Gearshop - Diversifying their digital marketing to deliver organic results
Scaling the business’ eCommerce growth by building strong organic foundations
Gearshop is an eCommerce business based in Nelson that sells a range of outdoor equipment for tramping, mountain biking, camping, hunting and fishing.
Depending on online sales for 90% of their business, they won’t settle for digital marketing that doesn’t deliver.
Determined to grow their online sales without cutting into their revenue, Gearshop came to Sprocket for our eCommerce marketing and SEO expertise.
The Challenge:
When we started, Gearshop had a strong dependence on paid advertising and had never really focused on SEO, despite having a relatively new website.
Sprocket’s mission as their digital marketing partner was to diversify their marketing efforts, develop their organic strategy, and deliver results.
One obstacle to Gearshop’s advertising efforts is that there are certain items that can’t be advertised on paid media, such as knives and ice axes. Even though advertised for a specific purpose, not as a weapon, they are restricted.
“The challenge is really managing that return vs cost and keeping it optimised as the business grows. I’m wanting that return on investment to be as strong as possible, and they’re certainly doing a good job.”
- Hamish Pirie, Owner, Gearshop
The Solution:
Sprocket’s digital strategy for Gearshop took into consideration the entire customer journey, and developed funnels that would use organic SEO tactics to bring customers in the top, and then paid ads to convert and close the sale.
A large part of our SEO campaign involved optimising each page of the website, especially the pages of the advertising-restricted items so they could still be discoverable on Google.
Our focus was on improving ranking for each item as well as the site as a whole, to bring organic traffic and sales on par with their paid advertising, eventually with the aim to surpass it.
"The team at Sprocket have been great to work with and have implemented some great strategies, which have resulted in solid returns for our eCommerce business and we continue to see improvements month on month. Highly recommend for an eCommerce business operating 24/7 having partners that are always available and response is really important, the Sprocket team meet that need".
- Hamish Pirie, Owner, Gearshop
The Results:
Since beginning our SEO strategy with Gearshop, they have seen a huge increase in their revenue, users and conversion rate.
Gearshop’s overall revenue has increased by 77% year-on-year, with a 41% increase in users, 72% increase in goal completions (sales), and an average conversion rate of 2.3%, which is high for an eCommerce website.
Gearshop products are now ranking on Google, reducing their need for paid ads to promote each item - and eliminating the obstacle of advertising the restricted items. They continue to grow online and strengthen their presence on Google, as our SEO strategy continues.
