hit the beach during his free time. You can get in touch with him on Twitter at @marvinortizph.

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Enterprise & Headless Shopify Builds in the Philippines | LeapOut 

June 15, 2026 No Comments

Inside LeapOut’s Hardest Shopify Plus Builds: Regulated Commerce, Enterprise Scale, and Going Headless By Marvin Ortiz, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, LeapOut Digital  The short version: Most agencies show you their prettiest work. We’d rather be judged by our hardest. This is a deep look at three Shopify and Shopify Plus builds that each solved one of the three hardest problems in enterprise ecommerce — selling a regulated product (MaxiLife by Maxicare), executing a global brand’s standards at scale (Under Armour Philippines), and extending Shopify Plus past its native limits into a headless build (Kotis Design, USA). We chose these three because difficulty is the one thing a portfolio can’t fake. If you want to know whether a team can actually build, look at what it does when the easy path runs out.   A portfolio full of beautiful storefronts proves almost nothing. Anyone with a good designer can produce a clean store on a forgiving brief. What separates a real engineering partner from a theme shop is what happens when the brief isn’t forgiving — when a regulator is involved, when a global brand sets a standard you can’t bend, or when the platform itself says “no.”  So instead of showing you everything we’ve built, I want to go deep on three. Not our prettiest work — our hardest. Each one represents a different way an ecommerce build can become genuinely difficult, and together they’re the closest thing we have to an honest answer to the question every serious client is really asking: can you handle the part that’s hard?  Here they are. Build One — MaxiLife by Maxicare: Selling a Regulated Product Online The problem most agencies won’t take. MaxiLife by Maxicare is a regulated, healthcare-adjacent insurance product from one of the country’s largest health-maintenance organizations — sold, for the first time, through ecommerce. That single fact changes everything about the build.  Why it was hard. Selling a regulated financial-and-health product isn’t like selling apparel. The build has to satisfy disclosure, compliance, and documentation requirements that a normal store never encounters — and it has to do that without turning the purchase into a punishing legal form. The entire challenge is a contradiction: make something heavily regulated feel light and human to the person buying it. Get the compliance wrong and you can’t launch. Get the experience wrong and no one buys. You have to win both.  What we did. We extended Shopify Plus with deep technical customization to meet the regulatory requirements while protecting the buying experience — building the compliance into the platform rather than bolting it on top, so the rules were satisfied structurally instead of being patched in. Precision wasn’t a preference here; it was the entire job.  What it proves. When we tell a prospect “we handle regulated commerce,” this is the build we point to — and it’s why brands in insurance, health, and finance take our calls. Regulated ecommerce is a specialist capability most agencies quietly avoid, and the avoidance is the opportunity.  “Your professionalism, dedication, and excellent service have been greatly appreciated… It’s been a pleasure collaborating with your team, and I truly value the strong relationship we’ve built. I will certainly recommend your services moving forward.” — Carlo Rodelas, MaxiLife, Digital Channels Manager Build Two — Under Armour Philippines: Executing a Global Standard, Flawlessly The problem you don’t hear discussed. Under Armour Philippines was one of the most demanding Shopify environments we’ve handled — and the difficulty was a specific, underrated kind: building to a standard we didn’t set.  Why it was hard. When you work with a global brand, the design language, the brand controls, and the performance expectations are all defined elsewhere, and they are non-negotiable. Your job isn’t to invent — it’s to execute someone else’s standard, locally, at the exact quality they require, every single time, while making the catalog, pricing, and promotional logic work for the Philippine market. A lot of agencies are good at being creative. Far fewer are good at being faithful — at delivering precisely what a global brand demands without drift or compromise. Shopify Plus gave us the flexibility; the scale demanded governance, because flexibility without structure creates risk at exactly the moment a global brand is watching.  What we did. Deep front-end customization aligned to global brand standards, disciplined performance engineering, and careful stakeholder alignment across local and global teams — the unglamorous governance work that keeps a high-traffic enterprise store fast, on-brand, and predictable.  What it proves. Being trusted by a global brand to touch its storefront is a credential in itself. Global and enterprise brands run procurement, legal, brand-safety, and performance reviews most local businesses never will. Clearing that bar is harder than winning any award — and it’s a bar we’ve cleared repeatedly. Based on Page speed Insights Report from Jun 14, 2026, 7:18:31 PM  Build-quality scorecard (Google Lighthouse): SEO 100 · Accessibility 95 · Best Practices 92 · Performance 79. A perfect SEO score and near-perfect accessibility are the marks of a build engineered to be found and usable, not just to look good — exactly the disciplined, measurable execution a global brand requires. Build Three — Kotis Design (USA): When the Platform Says No The problem at the technical frontier. Kotis Design is a US-based B2B company — a PPAI 100 firm, one of the largest distributors in the American promotional-products industry — serving major corporate clients with bespoke swag and merchandise programs. Their requirements exceeded what Shopify does natively. The platform, in effect, said no.  Why it was hard. Kotis needed heavy, per-client customization — bespoke corporate stores, redemption sites, and ordering flows tailored to each enterprise client. Shopify’s standard theme-and-app architecture doesn’t bend that far. A weaker partner says “Shopify can’t do that.” We treated it as the brief.  What we did. We built custom functionality to support complex product personalization, and as Kotis’s ambition for their platform grew, the work evolved toward a headless architecture — decoupling the storefront from Shopify’s native layer to deliver experiences and client-specific functionality the standard stack can’t, while keeping Shopify as the commerce engine underneath. It’s not a finished project; it’s a living platform we build against in regular sprints, and have for two years.  What it proves. Two things, and both

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