Bingo Card Creator: search drove most traffic, A/B tests drove 2012 sales

What they ran

In his newsletter on selling the business, Patrick McKenzie says that, to his surprise, he got very good at organic SEO and AdWords optimization for Bingo Card Creator. Search was the main channel. In his 2012 year in review, Google was 56% of traffic and AdWords was 12%. The business ran in maintenance mode for about 48 weeks of that year.

What happened

Sales reached 2,254 in 2012, up 55% from 1,451. Sales net of refunds rose 40%, from $46,233.68 to $64,791.81. Online trial-to-purchase conversion went from 1.8% to about 2.4%. The founder says the best thing that happened in 2012 was a set of A/B tests on a reskinned app and marketing site, plus Stripe card charging. He also says the product historically ran at a profit margin of around 60%.

What the account does not show

All figures are self-reported by the founder. He calls the redesign tests and Stripe the best thing that happened in 2012, and does not credit search work for the growth. The source gives no traffic share from before 2012, so it does not show whether search grew. The newsletter says good years brought nearly $60k but does not say which years. Neither source names keywords, rankings or ad spend.