Case Study: Bedroom Furniture Discounts Uses Keyword Tool to Grow Sales

PROBLEM: Bedroom Furniture Discounts (BFD), a cross-channel retailer of furniture, wanted to optimize its paid search program.

SOLUTION: Hired a third-party provider of online interaction management tools, including a Google AdWords-based conversion solution.

RESULTS: BFD realized the following percentage increases in key online metrics over a 45-day period from April 1 through May 15 vs. the previous 45 days after launching an AdWords tool: online revenue (33.11 percent); per visit value (51.91 percent); online conversion rate (21.04 percent); and the percentage of total sales occurring online grew from 15 percent to 23 percent (a 53 percent lift).

Despite revenues increasing 2,900 percent last year for Unlimited Furniture Group, parent company of online furniture retailer BedroomFurnitureDiscounts.com and other furniture retail sites, the company was concerned that its net profit "only" increased 50 percent and its online conversion rate actually went down. That told BFD that its advertising efforts, particularly paid search, were becoming less effective.

To remedy the problem, BFD partnered with LivePerson, a provider of online interaction management tools. Specifically, it implemented LivePerson's Keyword Lift tool. The tool continuously analyzes BFD' search marketing campaign data to deliver personalized content (e.g., discount offers) to the right visitors on the right pages at the right times based on what the visitor searched for on Google. The process is automated to occur every 24 hours through a proprietary keyword-scoring algorithm designed to identify keywords with the greatest potential to boost return on investment.

For example, if a consumer searches on Google for "black couch" and clicks through to a BFD' landing page, Keyword Lift would serve up a customized ad to that shopper with a discount offer for a black couch. This tool has made the fast-growing trend of consumers searching for coupons online a nonissue, as users are already getting an additional value that's unique to them.

"Home furnishings is a very competitive industry," notes Sara Shikhman, president, Bedroom Furniture Discounts. "We spend close to $1 million per year in various types of advertising, whether it's SEO, SEM, print. About 40 percent of that $1 million budget goes to Google AdWords. Keyword Lift maximizes the return on our Google AdWords spend."

Targeted Offers Drive Conversions, Cost Savings
The ability of BFD to serve targeted offers to visitors based upon their keyword searches on Google has led to not only increased conversions and a higher ROI for the brand's paid search program, but cost savings as well. While only 20 percent of BFD' conversions occur online — the other 80 percent come from its call center — the retailer is starting to see that imbalance level off since it began using Keyword Lift.

"Keyword Lift increases the amount of conversions online, which are much more efficient," says Shikhman. "They don't require a phone call. A phone call is expensive for us in terms of staffing, IT costs and everything related to that. So Keyword Lift not only increases overall conversion rate, but also gives us the really good, more efficient conversions that we're looking for."

BFD plans on working with LivePerson to implement further improvements to its website, including launching live chat on all pages of its site. This and other tweaks to its website will all be made based on ROI, says Shikhman.

"Every decision we make is based on numbers. The numbers are what our investors look at and what our customers look at when it comes to the coupons they're served up by Keyword Lift. The conversion and revenue numbers we've seen since we began using Keyword Lift speak for themselves."