Windows Optimization Project
Problem to Solve: Low online conversion & high in-store return rates for curtains.
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Customer Feedback Insight: Most customers had purchased the incorrect size. Others had realized they'd purchased the wrong type of curtain. There were no complaints about quality or damage to the product.
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Goal: Uncover the reason so many customers were unable to convert on site. Uncover the reason customers had purchased the wrong curtains when they were able to convert.
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Strategy: Optimize the website to better serve the customer. Phase II - test into educational content for stores mods.
Tactics: SEO keyword research, customer data via site metrics in Adobe Analytics, competitor research.
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The GTM Strategy: A detailed description of the Go-To-Market strategy following this experience optimization can be found here.
Problem Statement:
"I bought curtains but they ended up being way too long for my windows and too sheer."
Customer Research​
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SEO - we spent a lot of time in our SEO tool BrightEdge discerning what keywords customers were using to search for window treatments, the keywords our competitors were ranking for, and how these differed from what we had previously used on the website. ​
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Customer Journeys (Site Analytics) - We leveraged our ability to track customer journeys in Adobe Analytics to uncover patterns or areas of friction within our current experience. We saw that customers were clicking deep into our browse pages (5+) which signified they were not finding what they were looking for on the first two pages. We also saw their bounce rates from these pages, signifying they were not where they had wanted to be on site.
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Market Research:
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The curtain market size was $3.60 billion at the time with growing rates YoY.
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Our tool BrightEdge also allowed us to see where we ranked compared to competitors for keyword results and helped us refine our competitor list.
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The curtain market is seasonal with energy efficiency coming into play during both cold and hot seasons.
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There was an increase in demand for blackout curtains as part of a sleep solution.
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From our internal sales data we were also able to determine where our highest propensity of customers were located.
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Competitor Research: We narrowed down our list of key competitors and then cross-shopped their experience to understand why they were preferred by our customers.
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Competitors had educational content on their websites to help customers understand how to measure curtains.
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Competitors used simple language on their sites vs industry speak.
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Competitors had diagrams to help customers understand curtain light filtration in-between blackout and sheer.
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Competitors provided diagrams for common curtain lengths (pooling, floor-length, short).
Key Customer Insight:
Our target customer was starting lower in the funnel (she knew she wanted curtains vs blinds) but she did not realize that she needed to pre-emptively measure before shopping.
How we optimized:​
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Separated Curtains from Blinds: Our curtain customer was not the same as our blinds customer. We started by separating the two shopping experiences to make it easier for customers to shop for the window treatment they were looking for.
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Revised taxonomy & copy: Our new hierarchy & messaging reflected what our customer was searching for vs industry speak.
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Example:
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Moved "blackout curtains" toward the top of our navigation options
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Edited "valance curtains" to "short curtains"
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Added Educational Content: We included compact educational modules directly on the shopping page to help answer the basic questions we knew customers were struggling with i.e. length and light filtration. We also wrote long-form buying guides that helped guide them through the measuring process and installation processes while highlighting these service add-ons.
The Results: Increased conversion by +1.6% and decrease in digital returns.
