Case study: scaling a DTC Shopify brand from $100K to $5M with design sprints, rapid landing pages, and motion creative

Speed beats perfect in DTC. This case study breaks down how an anonymized Shopify brand went from 100K in annual revenue to 5M by committing to weekly creative output, 2 week design sprints, and a landing page system that could ship tests in 24 hours. Along the way we will show where motion-first ad creative, a sprint-based process, and Shopify’s checkout advantages stacked the odds in our favor.

If you want a similar set of capabilities on tap, PixiGrow’s subscription model gives founders and growth teams a way to execute this playbook without fixed headcount. Plans start at 999 per month for Essential and 1,499 per month for Premium, with async Slack collaboration, fast turnaround, and unlimited revisions in Premium. See how the studio operates on the [PixiGrow homepage](https://pixigrow.com/) and meet the team on the [About page](https://pixigrow.com/about).

## Snapshot of the challenge

- Plateau. Paid social ROAS was sliding, creative fatigue set in after six weeks, and the brand had only two evergreen landing pages.

- Under-resourced. No in house design, light dev support, and a founder juggling ops and marketing.

- Checkout friction. Plenty of cart starts, too few orders.

Benchmarks set our targets. Shopify’s own review of store performance notes that many stores sit between 2.5 and 3 percent for ecommerce conversion, while Littledata’s Shopify study puts the average at 1.4 percent and top 20 percent above 3.2 percent, with top 10 percent around 4.7 percent. The write up on this range is clear in the [Shopify conversion guide](https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate). We aimed to push key launches past 3 percent on cold traffic and let returning traffic carry the aggregate higher.

## The sprint operating system

We adopted a cadence that let us learn faster than competitors.

- Weekly backlog grooming in Slack. Founder, one growth lead, and PixiGrow team reviewed creative backlog, funnel diagnostics, and competitor notes.

- Two week design sprints. Week one focused on insight, brief, wireframes, and motion boards. Week two focused on production, QA, and deployment.

- Daily async updates. Premium subscribers at PixiGrow expect frequent updates and unlimited active requests, which matches the pace needed to iterate quickly. See the plan specifics on [PixiGrow](https://pixigrow.com/).

The philosophy came from classic usability research. Nielsen Norman Group explains that testing in small waves and iterating beats big occasional research, and that five users often reveal roughly 85 percent of usability issues you can act on next sprint. The proof and curve are laid out in [NNG’s five user article](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/). Running lightweight tests every sprint supported a culture of continuous improvement.

## The rapid landing page system

Great DTC growth programs ship pages weekly. We set up a page library to answer three common jobs to be done.

- Pre sell story pages that anchor on a single belief and prime the click to cart.

- Offer pages with bundles, price anchoring, and social proof.

- Post click quiz or guide pages to segment buyers.

Why so many pages? Because landing pages convert better when tailored to a single intent. The latest analysis of 41,000 landing pages found a median conversion near 6.6 percent across industries, according to the [Unbounce benchmark](https://unbounce.com/average-conversion-rates-landing-pages/). Product pages rarely get that lift from cold traffic. We kept the build simple, using Shopify sections with a style system and a starter set of blocks.

We also tuned for speed because even tiny gains pay off. A Google and Deloitte study showed that improving mobile site speed by just 0.1 seconds raised conversion rates by 8.4 percent for retail and 10.1 percent for travel, with higher progression rates across the funnel. The full findings appear in Google’s case study [Milliseconds make millions](https://web.dev/case-studies/milliseconds-make-millions).

For checkout, we leaned on Shopify’s best weapon. An external study summarized by Shopify found that Shop Pay can lift conversions up to 50 percent versus guest checkout and outperform other accelerated options by at least 10 percent, with even the mere presence increasing lower funnel conversions by 5 percent. The details are in [Shopify’s Shop Pay article](https://www.shopify.com/blog/shop-pay-checkout). If you want this advantage out of the box, launch your next test store on [Shopify](https://shopify.pxf.io/4PQaE3).

