From Ghost Brand to Growth Machine: How We Turned Focus Gum Into a 363% Success Story

Focus Gum arrived at our door with the digital equivalent of tumbleweed blowing through their website. Domain authority of 1 (yes, one), virtually zero organic visibility, and the kind of search presence that made them practically invisible to their ideal customers. Discover how Marzipan increased orders by 363% in 90 days. With SEO to cutting ad costs and scaling sales.

Most agencies would’ve thrown paid ads at the problem immediately. We didn’t fancy watching their budget disappear into the digital void, so we took a different approach entirely.

Phase One: Building Something Worth Finding

Before we even thought about spending their money on ads, we rolled up our sleeves and sorted the fundamentals. No point driving traffic to a house with no foundation, is there?

What we actually did:

• Dragged their domain authority from 1 to 10 with proper, no-nonsense SEO that actually works
• Delivered a 50%+ sales boost purely from organic traffic (before a penny was spent on ads)
• Increased site traffic by 30% in three weeks flat
• Nabbed top-three Google rankings for the searches that matter: caffeine gum and caffeinated gum Australia

We also gave their key landing pages a proper makeover — faster load times, content that actually speaks to what buyers want, and all the technical bits that make Google’s algorithms happy. This wasn’t just about conversions (though those improved nicely). It was about making their future ad spend work harder by boosting quality scores.

The upshot? We saved them money before they’d even spent it.

Phase Two: Unleashing the Growth Engine

With solid foundations in place, we switched on what we call our Visibility Engine — a growth system that makes SEO, paid ads, and website optimisation work together like a well-oiled machine.

Here’s how we scaled it:

• Focused ad spend on Meta (Facebook + Instagram) where the ROAS was strongest
• Retargeted the 5,000+ new visitors our SEO work had already brought through the door
• A/B tested everything — creatives, messaging, audiences — until we found the winning combinations
• Kept publishing optimised content to maintain organic momentum whilst ads did their thing

The Numbers That Matter

In 90 days, Focus Gum went from digital nobody to proper contender:

• 171% increase in sessions (real people, not bots)
• 211% more revenue flowing through the tills
• 363% more orders — the kind of growth that keeps founders awake at night (in a good way)
• Conversion rate jumped 73% to a healthy 4% site-wide
• ROAS of 1.55 on Meta Ads — solid returns on a sensible budget

Why This Actually Works

Starting with SEO wasn’t just good strategy — it was brilliant business sense:

The compound effect meant:

• Every ad pound went further thanks to better quality scores
• They owned their search visibility (not renting it from Google indefinitely)
• We dodged the classic blunder of “throwing money at a broken funnel”

When the ads finally went live, they didn’t just perform — they scaled. Confidently.

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The takeaway? Sometimes the smartest move isn’t the obvious one. Whilst their competitors were burning budgets on quick fixes, Focus Gum built something sustainable. Something that works whether the ads are on or off.

That’s the difference between growth and genuine scale.

Ready to Stop Throwing Money at the Wrong Problems?

If you’re tired of watching ad budgets disappear without the results to show for it, let’s have a proper conversation. We don’t do cookie-cutter campaigns or one-size-fits-all strategies.

We build growth engines that actually work.

Get in touch for a no-BS audit of what’s actually holding your brand back. We’ll tell you exactly what needs fixing before you spend another penny on ads.

Because the best marketing investment is the one that pays for itself.

It’s Time