×
LION.
eCommerce Growth Case Study · 2021–2023
How LION Digital took a torch brand from a make-or-break ROI pilot to a 33× increase in search revenue across three markets, seven countries and three business entities.
The Brief
Ledlenser makes some of the world's best torches and headlamps. In 2021 its US business, Ledlenser USA, came to LION with a Shopify Plus store that had outgrown its own foundations: clunky custom development, a product hierarchy nobody could navigate, and a conversion rate less than half of its competitors'.
LION had already earned trust inside the group through work on Fjällräven and Leatherman. Ledlenser was the next test. It came with a hard number attached.
If we don't hit the 4.2 true ROI then the campaign ends when the pilot finishes.LION Digital internal strategy document · 21 September 2021
First you find the beam.
Then you point it at the right thing.
The Chronology
Every date, figure and quote below is drawn from LION's own campaign record: strategy documents, monthly client review decks, reporting dashboards and the signed UK services agreement.
Ledlenser USA asks LION how to rebuild ledlenserusa.com: a Shopify Plus store layered with custom development that was "no longer working, or is clunky." LION argues against a clean rebuild: the ranking risk of a full migration outweighs the gain. Within the same thread, an early diagnostic lands: the site's second most-visited landing page was pulling 3,600+ visits at an 88% bounce rate and A$0 revenue.
LION baselines the US business at a 1.27% conversion rate and A$159 AOV on A$877,438 of prior-year online sales, with email contributing just 2.27–3.46% of revenue. On email alone, LION models ~A$116,048/year as achievable "with minimal tweaks," roughly A$96,129 above the then-current run rate.
A blended multichannel scope is agreed across both markets: SEO, SEM and Email at ~A$68,630/month in the US and ~A$24,443/month in Australia, on a 10% awareness / 75% acquisition / 15% retention split. Both markets carry the same target: 4.2× ROI, with the campaign ending at the end of the pilot if it isn't met.
Paid revenue climbs from A$47,984 in July to A$212,941 in November and A$216,643 in December as spend scales from A$4,515 to A$74,581 a month. Year on year across Oct 2021–Jan 2022, revenue is up 64%, transactions 44%, AOV 14% and conversion rate 19%, with returning-visitor revenue up 77%.
Average CPC rises 150% year on year ("what A$14k generated last year requires A$35k this year"), running ahead of Google's own forecast. A client-side price increase pins conversion rate near 1.25% against a 2.1% benchmark and starts hurting Shopping performance. LION makes the unglamorous call and cuts paid spend by up to 70%, protecting margin instead of chasing scale, and rebases the year's targets.
Ledco Ltd engages LION on a six-month, A$54,432 agreement: A$30,240 for SEO market research, architecture and migration, plus an A$4,032/month SEM retainer against a 6:1 ROAS goal. The UK site was running on Australian content: a 0.78% conversion rate on A$56,224 average monthly revenue. The contract rolls on after month six with 90 days' notice.
A 12-day Memorial Day sale drives A$53,348 (60% of the month's total US revenue). Conversion rate hits 2.38%, the best since December. Email, optimised around the promotion, grows revenue 361%. Despite spend being down 45% year on year, SEM revenue is up 80%.
Mid-month, price comes down. Everything moves at once. Conversion rate rises 67% against July (1.67% vs 1%), revenue grows 27% period on period and 31% year on year across the trailing twelve months, and September closes at 90% of projection. In Australia, the torches category page lifts revenue 841% as rankings move: "police tactical flashlight" to position 1. An A$940,613 September–December target is set, and an aggressive Black Friday plan is drawn up.
A new information architecture goes live: rebuilt Shopify hierarchy, a fresh SEO URL structure with redirects, and the whole catalogue re-localised for how Britain actually searches: flashlight becomes torch. One month later: organic revenue +213% year on year, sessions +27.7%, conversion rate +196%, transactions +278.6%, and an average ranking position of 9.7.
US revenue rises 152% month on month and 57.34% year on year, beating a November 2021 that was itself the previous record, with AOV essentially flat at −2.7%. Black Friday through Cyber Monday averages A$21,475 a day. In the UK, a nine-day email sequence runs from hype through early access to a 48-hour extension, and BFCM SEM ROAS reaches 27×.
Ledlenser sells where people gather. LION builds a custom Klaviyo report joining two years of engagement data across 20 consumer events to Shopify orders: an 82% average open rate on event-sourced lists at a A$459 blended AOV, and names the six shows worth deeper 2023–24 investment. The analysis is deliberately cautious: small sample, and attendance cost still to be layered in.
US revenue grows from A$1,116,915 in 2021 to A$1,482,476 in 2022 (up 32.75%), and the 2023 plan targets A$2,011,182 against an A$365,014 annual ad budget, modelled across three ROI scenarios rather than one optimistic line.
BFCM 2023 runs deliberately small: a tight "end of line" clearance rather than a repeat of 2022's broad discounting. Tracked-channel revenue lands at A$124,364 across 730 purchases, with Paid Search leading on both revenue (A$43,810) and conversion rate (7.77%), and SEM ROAS back at a healthy 9×. Not every year should be a land grab.
By the end of 2023, LION's remit had grown to seven countries and three business entities: SEM, SEO, email, SMS and website development for a brand that started as a single-market ROI pilot with an exit clause. Revenue across all three markets had scaled far enough, and predictably enough, that Ledlenser brought its marketing function in-house. LION's engagement concludes: the intended outcome of the work, not the end of it.
The month it turned
was the month we stopped chasing scale.
The Numbers
Not a highlight reel. The full financial year, including the months that went backwards, because the shape of the recovery is the point.
| Month | Actual | Adjusted target | Attainment |
|---|
Seven countries.
Three entities. One beam.
The Work
One accountable channel lead per discipline, reporting into a single blended strategy directed by a CXO-level Head of Client Success: the model LION built the account on from day one.
LION Digital
Accountable growth, not vanity metrics: a partner who owns your budget like it's their own.
Start a conversation →