• Agency experience
  • Case study
  • Multi-client SEO

How Growbo reached $1.2M ARR with a revenue‑first SEO programme

AutoGrow, now Growbo, is a Florida marketing agency that has served 1,000+ clients. As the agency's SEO Manager, I owned SEO strategy for its own growth channel and for a portfolio of SaaS, e-commerce and B2B clients, and held every account to one standard: revenue. The agency closed 2022 at $1.2M ARR, up 37.2% year over year.

  • CompanyGrowbo (formerly AutoGrow), Florida, USA
  • RoleSEO Manager
  • Timeline2021 to 2023
  • ScopeAgency SEO, client delivery, revenue reporting
  • $1.2MAgency ARR in 2022
  • +37.2%Year-over-year growth
  • 1M+Beaver Builder users, up from 634K
  • 1,000+Clients served by the agency

The situation

Visibility everywhere, revenue hard to prove

AutoGrow runs marketing for a wide portfolio of SaaS, e-commerce, B2B and B2C clients, alongside its own growth. Founded in 2010, it built a distributed team and a client base across the US.

  • Founded 2010
  • 1,000+ clients served
  • SaaS, e-commerce, B2B, B2C

The agency's own SEO earned visibility that did not turn into signups. Client reporting had the same gap: ranking and traffic changes that stakeholders could not connect to growth.

I was hired to make organic search answer to revenue, for the agency and for every account it ran.

An AutoGrow all-hands team call on Zoom, shown on a laptop
An AutoGrow all-hands: the distributed team behind 1,000+ client accounts.

The outcome

$1.2M ARR in 2022, up 37.2% year over year

The organic strategy I built and ran was a key driver of the agency's strongest year. The same revenue-first system grew client accounts like Beaver Builder past 1 million users.

Agency annual recurring revenue

  • +37.2%ARR growth
  • 634K → 1M+Beaver Builder users
  • 13 monthsTo pass 1M users

What I did

How I made organic search answer to revenue

I ran SEO for the agency and its clients by the same rule: every keyword, page and report had to earn its place in the pipeline, not just in the rankings.

A site-wide SEO audit spreadsheet covering meta descriptions, content, canonicals, response codes and security
A site-wide client audit: the starting point of every growth report.
  1. 01

    Rebuilt the agency's own organic channel

    I used competitor analysis and performance data to find where AutoGrow's SEO earned visibility without conversion. I then reset priorities around the keywords and content that drive signups and revenue.

    $1.2M ARR, up 37.2%
  2. 02

    Turned client audits into growth reports

    I audited every client account every two months and turned each audit into a growth report, not a metrics dump. The KPIs were the ones tied to revenue: traffic by intent stage, rankings on commercial terms, organic signup rate, crawl and index health and, where attribution allowed, revenue. Every report answered three questions: what changed, why it matters to your numbers and what we do next.

    Reporting tied to revenue
  3. 03

    Grew Beaver Builder past 1 million users

    For Beaver Builder, the WordPress page builder, I rebuilt the keyword architecture around buyer intent, restructured internal links to push authority to conversion pages and targeted the commercial searches where rival builders were winning. I also ran its content production through the growth period.

    634K → 1M+ users in 13 months
  4. 04

    Led delivery across the client portfolio

    Each cycle, I set account priorities by contract value and performance risk, and held the reporting schedule every client relied on. The portfolio included PrePass, the weigh station bypass and toll platform used by 700,000+ commercial vehicles across 105,000+ fleets, where I handled content production.

    Every account on schedule
Email from AutoGrow founder Matt confirming the agency reached $1.2M ARR in 2022
The note from AutoGrow's founder on the agency's $1.2M ARR year.
Managing the AutoGrow client portfolio and SEO team
Running the portfolio: the team, the accounts and the reporting cadence in one view.

The results

Revenue the agency and its clients could point to

Organic search became a channel the agency and its clients measured in revenue, not rankings.

  • $1.2MAgency ARR in 2022
  • +37.2%Year-over-year growth
  • 634K → 1M+Beaver Builder users in 13 months
  • SaaS to e-commerceClient portfolio run to one revenue standard
  • Every 2 monthsAudit and growth report for every client
  • 1,000+Clients served by the agency

Client voices

What clients said about the AutoGrow team

I've been working with Matt and the AutoGrow.co team for over two years now. In that time, we've worked together to set up our sales funnel here at Apollo. Our conversions have quadrupled, leads have grown by more than 100% and revenue has more than doubled.

Kelly CammackKelly CammackManaging Director, Apollo Answering Service

This was the exact type of strategic guidance that I was looking for. CRM Switch grew their email capture rate over 110% within 4 weeks of starting work with AutoGrow.

Steve ChipmanSteve ChipmanCRM Switch

Work with me

Turn organic search into a revenue channel

I help SaaS and fintech companies get found on Google, get recommended by AI assistants and turn that visibility into customers. Start with the Search Revenue Audit to see where your growth is leaking, or bring me in to lead the work as your fractional head of SEO.