Calling NoGood an "agency" doesn't do them justice. Over the past few years, they have become a true extension of our own team. It's incredibly rare to find a partner who operates with such a deep sense of shared ownership. NoGood's approach is rigorously data-driven, but it's their relentless "Let's Fricking Go" attitude that truly sets them apart.
How NoGood Maintained SteelSeries’ Growth Trajectory With $0 Acquisition Budget
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Paweł Klimaszewski
Growth Lead
20%
YoY net revenue growth
25%
YoY improvement in purchase CVR
331%
QoQ lift in Engine activations
We increased overall net sales in Q3 2023 by +35% through paid channel initiatives.
Overview
SteelSeries is a leading brand in the gaming industry, renowned for its innovative, high-performance gear, including gaming mice, keyboards, headsets, and other accessories. Beyond its advanced hardware, the company develops proprietary software designed to enhance gameplay and user experience. Trusted by professional gamers and esports teams worldwide, SteelSeries has earned its place as a premier name in competitive gaming.
The Challenge
SteelSeries, a prominent gaming hardware and software company, faced the unprecedented challenge of maintaining aggressive growth targets after decreasing their investment in paid media. The gaming peripheral industry typically relies heavily on paid acquisition, with most brands seeing 50-70% of revenue driven by paid channels.
- Revenue Sustainability Crisis: Maintain multi-million annual revenue targets after losing paid media support that historically contributed 60% of total revenue, representing a potential $16M business risk is organic channels wouldn’t compensate.
- Software Adoption Without Acquisition: Grow GG software MAUs when paid channels previously drove 30% of new downloads and highest retention metrics vs. all other segments.
- Fragmented Customer Journey: Optimize conversion across complex user segments (visitors, leads, potential customers, returning customers) using only organic touch points.
- Data-Driven Personalization at Scale: Build sophisticated user intelligence and personalization without paid channel audience insights, relying solely on first-party data collection.
- Industry Context: Gaming brands typically struggle to maintain growth momentum without paid support, making this a critical proof-of-concept for sustainable organic growth in the gaming hardware sector.
Services
Growth Strategy Development & Deployment
CRO (A/B & Multivariate Testing Across Owned Properties)
SEO Content Strategy & Blog Content Writing
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
UX & Customer Journey Optimization
Zero-Party Data Strategy & Implementation
Lifecycle Marketing (Email & SMS)
Analytics & Performance Measurement
Customer Segmentation & Personalization Strategy
Strategy
NoGood pioneered a comprehensive organic growth framework specifically designed for gaming hardware companies facing paid media constraints:
Implemented zero-party data collection through post-purchase surveys, on-site popups, and pre-purchase quizzes to capture gaming preferences, platform usage, and purchase intent. Built and leveraged 10+ customer segments based on behavior patterns.
Developed content targeting high-intent gaming searches, with pieces like “Eliminate Noise From Microphone” driving +82% increase in software downloads.
Implemented content and technical strategy to ensure accurate brand representation across AI-driven search platforms and LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and AI Overview). Optimized content structure for featured snippets and question-answer formats, with posts like “How to Clean Your Mousepad” achieving double listing in both Google AI Overviews and featured snippets for 6K monthly searches.
Focused testing on high-impact conversion points (checkout, PDPs, user journeys) with gaming-specific personalization.
Leveraged unique gaming ecosystem where hardware and software create natural cross-selling opportunities.
Used SteelSeries’ proprietary GG software data to create hyper-targeted personalization based on actual gaming behavior.
Developed strategic timing approaches (10-day delays showed +75% higher CTR).
Partnership
NoGood’s partnership with SteelSeries evolved from paid-supported to purely organic growth strategy while maintaining collaborative relationship and providing comprehensive documentation for sustained internal execution:
- Gaming-specific persona development based on actual software usage data
- Zero-party data collection strategy through pre and post-purchase surveys
- Gaming content production targeting high-intent searches
- Systematic A/B testing frameworks with measurable ROI
- Proprietary LLM audit to track organic visibility across LLMs
- Cross-platform personalization between hardware and software experiences
- Real-time performance optimization and reporting
- Strategic documentation for internal team handoff
- Gaming industry competitive analysis and positioning
- Hardware-to-software cross-sell campaign development
- Customer journey mapping across complex user segments
Results
NoGood delivered measurable organic growth across both hardware and software channels:
- Organic Revenue Resilience: Achieved +20% YoY net revenue through purely organic channels, proving sustainable growth models beyond traditional paid acquisition strategies.
- Conversion Rate Breakthrough: Delivered +25% year-over-year improvement in site-wide purchase conversion rate through systematic CRO initiatives across 10+ customer segments, where the most impactful revenue-driven initiatives included personalized homepages, checkout optimization, gaming-specific content blocks, and behavior-based PDP customizations.
- Software Growth Without Paid Acquisition: Drove +331% quarter-over-quarter growth in Engine activations and +47% in Sonar activations through strategic lifecycle campaigns and organic cross-selling, maintaining software momentum with zero acquisition spend.
- AEO & Brand Visibility Across Numerous LLMs: Secured prominent positioning across AI platforms, including top-visibility scores for “best gaming mice” and “best gaming keyboards” on ChatGPT and “best gaming headsets” on Gemini, all of which drove +60% impression increases for targeted queries.
20%
YoY net revenue growth
25%
YoY improvement in purchase CVR
331%
QoQ lift in Engine activations
See Our Results
Squad
Isabel Bellino-Neave
Sr. Growth Strategist
Nic Li
Growth Marketing Manager, Lifecycle
Abanoub Nabil
Growth Marketing Manager, CRO
Ollie Martin
Growth Marketing Manager, SEO & AEO
Julia Olivas
Growth Analyst, SEO
Daniel Le
Growth Designer