Case Study: Unlocking Organic Growth for a Top Consumer Finance Brand
Client: Confidential – National Consumer Finance Organization
Industry: Financial Services
Focus: Reviving Organic Search as a High-Impact Revenue Channel
Outcome: Executive-Level Buy-In, Granular ROI Reporting, and Sustainable SEO Wins
The Challenge: Organic Search Revenue Was Slipping Through the Cracks
After years of consistently moving our client (a large consumer finance organization brand) up the MashMetrics analytics maturity map, we noticed something alarming: revenue from organic search was shrinking. While focusing on other channels, the organic channel was being ignored - until it was exposed how much this meant to the bottom line. The decline couldn’t be ignored any longer.
The organization needed more than a performance report - they needed a roadmap. One that would not only fix the drop, but finally position organic search as a core business asset.
Enter MashMetrics.
Our 5-Step Strategic Roadmap
We structured our engagement, involving the VP of Growth, an SEO subject matter expert, internal engineering, and data teams around five tactical pillars:
1. Analyze for Opportunities
We began with a deep-dive assessment of the client's SEO data ecosystem. This included:
- Extracting revenue signals matched with organic traffic
- Disaggregating performance by page types, keyword intent clusters (informational, transactional, navigational, etc.), and vertical
- Creating keyword-category revenue models to overcome privacy restrictions in raw keyword data
The modeling step was crucial. Since direct keyword-to-revenue connections were limited by privacy protocols, we used probabilistic modeling and predictive attribution to infer impact based on engagement, conversion rate trends, and intent.
2. Shoot Down Low-Hanging Fruit
With the gaps identified (and more importantly revenue impact proven) the expanded team could provide the ROI on quick wins:
- Revamp stale but high-authority pages
- Improve internal linking across key transaction paths
- Resolve SEO-unfriendly URL redirects on the merchant locator section, which housed over 150,000 unique listings
This section, often ignored due to its technical complexity, became a central piece of our turnaround. Using advanced URL join techniques and event-based tracking, we connected the dots between GSC, on-site behavior, and down-stream loan approval and revenue data.
3. Understand Revenue Impact for Other Improvement Projects
Quick wins built momentum, other opportunities presented themselves once we understood how much improving specific areas, vertical pages, geographic areas, and more would impact bottom-line metrics.
We built a revenue-oriented dashboard that:
- Tracked conversion lift across organic entry points
- Allowed for "what-if" simulations on content improvements and keyword expansions
- Forecasted the ROI of future optimization scenarios
By marrying predictive models with actual performance data, we armed marketing and product teams with business cases that justified deeper SEO investments.
4. Compare Against Competitors
To further validate and drive urgency, we conducted a full competitive benchmark.
We compared:
- Share of voice across high-intent keywords (Using SemRush)
- Competitive SERP visibility trends over several months
- On-page and technical SEO maturity scores
This framed the issue not just as a revenue leak, but a missed opportunity to outperform rivals in critical market segments. When C-suite leaders saw that competitors were siphoning off organic demand they had historically owned, it further galvanized alignment across departments.
5. Assure Updated Exec-Level Reporting
To ensure long-term sustainability, we overhauled SEO reporting for both the boardroom and the trenches.
- Executive Dashboards: Showed revenue from organic search by vertical, geography, and intent type.
- Subject-Matter Views: Allowed granular slicing by keyword theme, geography, product types and funnel stage.
- Attribution Integrations: Connected with pre-existing web analytics with in-store applications and final approvals (a previous MashMetrics integration success!)
This layered reporting approach gave each stakeholder the insight they needed, whether they were planning budgets or testing a new meta description.
Complex Problems, Real Solutions
This wasn’t just another SEO project. It required strategic data orchestration, cross-functional diplomacy, and advanced analytics to overcome the following hurdles:
- Modeling keyword category ROI without direct keyword-level revenue access
- Decoding organic traffic from a 150K+ URL merchant locator hidden behind redirect logic
- Balancing executive clarity with detailed analyst capability in reporting
- Leveraging a refined but complex data pipeline built over years of collaboration with the client
- Navigating product, legal, marketing, finance, and data teams - all with different goals
- Answering real-time descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive questions during rollout
The Outcome: Organic Search Became a Boardroom Topic
By the end of our engagement, MashMetrics had delivered a comprehensive solution that not only stopped the revenue decline but turned SEO into a growth engine.
Key Results:
- Clear return on organic investment, segmented by vertical, geography, and search intent.
- Weekly executive briefings with predictive “what-if” analysis tools.
- Full attribution reporting across digital and in-store conversion funnels.
- A new organizational priority placed on SEO thanks to its measurable business value.
Organic search is no longer the forgotten channel. It’s now a recognized, data-backed growth driver with C-Suite buy-in - and it all started with a strategic roadmap.
Conclusion
This engagement was about far more than just recovering lost organic traffic; it was about transforming how the organization viewed and valued organic search. By combining advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and cross-functional collaboration, MashMetrics didn’t just stop the decline - we built a foundation for long-term, measurable SEO success.
Today, organic search is no longer treated as a siloed channel or an afterthought; it’s a boardroom-level growth lever with clear revenue impact, competitive advantage, and executive support.
For organizations looking to unlock similar hidden opportunities in their digital ecosystem, MashMetrics offers the roadmap to get there - one built on data, strategy, and results.
Ready to turn SEO into a C-Suite priority? Let’s talk about how MashMetrics can help uncover your hidden organic revenue potential.