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FinTech · Payments · Direct Debit SaaS

How a UK payments brand turned a dormant digital channel into a 54× compounding engine.

Access PaySuite competes with GoCardless (Domain Rating 86), Stripe (DR 93), and Bottomline (DR 73). PaySuite started at DR 53. In six months — without outspending any of them — top-of-funnel traffic grew from 164 to 8,830 monthly users and bottom-of-funnel form fills grew from 3 to 162. Both lines moved 54×, in lockstep.

54×

TOFU growth · May → Oct 2024

54×

BOFU form fills · same window

11.2K

Peak monthly users (September)

Industry

Payments / FinTech SaaS

Engagement

External Consultant · 6 mo

Services

SEO · PPC · CRO · Content

Market

UK B2B Payments

The Challenge

Competing against GoCardless and Stripe — with a Domain Rating of 53.

Access PaySuite, the payments arm of Access Group, was operating in a category where the leaders had spent a decade compounding digital authority. PaySuite's site was technically solid and the product was credible — but the digital surface area wasn't doing the work it could have.

The hardest part wasn't the gap; it was the scope. PaySuite couldn't outspend on paid, couldn't out-publish on content, and couldn't catch the leaders on raw authority inside a single quarter. The strategy had to win on depth in specific niches the giants under-served — direct debit collection, charity-sector payments, AUDDIS, BACS Service User Numbers, indemnity claims — and to compound across SEO, paid, site, and content simultaneously.

The brief from Access: turn the digital channel from a near-zero baseline into a working pipeline. Within six months. Inside the existing budget.

Competitive Benchmark

The benchmarking, in numbers

Pulled from the SEO & competitive analysis run at the start of the engagement (Ahrefs):

MetricPay SuiteGo CardlessBottomlineStripe
Domain Rating53867393
Referring Domains35213,3002,389164,700
Est. Monthly Organic Traffic3,141973,79632,0591,877,361
Top-100 Keyword Rankings1,129482,40712,188548,941

The implication: PaySuite was 38× behind GoCardless on referring domains, 310× behind on monthly traffic, and 427× behind on indexed rankings. Outspending wasn't an option. Out-coordinating was the only path.

The shape of the work

TOFU & BOFU — six months of compounding growth

Headline54× growth — both lines

TOFU (users)

Left axis · 164 → 8,830

BOFU (form fills)

Right axis · 3 → 162

Top-of-funnel users (left axis) and bottom-of-funnel form fills (right axis) climbed in lockstep from May to October 2024. The September peak in traffic translated into October's peak in form fills — proof the funnel was tightening, not just inflating.

What Partner in Growth did

Five disciplines, one operating rhythm.

Each workstream was paired with a measurable outcome. The 8-week initial sprint (late July → mid September) became a rolling weekly cadence from October onwards — what got dropped, what got doubled down, decided on data.

01/ 06

Competitive benchmarking

Ran a full Ahrefs benchmark against GoCardless, Bottomline, and Stripe.

  • Domain authority, referring domain growth, top pages, content gaps, PPC keyword overlap, traffic by country — 12 KPIs in total.
  • Surfaced GoCardless's broken-page count, content-gap keywords (5 with combined search volume of 87,100), and most-linked content patterns.
  • Mapped 5 specific niches where PaySuite already held ranking authority — AUDDIS, indemnity claims, BACS SUN, charity direct debit, small-business DD.

Outcome

A defensible niche strategy in place by end of week 2.

PaySuite stopped trying to compete on category-leader terms (where it was 38–310× behind) and started compounding in 5 niches where it could win.

02/ 06

Site & conversion optimisation

Rolling programme of UX fixes, form A/B tests, mobile sweeps, and landing-page rebuilds.

  • Prepared and shipped form page A/B tests (live by w/c 9 Aug).
  • Reactivated inactive landing pages (/online-payments/, /our-brands/eazipay/, /our-brands/eazycollect/ — all sitting at 0% CVR pre-engagement).
  • Mobile UX sweep across primary conversion paths.
  • Web chat audit folded into the 3-month performance review.

Outcome

Multiple landing pages moved from 0% to producing leads.

0.00% → 1.69%/online-payments/ CVR
0.00% → 1.44%/our-brands/eazipay/ CVR
2.75% → 3.30%/lp/direct-debit-services-for-business/ CVR
0.55% → 0.89%Homepage CVR
03/ 06

SEO programme

Structured SEO plan: technical audit, keyword expansion, meta refresh, blog optimisation, content roadmap.

  • Targeted the 5 niches the benchmark identified — not category-wide keywords.
  • Set up improved SEO tracking (Ahrefs + GSC alignment) for weekly position monitoring.
  • Optimised meta titles & descriptions across priority pages and 25+ blog posts.
  • Built referral & backlink strategy starting w/c 6 Sept.

Outcome

Measurable keyword movement across the priority niches inside one quarter.

pos 26 → 19'direct debit services for small businesses' (+7)
pos 42 → 35'direct debit rules' (+7)
pos 94 → 86'integrated payment solutions' (+8)
pos 27 → 21'charity direct debit' (+6)
pos 25 → 21'charity direct debits' (+4)
not ranking → pos 7'direct debit service' (new entry)
04/ 06

Paid media strategy

Designed the paid plan and budget forecast across brand defence, high-intent direct-response, and remarketing.

  • Built 6-month paid budget forecast aligned with SEO content cadence.
  • Coordinated paid spend with organic content so the same buyer encountered PaySuite in both contexts.
  • Set up remarketing strategy contingent on initial campaign performance data.

Outcome

Paid and organic recognition compounded — the brand showed up consistently to the same buyer across channels.

