When Bob’s Discount Furniture, an iconic American retailer synonymous with value, came to Zozimus, they were grappling with a troubling trend: digital sales were falling short. Despite a strong brand presence and a loyal customer base, online revenue was lagging. It was clear there were unseen barriers blocking the path to growth. Our job was to uncover them, and turn those obstacles into opportunity.
Uncovering the Real Challenge
What we found was a perfect storm of underperforming digital levers. The ecommerce conversion rate across the site had plateaued at just 0.36% over the prior year. At the same time, the decision to pause branded search and display media campaigns had a swift and severe impact. Revenue per click from paid search tumbled from $2.03 to $0.86, and ecommerce conversion from display dropped by 38%, leading to a combined loss of more than $2.2 million in just a matter of weeks.
But it wasn’t just paid media that was leaking revenue. Organic search, one of the brand’s most valuable channels, was underperforming due to poor rankings. While organic visitors were worth $2.71 each, only 5.4% of keywords ranked in the coveted top three search positions. That left an estimated $628,000 on the table, in a single month!
Frustrated customers were also struggling to find what they needed. Site search volume in February alone topped half a million queries, many for high-intent items like futons. The user experience added more friction: checkout load times lagged at 7.09 seconds, and bounce rates spiked to 47%. On mobile, 65% of visitors arrived via smartphones, and most were searching for store locations, yet the mobile experience didn’t fully support that journey or incentivize in-store visits.
Diagnosing Through a Data-Led Lens
At Zozimus, we believe in turning data into direction. To build a roadmap for revenue, we examined every interaction through a cross-channel lens. We mapped revenue per visit by channel to highlight where incremental gains would return the highest value. We translated SEO rank opportunities into real revenue forecasts and reviewed internal site search data to identify where users were hitting dead ends.
We also dug into the digital-to-store journey, particularly for mobile traffic, to better understand how web interactions influenced in-store footfall. And through page speed diagnostics, we tied latency directly to lost conversions, creating a clear line from performance metrics to dollars.
From Insight to Impact
Our findings painted a vivid picture of untapped potential. Organic search had room to grow dramatically if priority pages could move into higher rankings. The cost of pausing branded media became undeniable, with direct correlations to lost revenue and store visits. High-intent users, like those using site search, were underserved. And technical issues, from slow checkout speeds to mobile journey drop-offs, were costing sales daily.
Together with the client, we created a prioritized roadmap to address these issues. We reactivated branded media campaigns and implemented a new ROAS-based budgeting strategy to safeguard investment. On the SEO front, we enriched thin category pages with strategic content and focused efforts on boosting rankings for pages stuck in positions four through ten. To support high-converting user behavior, we launched a monthly review of site search queries and refined the product taxonomy to better match user intent.
Performance optimizations tackled server response times and restructured key templates for checkout and search. And on mobile, we enhanced store location pages with promotions, events, and mobile-specific offers to nurture the offline path to purchase.
The Result? Dreams Realized
The transformation was dramatic. Our collaborative roadmap has already generated tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue, though the precise figures remain confidential. Organic revenue grew at the fastest rate, fueled by better-ranked pages that captured and converted more high-value traffic. Branded media efforts regained traction, now delivering positive return on ad spend while boosting both ecommerce and in-store engagement.
Checkout abandonment decreased meaningfully as site speed improved, and users were better able to find what they needed, whether they were searching online or heading to a nearby store.
Why It Worked
We didn’t just bring solutions. We brought a story that made sense to every stakeholder, from marketers to CFOs. By translating friction into missed revenue, we created urgency and alignment. Our data-first approach ensured that every decision was grounded in measurable outcomes. And by stacking quick wins early, we unlocked the momentum needed to fund deeper, more transformative work.
At Zozimus, we believe in dreaming big, but always with both feet firmly planted in data. This project proved the power of pairing imagination with insight.
David Wilson
EVP, Digital Marketing & Performance
David has more than 20 years working in digital marketing, covering in-house for a variety of companies, agencies and running his own digital marketing company. He has worked on Fortune 500 clients in the Pharmaceutical, CPG, Financial Services, and Healthcare verticals.
David brings a passion for proven results to the Zozimus digital marketing team. When asked what he likes about his job, David says that “every day his team has metrics that they are trying to hit for clients. At midnight the scoreboard gets set back to zero and we either hit our goals or we didn’t.”
BOSTON, MARS
