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LIVEv0.9 · mainEST. 2003

Work/case study/AFFLINK

// logistics

5× monthly orders in 12 months on a launch competing with Amazon.

AFFLINK has spent 40 years serving the supply-chain needs of large North American organizations. ELEVATE Marketplace was their bet on the smaller end — bulk office, restaurant, and janitorial supplies for SMBs, in a category Amazon was already trying to own. The bet needed to pay off fast and stay paid off. In twelve months we drove organic search revenue up +791%, gross revenue up +162.9%, and 5×’d monthly orders.

+791%

organic_revenue

+162.9%

gross_revenue

monthly_orders

12 mo

to_results

// services

  • Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • E-commerce Optimization
  • Google Shopping Ads
  • Content Marketing

// industry

Logistics

// engagement

12-month engagement

The setup

ELEVATE Marketplace launched into a category that already had a default — Amazon Business. The buyer was an SMB operations lead typing “wholesale janitorial supplies” into Google at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, comparing prices, and ready to buy that afternoon. The window between intent and purchase was short. Whoever showed up on page one, with the right product, at the right price, with a trustworthy checkout, won the order.

AFFLINK had the supply chain. ELEVATE had the SKUs. Neither had the digital surface needed to convert the long-tail buying intent that drives SMB B2B procurement. That’s what we built.

Why most e-commerce launches die

They never escape the founder’s network. Never get past their first page of branded search. Never figure out how to attract the high-intent buyer at the moment of purchase intent. ELEVATE needed to clear all three hurdles — fast enough to justify the investment, durably enough that the growth would compound past month twelve.

Foundation, then scale

We didn’t try to game it. We started with the foundations any e-commerce SEO program needs — site architecture, structured data, content that actually answered the questions buyers were asking. Once those were live, we layered in Google Shopping Ads tuned for high-intent queries. At each level of the funnel, ELEVATE saw triple-digit growth — and the funnel kept moving.

Site architecture
Category trees, faceted navigation, and URL structures designed for both buyers and crawlers. The boring foundational work that decides whether everything else compounds.
Structured data
Product, Offer, Review, and Organization schema across the catalog so the SKUs were eligible for rich results and Google Shopping the moment they went live.
Buyer-intent content
Resource pages, buying guides, and category pages that answered the actual procurement questions an SMB operations lead is asking — not generic SEO boilerplate.
Google Shopping
Tuned-for-intent campaigns mapped onto the foundation. Spend went where conversion was likely, not where impression volume was cheap.

Eight months in (Apr–Nov 2020)

Monthly users
+454% month-over-month growth on total site visitors as the SEO foundation started earning surface.
Monthly page views
+840% — deeper engagement per session as the buyer-intent content gave visitors more to consume.
Monthly orders
+525% — the funnel moving end-to-end, not just impressions stacking up at the top.
Organic users
+570% growth specifically from unpaid search — the SEO program landing where it was pointed.
Organic page views
+1,520% — non-branded discovery compounding as the long-tail content matured.
Organic orders
+259% — SEO traffic converting at the rate the buyer-intent positioning was designed to produce.

Twelve months in (Apr 2020 – Mar 2021)

Direct traffic
+50.5% — repeat-buyer behavior taking hold as ELEVATE established itself as a known destination.
Online orders
+72.8% — total order volume through the checkout, organic and paid combined.
Gross revenue
+162.9% — the headline number that validated the original bet.
Average order value
+52% — bigger basket sizes as the product catalog and category architecture made multi-item purchases easier.

Not a spike

Plenty of campaigns can goose a month. ELEVATE’s numbers held because the foundations under them held — site architecture, structured data, and buyer-intent content that kept earning surface long after the launch window closed. A platform, not a push.

In the ever-evolving world of SEO, it's important to have a partner who has their finger on the pulse. For us, that's the Nine. Their team is knowledgeable, quick to react and brings new insights.

W. Michael Wilson, VP — Marketing & Packaging, AFFLINK

Want results like AFFLINK?

next_step

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