Case study · Full agency partnership
How we built an equestrian ecommerce brand from launch to £320k annual revenue in four full trading years
Four full years of a full agency partnership with a specialist equestrian ecommerce brand, from Shopify launch through to £320k annual revenue and just over 3,000 orders in Year 4. Web build, SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, CRO, plus ongoing operational consulting across ops, staff, customer service and marketing.
- Annual revenue £320k (Year 4) from £72k (Year 1) 4.4x
- Annual orders 3,003 (Year 4) from 751 (Year 1) 4x
- Cumulative revenue (4 full years) £841k from — Compounded from £0
- Engagement type Full agency partnership from — 4 years, unbroken
The client
A specialist ecommerce brand in the equestrian and rider-equipment category, Shopify from day one. Substantial product catalogue built out across saddlery, tack, riding apparel and accessories. Search and paid are the acquisition backbone, and a returning rider-community customer base underpins repeat-order rates in a category where product knowledge and trust matter as much as price.
The problem
The engagement began before the store had launched. A founder with a strong product idea and category expertise, and no ecommerce or digital-marketing infrastructure behind them. Every layer of the business had to be built: the Shopify storefront, the design system, the specialist product-catalogue architecture, the checkout and shipping flow, the acquisition channels, the content programme, and the internal operational model. As with the other full-partnership engagements we run, this was not a single-service retainer, it was an embedded agency sitting at every table from launch onwards.
The plan: build once, grow continuously, sit at every table
Same structural model as our other full-partnership engagements. Six core workstreams running in parallel from day one, and a seventh consultative layer that has stayed constant across all four years.
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Shopify build and ongoing platform work
Original Shopify storefront built from scratch for a specialist category. Custom theme, checkout flow, product architecture tuned to the way equestrian buyers browse and compare (fit, discipline, brand and material filters, not generic category browsing). Ongoing platform work every year since: new sections, integrations, custom content types.
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SEO
SEO retainer running since launch. Technical foundations, category depth, product-level structured data, blog and buying-guide programme feeding the commercial pages. Ranking in specialist equestrian categories where product knowledge in the content is the differentiator against generalist marketplaces.
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Google Ads
Full-funnel Google Ads programme covering Brand, Shopping, Performance Max, and Standard Search on category and brand terms. Weekly optimisation cycles, active competitor-negative management, category-specific ad copy discipline.
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Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram)
Prospecting and remarketing programme running against a well-defined equestrian audience. Creative refreshed regularly, budget balanced dynamically against Google Ads to protect blended acquisition cost. Meta plays the discovery role, Google plays the intent role.
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CRO and product analytics
Continuous conversion-rate work: checkout tuning, PDP improvements for a category where fit and specification matter, review integration, cart abandonment recovery. Product-level analytics feeding merchandising decisions back to the team.
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Operational consulting
The layer that separates a full partnership from a normal retainer. Ongoing input on staff structure, customer service policy, courier and fulfilment operations, brand and marketing calendar, seasonal promotions strategy, and founder-level strategic decisions. Same embedded model we run across our full-partnership engagements.
The trajectory (four full trading years)
Annual revenue lifted 4.4x from the first full trading year to the fourth, orders 4x in the same period. Every full year of the four has been higher than the last, on both metrics.
Source: Shopify
Source: Shopify
Four consecutive years of full-year revenue and order growth on a specialist ecommerce build. The steepest single-year jump sits at Year 1 to Year 2, which is typical for a specialist category: the first full trading year is spent proving the acquisition channels can find the buyers, the second year compounds as SEO, paid, and repeat-customer economics start reinforcing each other. From Year 2 onwards the growth reads as steady rather than explosive, which for a category this specialist is the healthy shape. This is the trajectory a full agency partnership produces when web, marketing, and operational advice all sit under one roof from day one.
Building your specialist ecommerce brand from the ground up?
The engagement style behind this case study is available to a small number of founder-led ecommerce brands where we can sit at every table, not just the marketing one. Book a free introductory call and we will tell you honestly whether it would be the right fit for your stage.
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