Case Study · Commerce / DTC
Rebuilding a growth engine for a South African décor brand.
Over eight months of integrated paid media, email, website optimisation and SEO, we grew PhotoBLOX's online revenue by 27% year-on-year - and doubled its two most valuable owned channels.
Client: PhotoBLOX – premium personalised wood photo prints & gallery walls · photoblox.co.za · Sector: Commerce / DTC
Scope: Paid media · SEO & content · email & CRM · conversion rate optimisation · analytics & attribution
The headline numbers
+27%
Online revenue, year-on-year
+61%
Website traffic
+105%
Organic search revenue (SEO)
+63%
Checkouts initiated
The challenge
PhotoBLOX is a much-loved South African brand that turns customers’ favourite photos into premium prints on real wood – repositionable, no-nails BLOX that combine into a growable gallery wall. Featured in ELLE Decoration, VISI, Tuis, Huisgenoot and Idees, the brand had a proven, high-value product with a strong average order value – but its online growth had plateaued and its marketing was working in silos.
Paid media, email and the Shopify store each told a different story- and none of them agreed. Ad platforms were claiming revenue the analytics couldn’t see, budget was leaking into channels that didn’t convert, a large email list sat largely un-worked, and the brand’s category demand was going uncaptured in search.
The business needed a single, honest view of performance and a plan to grow every stage of the funnel – not just spend more.
The approach - one system, not a stack
We connected all five of PhotoBLOX’s data sources – Meta Ads, Google Ads, GA4, Google Search Console and Shopify – into one reconciled view, so every decision was grounded in true store revenue rather than platform vanity metrics. From there, one team ran an integrated, full-funnel programme:
Paid media.
Restructured and cleaned up Meta and Google Ads, cut wasted spend on non-converting traffic, and protected the high-return brand-search position.
SEO & content.
A pillar-and-cluster keyword strategy, optimised product and category pages, and a content programme targeting real buyer demand – gallery walls, photo-on-wood, kitchen splashbacks.
Email & CRM.
Surfaced the brand’s most valuable owned channel and built the segmentation and flow strategy to convert a large, warm subscriber base.
Website optimisation.
A full conversion audit of the mobile shopping experience, from hero message-match to a frictionless path to checkout.
The results
Measured over the eight-month engagement against the same period the prior year, the programme delivered broad-based, compounding growth: online revenue +27%, website traffic +61%, engaged sessions +61%, organic search revenue +105%, direct & brand revenue +119%, checkouts initiated +63%, and average order value +10%.
Owned demand, compounding.
The standout wins came from the channels the brand owns. Organic search revenue more than doubled (+105%) as the SEO and content work took hold, and direct & brand revenue rose +119% – a clear signal of growing brand awareness across the whole funnel.
More of the right people, worth more each.
Traffic grew 61% while average order value climbed 10% – reaching more of the right buyers and earning more from each of them.
What’s next.
With a unified measurement foundation in place, the next phase targets the two biggest untapped levers: a professionalised email programme for the warm subscriber base, and a rebuilt paid-acquisition engine – positioning PhotoBLOX to scale well beyond its current run-rate.
“Growth doesn’t come from spending more – it comes from seeing clearly and fixing what’s actually broken. We gave PhotoBLOX one honest view of its performance, then grew every stage of the funnel.”
– Backbone Studios
Why it matters
This is the same backbone we run for congresses and destinations – narrative, distribution and intelligence as one system – applied to a DTC brand. Different room, same system: reconcile the data, fix what leaks, capture the demand you already own, then scale what’s proven. When every channel answers to one honest number, growth compounds instead of scattering.
Built for Impact.