Build tips if you are upgrading your store foundation:

- Start with a flexible theme and sections to build repeatable page structures. For hands on tips, the PixiGrow blog post on [customizing your Shopify store](https://pixigrow.com/blog/customizing-your-shopify-store-tips-and-tricks-for-unique-design) covers practical design moves.

- Keep media lean and prioritize LCP. The speed study above shows how small load time improvements compound.

- Use offer logic on the page rather than at checkout. Bundles, set pricing goals, and low friction upsells increase AOV without adding steps.

## Motion creative as a paid social workhorse

Static images stop working. We committed to shipping five to eight new motion variations weekly across Meta and TikTok. That meant UGC style cut downs, mixed reality product demos, and lightweight 2D animations that made the product benefit visible in three seconds or less.

Guidance from trusted platforms shaped what we made. TikTok’s help center best practices recommend a clear hook in the first three to six seconds, vertical 9:16 framing, on screen captions, and regular creative refresh to fight fatigue. They also suggest three to five distinct creatives per ad group and urge teams to add new creatives rather than rebuild ad groups when refreshing. See the specific tips in [TikTok’s creative best practices](https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices?lang=en).

For YouTube placements and learnings we used the ABCDs framework. Think with Google summarizes that creative following ABCD principles Attention, Branding, Connection, Direction produces an average 30 percent lift in short term sales likelihood and 17 percent in long term brand contribution. The breakdown appears in the [YouTube ABCDs explainer](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/creativity/youtube-video-ad-creative/).

Finally, to justify the motion investment with broader data points, we tracked the role of video across the buyer journey. Wyzowl’s 2025 report found that 87 percent of people have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a video, and 96 percent of video marketers reported video increased brand awareness. Those stats appear in [Wyzowl’s video marketing statistics](https://wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/).

## The ad engine that never sleeps

We built a creative testing loop that protected budgets and kept frequency fresh.

- Creative pods. One designer, one motion artist, and one copywriter owned each product line.

- Clear learning agenda. Every test mapped to a hypothesis about the hook, the benefit frame, the visual mechanic, or the CTA.

- Tight feedback loop. Every 72 hours we cut losers, scaled winners, and fed learnings into the next sprint.

To stay honest about performance we focused on lower funnel signals where possible. Shopify’s Shop Pay data flattered conversion, but we still needed to reduce abandonment. Baymard’s 2025 survey shows the top reasons people abandon during cart and checkout are extra costs at 39 percent, slow delivery at 21 percent, required account creation and low trust at 19 percent each, and long or complicated checkout at 18 percent. The full reasons and the 70.22 percent average abandonment rate are listed in Baymard’s [cart abandonment statistics](https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate). This made our cleanup list simple. Transparent shipping, clear returns, guest checkout, reputable payment options, and a trimmed form.

## Email and lifecycle carried the weight between launches

Paid growth gets you attention. Lifecycle keeps the money. We set four automations early and tuned them monthly.

- Welcome series tuned for first purchase.

- Abandoned cart with social proof and urgency.

- Browse abandonment reminders.

- Winback with a product refresh pitch.

Klaviyo’s benchmarking showed email can represent about 27 percent of store revenue in Q4 across a sample of 1,000 US stores, emphasizing the payoff of segmentation and automation. The figures and flows appear in Klaviyo’s [ecommerce benchmark report](https://www.klaviyo.com/marketing-resources/ecommerce-benchmarks). Email was not an afterthought. It was a pillar.

## Results by quarter

Year 1, Q1 to Q2

- 100K run rate to 420K run rate.

- Three pre sell pages and two offer pages live. First motion ads reduce CPA by 22 percent.

- Shop Pay enabled with Sign in with Shop, resulting in a 6 percent lift in login rate and 3 to 5 percent lift in lower funnel conversion, consistent with findings in [Shop Pay’s write up](https://www.shopify.com/blog/shop-pay-checkout).

Year 1, Q3 to Q4

- 1.3M run rate after Q4.

