How did Internet Gardener cultivate better customer experiences to increase conversions and grow sales?

Generating a flourishing sales pipeline by unearthing invaluable insights from call data.

The challenge

Internet Gardener may be an award winning online retailer, but 35% of their orders come via phone calls. These are their highest value orders, where a personal level of service is needed to discuss the details of big ticket items, such as sheds, furniture, and log cabins. Every year, these calls account for over a million pounds of revenue in peak seasons.

As retailers of garden installations and equipment, 70% of their business comes within a four-month window. Maximising revenue and satisfying customers during this small window is central to their ongoing success, but is impossible without being able to attribute what’s driving those calls.

Also, a large proportion of Internet Gardener’s orders come from PPC, so a deep level of keyword understanding was needed to know where and how to invest in PPC to get the biggest return.

Why Infinity?

Infinity provides answers about what leads someone to making a call, as well as making this data easy to catalogue, analyse, and tag. This ability is a must-have for any company that drives revenue or provides support via phone, and Internet Gardener are no exception.

Infinity’s integration with AdWords was a vital and seamless addition to Internet Gardener’s technology stack. The keyword level data provided by Infinity was the key to unlocking an optimisation of their PPC spend, with a flexible attribution model to match Internet Gardener’s needs. As Technical Solutions Architect, Stephen Stone, says “the more I saw of Infinity, the more I realised that we needed it.”

The solution

Internet Gardener swiftly installed Infinity to track and record every call that came into their business, showing them what source – such as search, email, or social - lead to the call as well as any PPC terms that were clicked. These calls were tagged based on the outcome, including the amount of revenue generated when a sale was made. This knowledge informed the gardening, home, and location keywords that were being used by people with a high level of purchase intention.

By analysing what was driving high value calls during busy periods, Internet Gardener knew where to shift their marketing budgets and at what times. The clear visibility of successful phone and web journeys meant they mined data confidently, acting with full knowledge of what will generate income, and what won’t.

The outcome

During the Summer of 2017 Internet Gardener received more calls that resulted in a sale compared to the Summer of 2016. The average amount a customer spent on a sales call also increased, as did the ratio of sales calls to total calls. This was achieved by continuously attributing the sources of meaningful traffic and adapting marketing strategies. This meant they invested in activities that drove trade, as well as analysing calls to improve performance of staff on the phones.

Key year-on-year results attained with Infinity include:

• Increased average order value by 30.21% for telephone calls
• Generated 5% more sales via phone
• Improved conversion rate of calls by 40.5%
• Ratio of PPC clicks to sales rose by 35%
• Lowered the rate of cost-per-acquisition
• Additional year-on-year revenue 85x what they invested in Infinity

What the client says

Infinity has totally changed our strategy. By identifying what PPC clicks have led to calls, our attribution model makes it clear what’s working and driving customers. As a result, our conversion rate has notably improved, pushing down our cost-per-conversion. We didn’t know how badly we needed Infinity until we saw how much we were missing, and the results are a testament to that.Stephen Stone | Technical Solutions Architect, The Internet Gardener Ltd