Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 04.11.2026 
KEY TAKEAWAYS
| $24K → $2.65M | A $24,000 SEO investment over 15 months produced $2,652,818 in organic revenue for Hobbies Direct, $668,943 more than the prior period. |
| +84% on −4% spend | Google Ads conversion value rose 84% on 4% less spend, showing organic growth wasn’t cannibalising a channel already at 22.92 ROAS. |
| 300+ pages rebuilt | More than 300 category pages were rebuilt and over 100 brand pages created, using buyer language from RC forums, subreddits and YouTube comments. |
| +70.7% top-three | Keywords ranking in the top three grew 70.7% to 11,233, and organic conversion rate rose from 1.49% to 1.97%. |
Firewire Digital has won Gold for Best APAC SEO Campaign and Silver for Best Use of Search: Retail / eCommerce (SEO), Small at the Global Search Awards 2026 in Dublin. Both awards recognised our work with Australian hobby retailer Hobbies Direct, where a $24,000 SEO investment generated $2.65M in organic revenue alongside a Google Ads account already returning 22.92 ROAS.
The winners were announced at the ceremony in Dublin on 23 September, after we’d made the shortlist in all four categories we entered. For a small agency from Newcastle, NSW, hearing the news from the other side of the world meant a lot.
Who we are
Firewire Digital is an independent specialist search agency, founded in Newcastle, NSW, in 2017 by Brogan Renshaw. We shape how brands are discovered, considered, and chosen wherever their customers search, across SEO, Google Ads, AI search and GEO, content, and digital PR. We call ourselves Masters of One because we do only search, and we do it for established businesses turning over $1M or more. There are no account managers to translate between you and the person doing the work.
Two principles shape how we work. Our Glass Wall Policy means clients see the same data, strategy and fees we do. Impact Over Activity means we report on revenue and qualified enquiries, not on the number of tasks completed.
Outside client work, we co-founded Edge of Search, Newcastle’s dedicated search marketing conference, which held its 2026 edition at Newcastle City Hall on 4 September. Our team also writes AI On Fire, a weekly newsletter with one AI tactic for search marketers every Friday.
One campaign, two awards
Both entries told the story of the same 15-month programme for Hobbies Direct, from October 2024 to December 2025. The Gold entry focused on method: proving SEO incrementality next to a highly efficient paid channel. The Silver entry focused on scale: turning an underdeveloped organic channel on a large catalogue into a revenue engine.
The challenge
Hobbies Direct is one of Australia’s largest online hobby retailers, with more than 10,000 products across RC vehicles, model trains, diecast and hobby electronics. Its Google Ads programme was already running at 22.92 ROAS, so adding SEO carried an obvious risk. Organic growth might simply cannibalise paid conversions, adding $24,000 in cost for sales the business would have made anyway.
So the brief wasn’t to grow organic traffic. It was to prove that SEO adds revenue that paid search does not already capture.
The strategy: measurement before content
We built the attribution framework before a single page was rewritten. Organic and paid were reported separately, and a 38-term brand exclusion filter was applied to Search Console reporting so non-brand growth could be read cleanly. We then deliberately prioritised more than 100,000 product-specific, long-tail queries over higher-volume category terms that would have competed directly with Google Ads.
RC buyers don’t shop on impulse. They search by model number, visit six or more pages per session and buy after weeks of research. To meet them where they research, we analysed RC community forums, subreddits and YouTube review comments to map the exact vocabulary buyers use at each stage of purchase. Keyword tools tell you what people search. Forums tell you why they buy.
The execution
The work ran in four phases:
- Technical foundations: site speed, Core Web Vitals and mobile improvements, plus structured data across more than 2,000 product and category pages.
- Content at catalogue scale: rebuilt more than 300 category pages with buying advice and FAQs, and created over 100 manufacturer brand pages from scratch.
- Authority: targeted outreach to hobby publications and community forums.
- Ongoing optimisation: shifting priority toward commercial and product-specific queries where AI Overviews rarely trigger.
The brand pages moved quickly. “Traxxas UDR” climbed from an average position of 16.7 to 5.1 within six months of its brand page launching.
The results
Over the campaign period, measured in GA4 (organic, first-click) and Google Search Console (Australia-filtered):
- Organic revenue reached $2,652,818, up 33.7% from $1,983,875, an increase of $668,943
- Organic purchases rose 33.6% to 13,628, and conversion rate lifted from 1.49% to 1.97%
- Keywords ranking in the top three grew 70.7% to 11,233, and ranking queries passed 100,000, up 42%
- Google Ads delivered $4.57M in conversion value on $199K spend, up 84% on 4% less spend
That last line is the proof the judges responded to. If SEO had been cannibalising paid search, Google Ads performance would have softened. Instead, it grew, which told us organic was reaching customers the ads weren’t. The momentum has continued: from late January to late April 2026, organic revenue rose 39.9% year on year, and first-time purchasers rose 98.7%.
“Our Google Ads improved over the same period, which told us the SEO wasn’t cannibalising paid, it was bringing in customers we weren’t reaching before.”
Hamish McRitchie, Co-Founder & Director, Hobbies Direct
What the judges said
For the Gold, the judges said Firewire Digital “tackled one of the hardest questions in e-commerce SEO with exceptional rigour”, adding that “smart strategic choices, strong commercial thinking and outstanding evidence made this a truly compelling campaign.”
For the Silver, they called it “an exceptional campaign that demonstrated the true commercial value of search engine optimisation as a growth driver.”
What winning means to us
“We built Firewire on a simple bet: go deep on search, stay close to the work, and judge everything against revenue. Hobbies Direct asked us the hardest question in eCommerce SEO, which is whether organic adds anything when paid search is already working, and we answered it with evidence rather than opinion. Winning Gold for Best APAC SEO Campaign against agencies many times our size tells our team that doing fewer things properly gets noticed. It also says something about Newcastle. You don’t need a Sydney or Melbourne postcode to do work that stands up on a global stage.”
Brogan Renshaw, Founder & Director, Firewire Digital
“Entering made us go back through every number and every decision, and that review was worth doing on its own. The campaign worked because we listened to how hobby buyers actually talk in forums and comment threads, then built pages around that language. Seeing a room of international judges recognise that research means a great deal to everyone who worked on it.”
Ashley Urquhart, Head of Content, Firewire Digital
Connect with Firewire Digital
| Website: firewiredigital.com.au LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/firewiredigital Instagram: instagram.com/firewiredigital Edge of Search: edgeofsearch.com |
