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How I grew revenue on Sticky Life 27% in 1 year

  • KENDALL DALE
  • Sep 20, 2025
  • 4 min read

Updated: Nov 6, 2025

09/20/2025 - By Kendall Dale




Executive Summary


A year ago, StickyLife.com was flat. Today it is a search-driven DTC brand with real momentum.

  • +26.5% year-over-year revenue

  • +20% orders: 9,712 vs. 10,550

  • +118% items sold

  • Conversion rate up about 35%: 2.0% vs. 2.7%

  • Organic search now drives 48% of revenue

  • Core Web Vitals: Cumulative Layout Shift reduced from 0.2 to 0.001


The turnaround came from treating SEO, UX, and pricing as one growth engine and executing like a product owner.


Line chart comparing the number of organic pages (blue line, left axis) and estimated organic traffic (orange line, right axis) over the last two years. The blue line shows a gradual decline from about 1.6 k pages in late 2023 to roughly 1 k pages by September 2025. The orange line rises overall—from roughly 15 k visits in late 2023 to around 60 k visits in September 2025—despite several mid-period dips. Overall, organic traffic climbs sharply while the total number of indexed pages steadily decreases.
Graph depicting a two-year span showcasing a decline in organic pages alongside a rising trend in organic traffic, highlighting shifting content dynamics and audience engagement from September 2023 to September 2025.

SEO: Building Keyword-Aligned Category Hubs


Goal: win head terms with buying intent—custom stickers, vinyl decals, window clings, car magnets, and custom signs.

  • Created “shape and material” hub pages so Google sees breadth, not isolated product pages.

  • Renamed “Static Cling” to “Window Clings,” matching search language and unlocking higher-volume demand.

  • Rolled out FAQ schema and long-form content to capture rich results and lift click-through rates.

Results

  • Google Search Console impressions: ~0.48M → ~1.1M

  • Ahrefs top-10 rankings: ~315 pages

  • Estimated organic traffic: ~24K → ~55K (+130%)



Top drivers by estimated traffic:

Biggest movers: Vinyl Decals (+22,770), Car Magnets (+4,093), Window Clings (+3,033), Custom Signs (+3,828)—clear proof the cluster strategy targeted the right categories.



Expanded site performance through technical SEO & core web vitals improvements

  • Goal: Consolidate link equity and improve user experience by reducing layout shift and speed bottle

  • Solution: Cleaned redirects and canonicals; removed multi-hop chains and consolidated link equity; rebuilt global navigation to eliminate layout shift (CLS 0.2 → 0.001); redesigned the 404 page as a re-entry hub and removed speed bottlenecks that delayed first interaction.

  • Results: Organic clicks rose about 22% the month after launch and rankings stabilized site-wide.Made pricing & shipping competitive and profitablenecks. Solution: Cleaned redirects and canonicals; removed multi-hop chains and consolidated link equity; rebuilt global navigation to eliminate layout shift (CLS 0.2 → 0.001); redesigned the 404 page as a re-entry hub and removed speed bottlenecks that delayed first interaction. Results: Organic clicks rose about 22% the month after launch and rankings stabilized site-wide.0.001); redesigned the 404 page as a re-entry hub and removed speed bottlenecks that delayed first interaction. Results: Organic clicks rose about 22% the month after launch and rankings stabilized site-wide.

Organic clicks rose about 22% the month after launch and rankings stabilized site-wide.



Turned technical wins into 35% higher conversion through UX enhancements


These UX upgrades turned technical wins into a 35% higher conversion rate:

  • Goal: Turn technical wins into a higher conversion rate by improving mobile and visual UX. Solution: Rebuilt the mobile menu to a single responsive menu with hover and focus states for ADA and keyboard navigation; redesigned the 404 page with a clear headline, helpful copy, and direct category links; refreshed homepage and category visuals with hero banners, promo countdown timers, rounded imagery, and subtle hover states; improved product pages with clearer unit vs. total price, “Upload Now” call to action, and default size and quantity presets. Results: Conversion rate increased by 35% (from 2.0% to 2.7%).t versus total price, “Upload Now” call to action, default size and quantity presets.


Other UX touches: modern cookie banner with working privacy-policy link; stabilized homepage section heights.



Pricing and Shipping: Competitive and Profitable

  • Reset price per square inch and introduced tiered bulk discounts to match market leaders.

  • Increased flat-rate shipping

Results

  • Orders up 20%; items sold up 118% while average price per item fell 42%.

  • Shipping revenue up about 79% year over year.

  • Overall revenue up 26.5%—proof that competitive pricing and margin discipline can coexist.



Conversion Design

  • Presets and default sizes simplified add-to-cart decisions.

  • Charm pricing ($14.99 vs $15) boosted perceived value.

  • Decoy bundles (for example, the higher-margin application kit) encouraged upgrades.

Outcome: conversion rate increased from 2.0% to 2.7%, a 35% gain on the same traffic base.



Growth Loops

  • Revived email marketing with automation and fresh creative, doubling email-attributed revenue.

  • Integrated Yotpo reviews across product pages and syndicated them to Facebook.

  • Launched an Instagram Shop, turning lifestyle imagery into a direct sales channel.

These loops amplified SEO gains and built a dependable base of repeat buyers.



Cross-Team Leadership

Acting as product owner, I worked across:

  • Developers: Core Web Vitals fixes, schema validation, navigation rebuild.

  • Operations: shipping-rate changes to support higher order volume.

  • Marketing: synchronized email promotions and social launches with category rollouts.

This cross-functional ownership turned strategy into shipped results.



Tools of Record

GA4 for revenue and conversion tracking • Google Search Console for query coverage • Ahrefs for keyword momentum • Magento and ShipStation for order economics and shipping revenue.



A Repeatable Playbook

  • Lead with user intent: rebuild information architecture around how buyers search.

  • Fix technical debt first: redirects, canonicals, Core Web Vitals.

  • Price for the market while protecting margin: competitive PPSI plus smart shipping.

  • Design micro-conversions: presets, charm pricing, decoy bundles.

  • Build growth loops: email, reviews, social to compound organic wins.

  • Own the funnel: keep strategy and execution tightly connected.



Reflection and Next Steps

StickyLife started the year as a stalled DTC brand and ended it a search-powered growth machine. Organic now accounts for 48% of revenue; conversion gains turned traffic into bottom-line results.

Next priorities include AI-driven personalization, dynamic pricing experiments, deeper schema (HowTo and review snippets), and programmatic internal linking to help new hubs rank faster.



Sales figures: verified StickyLife data Sept 2024–25 vs. Sept 2023–24. Ahrefs insights: top pages export dated 18 Sept 2025.


 
 
 

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