In the business of flowers, retailers need to be there wherever and whenever someone decides (or remembers) to surprise that special someone. By simply optimizing their site for smaller screens, highlighting popular items and making check out easier, ProFlowers boosted conversions by 20-30%.
Goals
Make flower orders easy for mobile shoppers
Increase mobile conversions
Continually improve mobile user-experience
Approach
Created mobile-friendly site with less text and streamlined checkout
Deployed and continually tested Google mobile ads
Used Google Analytics for continual insight and mobile optimization
Results
Established leadership in mobile space among online floral retailers
Increased conversions from mobile users by 20–30%
Device traffic now comprises 15–20% of total traffic
We’ve all been there. Suddenly, you realize it’s Mother’s Day, or maybe your anniversary slipped your mind. ProFlowers can help you save the day by having beautiful flowers delivered, with the convenience of ordering right on your mobile device. From farm harvesting to bouquet design, ProFlowers covers the floral spectrum, serving millions of customers every year with 185 varieties of fresh-cut flowers from more than a dozen different countries around the world.
Seeing the fulcrum of retail success tipping toward mobile sales, ProFlowers set out to put its weight behind m-commerce. The first step was to launch a mobile-ready site to cater to flower shoppers on the go, whether for birthdays, Valentine’s Day, or other special occasions.
Today, 50% of mobile searches lead to a purchase, yet once the purchase decision draws near, 40% of consumers turn to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience (Compuware, 2011). To optimize the mobile experience for smaller screens, ProFlowers highlighted the most popular bouquets to minimize scrolling, adjusted image sizes for faster loading, reduced text, added compelling promotional messaging, and removed checkout steps.
Then, to promote m-commerce growth, the company crafted Google AdWords campaigns targeted toward mobile users that call out “mobile” and “iPhone” in the ad copy. The company also tailored its bids on Google mobile ad keywords to help the ProFlowers brand, as well as special offers or promotions, gain top ad placement on the search results page of smaller, mobile device screens.
Since becoming mobile-friendly, we’ve seen our mobile conversion rate increase by 20–30%.
Mobile-friendly site increases conversion rate by 20–30%
The strategies are proving to be successful. Using web analytics, ProFlowers continuously tests its mobile-centric strategies. Before launching the mobile-friendly site, about 5–10% of all web traffic came from mobile devices. Today, mobile device traffic comprises 15–20% of the total, and continues to grow. Not surprisingly, sales emanating from mobile devices are growing as well. “Before we launched our mobile-optimized site, mobile sales were less than 5% of our total revenues,” says Leif Heikkila, senior director of online marketing for ProFlowers. “Since becoming mobile-friendly, we’ve seen our mobile conversion rate increase by 20–30%.”
While mobile conversions are growing, ProFlowers is seeing that mobile is also contributing to conversions that ultimately happen on other devices. For ProFlowers, the main objective is to seize the lead in a world where mobile device uptake is growing exponentially and user experience really counts. “Many users check us out on mobile, and then convert on our traditional site,” Heikkila says. “Regardless of where the final sale comes from, staying ahead in mobile is an invaluable part of our successful marketing and customer relationship strategies.”
