Data-Led Strategy Drives 395% ROI for The Ordinary

The Business

The Ordinary is a skincare brand renowned for its clinically formulated products, offering high-quality, science-backed skincare products at affordable prices. The Ordinary gained rapid popularity due to its transparent ingredient lists, minimalist packaging and cost-effective pricing, disrupting an industry where such formulations were typically sold at a premium.

The Goal

The Ordinary set a clear objective: increase organic revenue by 34% within 10 months (July 2024 to April 2025). They weren’t just aiming for more traffic; they wanted measurable growth driven by a smarter, more strategic approach to SEO and content.

Step 1: Align SEO With Real Customer Behaviour

The foundation of this campaign was a deep understanding of The Ordinary’s diverse audience. We kicked off with customer surveys, collecting first-party data to build detailed audience personas based on their motivations, needs, and buying habits. By mapping these personas to specific content types, search behaviours, and product journeys, we ensured our SEO and content work spoke directly to real users.

Step 2: Shift from Brand-Led to Performance-Led Content

Before working with us, The Ordinary’s content was primarily driven by internal product launches and branding initiatives. We introduced a tactical, customer- and search-led model focused on topic clusters, beginning with skincare routines. The Ordinary adopted this strategic approach to content production.

While this wasn’t originally scoped as an AI Search project, we recognised shifting user behaviour driven by tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. We performed an AI Search Optimisation audit and updated key content for clarity, authority, and structure, positioning The Ordinary to win visibility in AI-generated answers.

Step 3: Recover a Key Product and Build a Scalable Framework

The Ordinary experienced a sharp decline in traffic and sales for its hero product, seriously threatening its organic revenue goals. We benchmarked top competitors and rebuilt the page from the ground up: optimised structure, UX, schema, reviews, and media. Rankings were fully restored and exceeded previous positions, turning the recovery process into a repeatable template now used across other collections.

Result 1:

The Ordinary set a goal to increase organic revenue by 34% within 10 months. While we achieved an 8.56% uplift, the real success lay in campaign efficiency. We delivered a 395% ROI by maximising the performance of every channel we touched.

Result 2:

The turning point was repositioning content as a strategic growth asset. By aligning content with real customer needs, streamlining production workflows, and embedding conversion paths directly into articles, we transformed their blog from a brand-led resource into a high-converting revenue channel. This approach delivered a 555% uplift in blog sessions and 451% growth in blog-driven revenue.

Result 3:

The recovery drove a 14% sales uplift for hyaluronic acid in just six months, putting one of The Ordinary’s top products back on a strong growth trajectory.

We also secured early wins in AI Search. The Ordinary began appearing in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT-generated answers for high-value skincare queries related to their hero product, hyaluronic acid.