Website Optimizer (beta)

Using insights acquired from using Google Website Optimizer, Moishe's Moving Systems increases its lead collection rate by 50%

Company

Moishe's Moving Systems started more than 20 years ago with one truck. Since then, it's grown to one of the largest and most successful moving and storage companies in the New York tri-state area. Striving to provide its customers with personal, professional support, it employs approximately 150 employees and offers customized services to match customer needs. Moishe's believes that it has succeeded by excelling in reliability, customer service, 24-hour self-storage access, and by providing a flexible variety of moving and storage solutions.

Approach

After years of advertising offline, Moishe's decided to move into Internet advertising in 2000. Their first online marketing initiative was to open a Google AdWords account. "From the beginning, we saw significant benefits from our AdWords traffic," says Micha Lang, Vice President of Sales for Moishe's. "Over time, we've worked to optimize our ads, both through better targeting and better use of keywords, and we are very happy with the results. Local targeting has really, really helped us. In fact, the return has been so good that we have completely eliminated some of our traditional offline advertising."

Working with Park Slope Softworks, Moishe's' online marketing firm, and using Google AdWords has helped Lang to understand the importance of properly designed, highly relevant landing pages. Lang's intuition told him that testing different versions of landing pages could help them improve both visitor experience and bottom line, but without specialized tools, testing had proved to be difficult.

"Creating a landing page...is like art and science," says Ilan Klein of Park Slope Softworks. Klein had looked into testing solutions in the past and thought that they seemed "very impressive, but also very expensive." In October, he heard about Google Website Optimizer, signed up to be part of the beta test, and decided to begin testing some of his hunches about what would be most effective on the Moishe's website.

Getting the Message

For their first Website Optimizer experiment, Moishe's tested the effectiveness of three different promotional messages on their main landing page: $100 off moving costs; 10 free moving boxes; and one free hour of packing. In a separate test, Moishe's also tested different images of people (for example, one person versus a family) to determine which image was most likely to motivate visitors to request more information and therefore become a customer lead.

"With Website Optimizer, we were able to quickly see which messages and images resonated with potential customers," says Klein. "The '$100 off' marketing message easily outperformed the other two messages with a conversion rate about 50% higher than either of the other promotions." Indeed, since updating this landing page with the '$100 off" marketing message, Moishe's has enjoyed a 50% increase in generated leads. Klein intends to run additional, simplified experiments to get more data and further understand Moishe's customer base.

Even as one experiment was running to identify the most effective promotional copy, another experiment was testing which kinds of images might be most effective. Results showed that images depicting groups of people outperformed images of individuals or couples. By using landing pages with the highest performing image, Moishe's could increase conversion rates by over 60%. "This came as a surprise," says Klein. "But, we had the hard data to prove it. It was simple to switch to the more effective image and now we know which images and copy appeal to potential Moishe's customers. There is no question that Website Optimizer is going to help us be more effective at creating new pages and marketing campaigns."

An "Indispensable" Tool

While Klein finds Website Optimizer "indispensable" for the insights and accuracy it offers, he also offers practical advice to those considering using it. "Think about what you want to learn from testing, and then design your experiment accordingly", he explains. "A lot depends on how much time you have and how much traffic you can generate. The more tests and components you have, the more time it will take to get good results. There is no question, though, that those results can have a valuable, immediate impact on a business."

Future Moves

Klein plans to continue testing variations of the Moishe's website. He also plans to recommend Website Optimizer to his other clients as an integral part of their site and search optimization strategies. Because Website Optimizer can test traffic from any source (e.g. paid search, organic search listings, etc), Klein is considering extending his Moishe's tests beyond general traffic to incorporate targeted traffic from offline media as well.

"After using Website Optimizer, we have a very good idea of what works on the site, what doesn't, and how to continue improving. Not using it would be almost criminal."

About Google Website Optimizer

Google Website Optimizer offers free multivariate testing that helps you take action to convert visitors to customers. Graphical reports show which content engages your audience and results in the highest conversions. The Website Optimizer is integrated into Google AdWords, but it tests all traffic to your site - including traffic from your AdWords ads, Google search results and any other source of traffic to your site. For more information visit http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer.