276% online sales growth

OVERVIEW

Furniture and home accessories retailer The Pier has seen an increase in online sales over 270% in just six months, thanks to a iCrossing integrated paid search and natural search campaign. Proactive pay-per-click (PPC) strategies made budgets go further, delivering a return on investment of 18:1 in the first three months. (www.pier.co.uk)

OBJECTIVES

The key objectives were to increase the number of unique visitors to the site and grow online revenues. Pay-per-click was used to get instant visibility in the first three-months. It would then complement the natural campaign as organic results began to come through.

SOLUTION

iCrossing undertook detailed search term profiling to develop the set of search terms most relevant and useful to The Pier. The set was created using product lists supplied by the client, ‘brand words’, and generic terms focused on home furnishings. The locations of The Pier’s high street stores - useful for regional searches - completed the set.

The search terms were then used as the core terms for the ppc campaign, while search engine optimised copy was introduced to the site to improve natural search rankings. iCrossing installed NetworkSense Tracking on The Pier’s website to provide tracking for both natural and paid campaigns, enabling iCrossing and the client team to monitor visitor numbers and analyse actions taken on each page.

The PPC campaign creative targeted product-specific search terms, encouraging deeplinking – that is, ensuring visitors landed on highly relevant pages to their individual search – and thereby sales. To make the best use of The Pier’s budget, iCrossing recommended that the campaign focus on furniture and candles, The Pier’s highest margin products. iCrossing also initiated a day-parting strategy, increasing paid search spend at the times of day when The Pier’s target audience was most active online. iCrossing also constantly updated the search listings to reflect The Pier’s current promotional offers and season-specific sales: thus The Pier’s search campaign always reflected its current business focus.

As the natural search terms began to rank, iCrossing then reduced PPC budgets and redirected terms to more niche areas, topical products, and offers not covered by the natural campaign.

RESULTS

After only six months, iCrossing's integrated search marketing campaign had successfully delivered increased numbers of visitors to The Pier’s website.

• Monthly traffic volumes increased by over 90%

• This was accompanied by an increase in monthly sales volumes of over 270%

• Return on investment was measured at 20:1

The Pier has benefited from the synergy of an integrated paid and natural search campaign. Running the two together enables paid search to deliver instant visibility, while natural rankings build; once natural positions are achieved, paid search can then be used tactically to drive new traffic as and when required.

WORKING TOGETHER

Gavin Barrett, The Pier says: “We needed a campaign that worked as hard as possible for the budget available. The strategy undertaken by iCrossing provided the quick burst up the search rankings that we needed through pay per click. Better still, it was able to maintain a high level of visibility beyond this point, until our natural search campaign began to deliver results over the longer-term.”

Lucy Hancock, Account Manager, iCrossing says:  “The brief handed to us by The Pier was a challenging one because it wanted to see improvements in a relatively short time frame. The early PPC stages of the campaign delivered the results, and careful manipulation of the budget enabled us to ensure that ongoing results also remained strong. The Pier is now reaping the rewards, with higher customer traffic levels and increased sales conversions.”

About The Pier

The Pier began trading in 1989 from its first store in Richmond-upon-Thames. Over the last seventeen years, The Pier has made its mark on the high street as the leading retailer of globally sourced home furnishings and accessories.  It specialises in sourcing authentic products from around the world including Portugal, Spain, India, Italy, USA, Africa, Mexico, China, Indonesia and Eastern Europe.