Equell Nutrition
DTC Health & Wellness / CPG
Brand & Growth Strategy Lead
Overview
Equell is a UK-based premium equine nutrition and performance supplement brand with clinically developed formulations and zero digital presence. The brand had no existing funnel, no email infrastructure, no creative system, and no trust equity with an audience that is notoriously difficult to convert. Horse owners aged 35 to 65 are experienced, protective, and deeply skeptical of supplement claims. They have been burned by overpromised products and they know it.
The objective was to build a brand identity and performance digital ecosystem from scratch: one that could educate cold traffic, convert skeptical buyers, and build a predictable recurring revenue model without relying on paid acquisition to do the heavy lifting.
The Assets & My Role
Every asset in this program was conceived, written, designed, and architected by me. The work spanned:
Brand identity, packaging, and visual system built around the specific aesthetic sensibility of the equestrian world, grounding the brand in the visual language the audience trusts before a word is read
Content-to-commerce: long-form educational articles targeting acute pain points in equine health, written to rank organically and funnel high-intent readers directly into specialized product solutions
Shopify UX and information architecture: developed outcome-based usage categories that organized the catalog around what the customer was trying to solve, then built the content and product information on each page to prove those outcomes and support the purchase decision
Complete lifecycle email automation suite covering Welcome, Browse Abandonment, Cart Abandonment, Post-Purchase Education, Replenishment, and Win-Back, each written with a distinct voice calibrated to where that customer was emotionally in their journey with the brand
Performance creative briefs and paid social concepts built on the same creative framework used across organic channels, ensuring message continuity from first impression through retention
The Hypotheses, The Tests & The Outcomes
Rather than launching with a generic paid acquisition strategy and optimizing from there, I structured the entire program around three testable hypotheses. Each one drove a specific creative and copy decision, and each one produced measurable proof.
Hypothesis 1: Authority converts skeptics better than product claims
The test: The equine supplement category is saturated with ingredient lists and efficacy claims written at an audience the copy assumes already believes. My hypothesis was that anchoring the top of funnel in educational content addressing the specific health concerns horse owners lose sleep over would bypass traditional skepticism and produce conversion rates well above category norms. The copy stopped leading with the product and started leading with the problem, written from inside the world of the person reading it.
The creative decision: Every content hub article was written to demonstrate expertise before it asked for anything. Tone, vocabulary, and specificity were calibrated to signal that the brand understood this audience from the inside, not as a demographic. The CTA architecture moved readers from education to solution without a visible sell.
The outcome: 6.59% organic search conversion rate (industry average: 1.5% to 2%). High-intent education outperforms generic product pitching in a trust-deficit category. This became the foundational creative principle for every channel that followed.
Hypothesis 2: Subscription converts when positioned as utility, not upsell
The test: Most supplement brands treat subscription as an opt-in offer, positioned after the primary purchase decision as a discount mechanism. My hypothesis was that framing supplements as a monthly management utility and building the UX to surface subscription as the default path would produce a meaningful recurring revenue baseline in year one without increasing acquisition costs.
The creative decision: Copy across product pages and the checkout flow reframed the subscription as the intelligent purchase decision for a serious owner, not a discount for a bargain hunter. The UX placed subscription selection earlier in the decision architecture, supported by copy that addressed the most common objections to commitment before the customer could raise them.
The outcome: 23% recurring revenue baseline secured in year one through subscription adoption. Positioning the subscription as a management decision rather than a loyalty program produced a predictable monthly cash flow baseline without a single paid acquisition dollar spent to support it.
Hypothesis 3: Post-purchase education drives retention better than promotions
The test: Most post-purchase email sequences default to review requests and promotional offers. My hypothesis was that educating customers on what to expect from a supplement loading protocol, when to expect it, and what it means would produce a returning customer rate that promotional cadences cannot achieve.
The creative decision: The post-purchase flow was written as an educational onboarding program, not a marketing sequence. Each email was timed to correspond with realistic behavioral windows in equine supplement efficacy: what owners should observe at 30 days, what changes typically appear at 60 to 90 days, and how to interpret what they were seeing. Replenishment emails arrived with context rather than urgency, written to reinforce the owner’s decision rather than pressure the next purchase.
The outcome: 44.29% returning customer rate, spiking to 52.93% during high-engagement periods. 31.8% to 40.5% cohort return-to-shop rate within 60 to 90 days of first purchase. Customers who understood what the product was doing returned without being pushed.
Paid Channel Validation
Paid acquisition launched after the organic and lifecycle system was fully optimized. Google Paid converted at 11.29%. Overall store conversion rate reached 4.46%, peaking at 4.95% in early 2026, against a global average of 1.5% to 2%. Paid traffic did not fix the site. The site maximized the paid traffic.
What This Built & Where It Goes Next
The Equell program produced a creative framework designed to scale beyond the initial engagement. The hypotheses that drove year one results are now proven creative principles: lead with education in trust-deficit categories, position recurring revenue as a utility decision at the UX level, and use lifecycle copy to build the behavioral understanding that makes retention durable.
I have built a nutrition and performance supplement brand from zero, earned the trust of a skeptical, health-conscious audience through content and creative that respected their intelligence, and produced recurring revenue through lifecycle strategy rather than promotional pressure.
