Now, believe it or not, your furniture website probably generates far more consumer traffic than your in-store showroom does. This is due, in part, to the sheer amount of research that consumers are conducting online to help narrow their purchasing decisions.

Consumers are looking at different types of furniture, different brands, and of course, different stores. Like auto dealerships, consumers aren’t typically visiting a furniture store unless they’re relatively close to making a purchasing decision — meaning they have a relatively good idea of what they want. Because consumers are visiting your website, it’s extremely important for them to engage with your brand and inquire about additional information through meaningful interactive experiences. 

One important thing to note is that If your website isn’t generating at least 3% of inquiries through your website, your conversion is NOT where it needs to be. This might not seem too shocking, since 3% seems like such a small number, but most furniture store owners and marketers are at less than 1%. What this essentially means is despite the fact that consumers are visiting your furniture website, they aren’t really engaging with it. How’s that for a shock?

If you don’t know your current percentage of inquiries on your website, you need to find out this information as fast as humanly possible. This can be done by measuring key metrics based on benchmarks you set in place beforehand. Even if you don’t have all the numbers on-hand, simply coming up with a hypothetically educated number will help you to determine where your site needs to be going forward, and where it stands now. Chances are pretty good that if you get a decent amount of showroom traffic at your furniture store, you’ve already developed a process for collecting the information of every consumer that visits your store. You collect their name, their phone number and their home address and append it to a consumer profile for follow-up via phone or direct mail.

Setting up website measurement for leading indicators of engagement takes a bit of effort, but if you’ve implemented all the previous engagement and conversion steps, you have what you need to get clear data on how well your website engagement converts into in-store sales.

 

Here are 7 furniture marketing metrics to help you measure the success of your website:

1. WEBSITE TRAFFIC

The first furniture marketing metric you should be looking at is website traffic. Easily found in Google Analytics, your website traffic should be viewed the same as your in-store traffic.

In most cases, the more traffic you see in-store or online, the more likely you are to see more sales — accuracy by volume, if you will. Additionally, the more consumers you have coming to your website, the more likely you’ll see engagement and inquiries online about specific pieces of furniture or about coming into the store to fill out a credit application.

 

2. AVERAGE TIME ON SITE

Another crucial metric you’ll want to keep an eye on (also found in Google Analytics) is Average Time on Site, which, you guessed it, is a measure of how long the average consumer spends on your website. This is an important metric because it’s an indication of just how engaged a consumer is on your website. Typically, the longer a consumer spends on your website, the more engaged they are with your brand.

If they stick around longer on your website, it means you’ve provided them something of value — enough value that makes them feel inclined to stick around. And the longer they stick around, the more inclined they’ll be to visit and engage with you in the showroom.

 

3. WEBSITE TRAFFIC TO INQUIRIES PERCENTAGE

The next metric you should be mindful of is Website Traffic to Inquiries Percent. This metric is helpful for actually tracking the precise engagement that’s present on your furniture store’s website. If someone is asking questions to a salesperson in your showroom, this means they are more likely to buy — and it’s the same thing for online interactions. 

If a consumer is willing to provide personal information in an online experience to receive something of value, they’ll be just as likely to make a purchase. The higher a consumer converts in-showroom (asking questions) and online (submitting information), the higher the overall sales number will be.

 

4. INQUIRIES TO SALE PERCENTAGE

The fourth metric you’ll want to look at is Inquiries to Sale Percentage. As the number of inquiries continues to rise (which is obviously what we want), it’s then important to calculate what percentage of those inquiries are actually leading to a sale. Essentially, the point of this metric is to determine whether or not those website inquiries are meaningful.

Are those interactions following an inquiry helping to push a consumer further down the purchasing funnel? If you find that the percentage of inquiries to sale isn’t ideal, you might consider changing a few things: like altering the messaging in an experience to convert a particular consumer — or changing your follow-up with the consumer.

 

5. LEADING INDICATORS OF ENGAGEMENT BY WEB LEAD SOURCE AND INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE

While it isn’t necessarily a “metric” intrinsically, it’s worth pointing out the leading indicators of engagement by web lead source and interactive experience. This basically means that you’re providing a healthy comparison of inquiries by those who purchased furniture from your store and inquiries of those who didn’t purchase.

It helps you to understand what traffic drivers produce the most inquiries, sales and ticket size. Along with understanding traffic drivers, it gives you an opportunity to review the experiences and forms you’ve placed on your website to see what contributes to the most conversions and sales.

 

6. AVERAGE TICKET FROM WEB INQUIRY

The sixth metric to monitor is the sales results metric, Average Ticket from Web Inquiry. This calculated average is compared to your average in-store visitor, and helps furniture retailers to evaluate what they can do differently to try and increase the size of purchases from website visitors. Essentially, it’s a direct comparison of purchase size between online consumers and primarily in-store consumers.

 

7. SALES TO WEBSITE TRAFFIC

Often called the “Holy Grail” metric, the most important number you should be looking at is “Sales to Website Traffic.” While the metrics are all amazingly ideal ways to improve the number of conversions and sales you see from your online traffic, this is the metric that will ultimately determine the overall health of a furniture store’s website.

If you’re finding that the correlation between sales and your furniture’s website traffic isn’t ideal, you can revert back to those previous metrics to improve overall performance. As soon as you’re able to figure out certain data points, and as soon as you calculate the appropriate percentages, the only things left to do are observe, revise, test — again and again and again. When it comes to continually improving the performance of your furniture store’s website, there’s no end to observations, revisions and A/B tests. There are always improvements to be made to ensure that you’re seeing higher traffic, more conversions and naturally, more sales.