Channel split data showed paid and organic feeding the same conversion paths rather than competing for credit. BOFU form fills grew 54× alongside TOFU — meaning paid spend wasn't just inflating top-of-funnel vanity.

05/ 06

Content strategy

Sequenced new content production around two pillars — niche-authority deep dives and sector-specific pages.

  • Deep-dive guides for AUDDIS, indemnity claims, BACS SUN (the niches PaySuite already ranked for).
  • Sector-specific landing-page work for charity, small business, SaaS subscriptions.
  • Every piece tied back to a sector landing page or high-intent conversion path.
  • Roast SEO deep-dive recommendations folded into ongoing content cadence.

Outcome

Compounding content authority in the 5 priority niches.

Top-performing pages by end of engagement: blog/auddis/, blog/new-indemnity-claims-rules-take-effect, blog/what-is-a-bacs-service-user-number-sun — exactly the niches the benchmark identified.

06/ 06

Performance reporting & operating rhythm

Monthly performance reporting + weekly tactical reviews. Plan adjusted on data, not on initial scope.

  • Reported against TOFU, BOFU, channel split, landing-page CVR, and SEO position movement monthly.
  • Presented a formal 3-month performance overview (w/c 13 Sept) covering web chat audit, page-testing results, channel ROI.
  • Dropped activities that data showed wouldn't compound. Added unplanned activities when signal showed up.

Outcome

An operating cadence the Access team could carry forward independently — and a December 2024 board-ready performance deck demonstrating the 54× compound.

By month 6, the engagement had shifted from 'consultant-led' to 'team-led with consultant oversight' — measurable in how decisions moved out of the consultant's weekly review into the Access team's own cadence.

How Access PaySuite progressed

Six months. Three phases. One compounding curve.

The engagement didn't produce a one-off spike. It produced a compound curve where each month built on the last.

  1. May 202401

    Baseline — channel near-dormant

    164Tofu
    3Bofu

    Pre-engagement baseline. Site technically intact, but the digital channel was barely contributing.

  2. Jun 202402

    First lift — quick UX & content wins

    2979Tofu
    37Bofu

    Initial site fixes and content uploads landed. TOFU jumped 18× from baseline; first measurable BOFU activity.

  3. Jul 202403

    Foundation laid

    3496Tofu
    59Bofu

    8-week sprint planning. SEO tracking improved, mobile UX sweep, form testing prep.

  4. Aug 202404

    SEO + paid coordinated

    4765Tofu
    66Bofu

    Form A/B tests live. SEO optimisations underway. Paid media plan rolled out.

  5. Sep 202405

    Traffic peak

    11189Tofu
    147Bofu

    Content + SEO + paid compounding. Highest monthly users of the engagement. 3-month performance overview presented.

  6. Oct 202406

    Funnel tightens — conversion peak

    8830Tofu
    162Bofu

    TOFU pulled back slightly, BOFU hit its highest. The funnel was producing more conversions per visitor — the system was tightening, not just inflating.

Before & After

What changed across the funnel in six months.

Every metric below is pulled from PaySuite's own performance reporting between May and October 2024 (with selected June and November comparisons where the deck captured them).

Monthly TOFU users

Before

164

After

8,830

+54×

Monthly BOFU form fills

Before

3

After

162

+54×

Peak month users (September)

Before

—

After

11,189

new peak

/online-payments/ landing page CVR

Before

0.00%

After

1.69%

+1.69 pp

/our-brands/eazipay/ CVR

Before

0.00%

After

1.44%

+1.44 pp

/lp/direct-debit-services-for-business/ CVR

Before

2.75%

After

3.30%

+0.55 pp

Keyword: 'direct debit services for small businesses'

Before

pos 26

After

pos 19

+7 positions

Keyword: 'direct debit rules'

Before

pos 42

After

pos 35

+7 positions

Keyword: 'integrated payment solutions'

Before

pos 94

After

pos 86

+8 positions

Keyword: 'charity direct debit'

Before

pos 27

After

pos 21

+6 positions

How they progressed — by the numbers

TOFU 54×. BOFU 54×. A funnel that tightened as it scaled.

Top-of-funnel users grew from 164 in May to 8,830 in October — a 54× increase, sustained over six consecutive months. Bottom-of-funnel form fills grew on the same curve: 3 to 162. That parity matters: it means the work didn't just bring more visitors, it brought visitors who were measurably more likely to convert.

September was the traffic peak (11,189 users). October was the conversion peak (162 form fills against 8,830 users — a higher conversion rate than the peak-traffic month). The funnel got more efficient as it scaled — the signal that SEO, paid, content, and site work were compounding each other rather than just stacking. Multiple keyword positions moved into competitive territory. Six landing pages that had been at 0% CVR were generating meaningful enquiries by the close of the engagement.

54×

TOFU growth

May → Oct 2024

54×

BOFU form fills

Same window

11.2K

Peak users

September 2024

6+

Keyword wins ≥+5 pos

Priority niches

4+

Landing pages reactivated

From 0% CVR to active

6

Months of sustained growth

Compound, not spike

Strategy Walkthrough

Walkthrough coming soon

How Access PaySuite went from dormant channel to 54× growth in six months

60–90s walkthrough explaining the full-funnel rebuild. Suggested arc: 1) the underdog position against GoCardless / Stripe (cite DR 53 vs 93), 2) the 5-niche strategy in 20s, 3) the 54× TOFU/BOFU growth curve, 4) the operating rhythm that compounded.

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Out-coordinate, don't outspend

Underdogs beat giants on coordination, not budget.

Access PaySuite didn't outspend GoCardless. It out-coordinated. Five disciplines — SEO, paid, content, site, strategy — on one operating rhythm did what isolated campaigns can't. If your category leaders have more authority than you, a 30-minute call will tell you where to start compounding.

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