Website Optimiser (beta)

Mattress Liquidators increased online leads 5,000% by improving their site with Google Website Optimiser

Company

Mattress Liquidators is a store that has grown beyond expectations. Though the company started in 1993 as a cash-and-carry warehouse store for mattresses, it's now a full-service sleep centre with several thousand square feet of mattresses and beds of all shapes, sizes, and prices. The Mississauga, Ontario, sleep emporium prides itself on customer service, offering expert consultation, competitive prices, free delivery and set-up and a 60-day free trial of any product in the store. "We pioneered the idea of a one-stop bedding store in this area," says Bill Laidlaw, founder of Mattress Liquidators. "When we started, there were very few specialty retailers in the area."

Approach

Mattress Liquidators' biggest challenge is staying ahead of market encroachers. Competition from chain stores and from online outlets has heated up. Laidlaw realised that in order to stay on top, he had to innovate. "It was difficult to overcome the competition by marketing in conventional ways," Laidlaw says. "So we started a website. We don't sell online, but the site is designed to generate sales leads." Still, Laidlaw noticed that the site wasn't generating many leads. Mattress Liquidators started advertising using Google AdWords™ in 2006, but though the ads were getting responses, it was slow going. Each month, the store would get a few phone leads from their site, but almost no email. Laidlaw wondered why the site was not as effective as he'd planned. "We realised we needed to redesign it," he says. "But at a certain point, you don't know what to improve. You need information and help."

Laidlaw heard about Google Website Optimiser and decided to try it. "I had no idea it existed," he recalls, but also notes that since "A/B testing an ad gives you phenomenal information, so given all the parameters Website Optimiser lets you measure, how could it not work?" He brought in consulting firm Future Now, Inc. to help him identify what to test and to set up test versions of the Mattress Liquidators landing page and run them through Website Optimiser to see which pages generated the most response.

Result

Future Now, Inc. set up Google Website Optimiser to test a variety of landing pages that included different calls to action, colours, fonts, and placement of guarantee information. Mattress Liquidators chose the most optimal design, with an enlarged toll-free phone number and an email link, and launched that page. Immediately the store saw a noticeable jump in online sales leads. Before Website Optimiser, the store received about one email per month; after, they received an average of three emails a day. In the previous year they had two email sales; now, in one week, they made two sales from email leads after implementing Website Optimiser. The store receives 10 to 15 phone calls per day generated from the site, as opposed to 5 to 10 calls from their previous site. Cumulatively, the use of Website Optimiser has boosted online leads 5,000%. "If this had been around a year ago, I would have done it then," Laidlaw says.

The results Laidlaw has seen with Google Website Optimiser have given him the confidence to make a future leap into e-commerce - to turn the site into a retail store instead of just a lead generator. "We can use all of the Google tactics for tracking and advertising," Laidlaw says. For now, he plans to keep refining the site to get the best possible results for Mattress Liquidators, testing different headlines and colours of links. "I'll just keep tweaking," he says. "I'll keep using Website Optimiser as long as my doors are open."

About Google Website Optimiser

Google Website Optimiser offers free A/B and 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 Optimiser 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/en_AU/websiteoptimizer.