2x e-commerce revenue for North America's biggest small sailboat retailer
West Coast Sailing started in a leaky warehouse in 2005. Today, they’re North America’s leading source for small sailboats, sailboat parts, and sailing apparel. They engaged Decoder to optimize their Magento-based website, shopping experience, and organic and paid search campaigns — together growing e-commerce revenue by 119%.
West Coast Sailing
West Coast Sailing is the leading North American retailer for one-to-two person sailboats and parts. Deeply committed to the sailing community, they exclusively recruit employees with sailing backgrounds, sponsor pro sailors, volunteer at sailing non-profits, and get out on the water every chance they get.
The small sailboat market is significant, but finite. Growth requires claiming market share — and keeping it. West Coast Sailing’s advantage is an unmatched customer experience. Their expertise, delivery times, and commitment to customer satisfaction earn them repeat business and have been the primary drivers of their success.
- Industry: E-commerce
- Headquarters: Portland, OR
- Services: Pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization, web design
Growing traffic and improving the path to purchase
Three distinct opportunities for increasing customer acquisition became evident through our discovery process:
Pay-Per-Click Expansion — Paid search has been a windfall for West Coast Sailing. Limited initial campaigns demonstrated an incredible ROI and investing in PPC was a clear priority from the outset. Our efforts focused first on weeding out wasted spend and doubling down on profitable products and keywords.
Search Engine Optimization — Using data from our PPC campaigns, we were able to further accelerate customer acquisition with a search engine optimization push. That would entail extensive site optimization revolving around top performing product, category, and manufacturer brand name keywords.
Site Redesign — In almost every e-commerce site, there are multiple paths to purchase:
- Some users search for specific products.
- Others browse product types or shop by brand.
- Gift shoppers may need guidance on what to buy.
- For big purchases (like boats), buyers may require offline assistance.
Tracking shopper behavior, conducting user testing, and defining personas helped us create a redesigned shopping experience that accommodated all of these use cases.
In total, e-commerce revenue grew by 119% over the course of 2 years.
Each individual effort contributed to this greater outcome:
- PPC revenue grew 4.6x with a profitable return on ad spend of 625%
- SEO revenue increased 5.8x — outpacing the 155% traffic growth we saw thanks to a focus on top performing keywords
- The site redesign saw a lift in conversion rates and customer retention, resulting in a 40% lift in e-commerce revenue year-over-year
George Yioulos, Founder
These results are no accident.
Over the past 12 years, we’ve helped hundreds of clients of all shapes and sizes transform their businesses. From rapidly growing start-ups to Fortune 500s to a 100+ year old non-profit embracing new digital channels, we’ve seen it all. Here’s what we were able to accomplish for some of our other clients:
Ready to be our next case study?
Book a free strategy session with our CEO and we’ll give you a candid assessment of your most promising opportunities for growth as well as whether or not we’re a good fit for your needs.
Benjamin Wills
CEO
Portland, OR
Ben will get back to you within 24 hours.