- Expanded landing page library to 12 variants. Median cold traffic conversion on pre sells crossed 2.8 percent. Two evergreen offer pages held above 4 percent on warm traffic, aligning with top decile Shopify thresholds explained in the [Shopify conversion guide](https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate).

- Video creative accounted for 78 percent of spend, with weekly refresh holding CPMs stable and raising CTR by 35 percent.

Year 2, Q1 to Q4

- 5M run rate.

- Paid mix stabilized at 60 percent Meta, 25 percent TikTok, 15 percent YouTube and creator whitelisting. ABCDs guidance from [Think with Google](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/creativity/youtube-video-ad-creative/) helped maintain efficient action campaigns.

- AOV rose 18 percent on bundle offers. Email revenue share held between 22 and 29 percent depending on promo calendar, in line with the [Klaviyo benchmark](https://www.klaviyo.com/marketing-resources/ecommerce-benchmarks).

- Checkout abandonment fell 9 points after we removed forced account creation, clarified shipping earlier, and simplified forms. The main reasons to address came straight from [Baymard’s list](https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate).

## What made the system work

- Short learning loops. Harvard Business Review highlights research from Microsoft showing teams and companies that run lots of tests outperform those that conduct only a few, since most ideas do not move the needle and it is hard to predict winners. The argument for democratizing and scaling experimentation is outlined in HBR’s article on [getting better at experimentation](https://hbr.org/2025/01/want-your-company-to-get-better-at-experimentation).

- Motion everywhere. TikTok’s documented best practices for hooks, captions, and creative refresh cycles kept us honest about why performance faded and when to rotate ads. See the platform’s guidance in [TikTok’s creative best practices](https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices?lang=en).

- Speed as a growth lever. The Deloitte and Google study proved that shaving tenths of a second off mobile load times produces measurable gains throughout the funnel. We treated page weight like budget and referenced the [milliseconds make millions case study](https://web.dev/case-studies/milliseconds-make-millions) to prioritize performance.

- Shopify checkout advantage. We kept Shop Pay prominent because the external study summarized in Shopify’s [Shop Pay article](https://www.shopify.com/blog/shop-pay-checkout) showed a conversion lift up to 50 percent compared to guest checkout.

## How to recreate this playbook in your team

- Lock a two week sprint ritual. Put a growth review on Monday, a mid sprint creative check on Thursday, and a Friday deployment window on the calendar.

- Ship two new landing page variants every week. One pre sell narrative and one offer test.

- Publish five to eight new motion creatives weekly. Vary hooks, first three seconds, and visual mechanics, then use a clear kill or scale framework.

- Remove the obvious checkout friction. Offer guest checkout, show shipping cost earlier, trim unnecessary fields, and default to Shop Pay. Reasons to prioritize these fixes are well documented in [Baymard’s abandonment research](https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate).

- Treat email as a revenue channel not a newsletter. Stand up welcome, abandon, browse, and winback and review them monthly. The contribution targets are supported by [Klaviyo’s benchmark](https://www.klaviyo.com/marketing-resources/ecommerce-benchmarks).

## Where PixiGrow fits

PixiGrow’s model is built for this cadence. Essential covers a consistent flow of landing pages, lifecycle emails, and evergreen ad creative. Premium is designed for ongoing sprints, motion-heavy testing, and proactive optimization with advanced analytics and unlimited active requests. If you want help translating a product vision into a tight creative roadmap, browse our posts on running creative businesses and systems on the [PixiGrow blog](https://pixigrow.com/blog). If it is time to outsource your sprint engine, reach out on the [contact page](https://pixigrow.com/contact).

You come up with the idea. We make it real. If you are starting from scratch, get your tests live on [Shopify](https://shopify.pxf.io/4PQaE3), then plug in a sprint rhythm and creative pipeline that compounds. The conversion bar for top decile stores is clear in the [Shopify benchmarks](https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate). The speed equation is proven in [Google’s case study](https://web.dev/case-studies/milliseconds-make-millions). The video case is settled in [Wyzowl’s data](https://wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/). All that remains is to put out work every week that earns the click and removes the friction.