Arkansas

James & James Furniture is “a quintessential entrepreneurial story,” says CEO Jim Pike, who joined the company in 2023. The founders made their first coffee table in an Arkansas garage in 2011. By 2020, they had a showroom in Springdale, and were doing web sales of handmade, hand-finished furniture, made from solid American hardwoods. A rapid burst of pandemic-era growth led the company to reassess their strategies, Jim recounts: “The organization needed to build into that growth to maintain lead times, quality, operational effectiveness, and our customer promise. We wanted to make sure the foundation was built before we put the walls and roof on.” James & James now employs 70 people and stays true to the founders’ original spirit. “The authenticity of U.S. craftsmanship and U.S. hardwoods is at the core of what we offer,” says Jim.

CMO Tristan Cameron says their Google Business Profile helps guide prospective customers to their showroom, and also drives traffic to the website. She adds, “It does a lot for us in the e-commerce space.” Google Ads makes up 50 percent or more of their ad spend in an average month, she says. The team has been testing a blend of search ads and product-focused campaigns, and they use Performance Max campaigns to optimize their marketing mix. Since a furniture purchase is rarely spontaneous, they use Google Analytics to drill down into return user traffic patterns. “It's a long decision-making process,” Tristan explains. “It's been interesting to analyze traffic patterns and find out how often people return before a conversion happens.” James & James plans to source more hardwood from the nearby Ozark Mountains in 2025. “Our impact in Arkansas will continue to grow,” Jim says. He adds that the work really resonates with their craftspeople: “There’s a lot of pride in creating something beautiful that will be in the center of someone’s home.”

In just a few short years, family friends Stephanie and Garrett Peters and Sarah and Garland Autry grew a side hustle into a booming business–and helped thousands of families save their memories. Stephanie and Sarah were co-workers turned stay-at-home moms in Fayetteville, Arkansas, raising their young kids in tandem. Over play dates, they agreed that the pregnancy journals on the market hadn’t resonated with them. Sarah, an artist, was already selling invitations online, and Stephanie had ideas for how to take things to the next level. In 2020, they teamed up with their husbands to launch Duncan & Stone Paper Co., the stationery and keepsake journal brand that helps people record their own precious memories.

When the pandemic hit a few months later, people had more time at home to work on baby books and journals, leading to an unexpected spike in sales. Suddenly, all four were working nights and weekends, fulfilling orders from a pallet-stuffed garage. “It was complete shenanigans,” says Garrett, who soon left his day job to focus on Duncan & Stone full time. With help from Google Ads and Google Analytics, they discovered people from around the world coming to their website and searching for specific types of products. “We're constantly using the customer feedback we get to expand our business, and most of that traffic comes through Google,” Garrett says. Last year alone, Duncan & Stone had over 3.8 million Google Ads impressions. They have expanded their offerings from five items to 38 and now sell millions of dollars in products each year. “Our Google Ads outperform every other channel. The longer we sell online, the better the insights get and the more intentional we can get to reach the audiences we want,” Garrett says. “That allows us to see where our audience and customers are at, and helps us as we look at international expansion.”

Max Deitchler and Rachel Spencer grew up on the water–floating, kayaking, and swimming. Eager to share the peace and perspective they got from the outdoors, they often lent friends the boats and gear needed to float on the lakes and rivers around Eureka Springs. To get even more people onto the water, they decided to turn their passion into a bona fide business and opened Float Eureka. “Being on a river float trip is one of the most fulfilling, stress-relieving, happy, fun times that someone can have. We get to share that with thousands of people and help them connect with nature,” Max says. Today, Float Eureka operates dozens of boats, shuttle buses, and trailers while serving over 2,000 customers per season, taking them on canoeing, kayaking, and paddle boarding trips throughout the Ozarks. From the beginning, Max and Rachel have trusted Google tools to help them manage their business.

Their Google Business Profile shares their hours, directions, and photos of their retail storefront and water adventures with anyone searching for family fun in Eureka Springs. The profile now features over 100 reviews from satisfied customers. “For a small business like Float Eureka, Google Reviews are critical to attracting and encouraging tourists to check us out,” Rachel says. Cloud-based Google Workspace tools like Sheets and Docs help Max and Rachel stay on the same page by letting them update rosters and inventory lists on the fly, whether they’re in the office or out on the water. And the suggestions they get from using Google Ads help them make the most of every marketing dollar by reaching customers searching for keywords related to trip planning for Eureka Springs. As they look to the future, Max and Rachel plan to expand their in-store gear and online retail to stay busy in the offseason–and Google tools will be right there to help them weather the ebbs and flows.

When Joan and Bruce Johnson got into the Arkansas hardwood business in 1977, they never imagined a future with major international resort clients. Their family-owned business was supplying lumber for the southwest construction boom when they discovered a budding market for ornate mouldings. “Mouldings at that time weren’t very important, and we just started running them and decided to make them important,” says Joan, founder and president of White River Hardwoods. “We didn’t have computer aided drafting, so I would draw every profile by hand.” The combination of Joan’s steady drawing hand and sharp business mind turned White River into a national distributor of mouldings in just five years. As the internet arrived, they bought the domain Mouldings.com for consumer sales and added their own WhiteRiver.com as a B2B site. In today’s world of online shopping, the two sites act more like an omnichannel. “We were selling online years before other people,“ Joan says. “And we were on the cutting edge of design. This was an ignored industry that we brought up and gave it value.”

Richard Enriquez, White River’s director of marketing and e-commerce, says that Google Ads and Google Analytics make it easy to find potential buyers and keep their websites on point. White River has been using Google Ads since 2013; in 2021, their Ads generated over 800 orders. “Our return is great: four to one for every dollar we spend,” Richard says. “Google tools have played an important role in growing our online and offline businesses.” Today White River Hardwoods employs 35 people–including the Johnson’s sons, Ben and Jesse–and sells around the world. And Joan has seen progress in more than just the business. “When I started, there were no other women I came in contact with in the lumber industry,” she points out. “Now you’ve got women spread throughout millwork, building, and construction.”