A large company was preparing for an IPO. Their website wasn’t pretty, but it made money.
They operated on a CPC (cost-per-click) model, earning revenue from outbound clicks to affiliate partners.
Then came the big project: modernizing the site.
New hires were brought in. Nearly 100,000 hours were spent redesigning every detail:
🎨 30+ shades of red (when one would have sufficed).
🔘 Button styles, border radiuses, and grid layouts—everything changed.
📏 The entire visual identity was overhauled.
The result? A sleek, modern site that looked incredible.
🚨 And revenue immediately dropped by 50%. 🚨
Why Did a Better Design Tank Revenue?
Because the ugly, outdated site was actually an advantage.
Its poor design led to more accidental clicks. Which meant higher revenue in their CPC model.
With the new, more intuitive design, users clicked more deliberately. Fewer accidental clicks meant lower revenue.
The Hidden Strategy
Fortunately, the company saw this coming.
This redesign wasn’t just about looks—it was part of a longer-term strategy:
✅ Preparing for an IPO—a polished brand image was critical.
✅ Shedding their black-hat SEO past to improve their standing with Google.
But losing half of their revenue overnight wasn’t an option.
So instead of flipping the switch all at once, they rolled out the new site gradually:
🔹 Deploying changes only to certain user segments.
🔹 Monitoring revenue shifts after each iteration.
🔹 Tweaking elements to mitigate revenue loss while moving forward.
🔹 Prioritising higher-commission affiliate deals over lower-priced options for the user.
The Key Takeaway: Iterate, Don’t Overhaul
Big, sweeping changes introduce unpredictable risks.
If your product or website already generates significant revenue, be very careful about major redesigns.
📌 Roll out changes gradually—start with a small percentage of users.
📌 Track key metrics at every step—you don’t know what hidden factors drive conversions.
📌 Test in different markets before applying updates universally.
📌 Validate with real user data—never assume what “should” work will actually work.
If you have revenue, don’t gamble with it.
Make changes slowly, deliberately, and with real-world feedback.
⚠️ If you’re planning a big redesign such as this, but there is no bigger strategy behind it, I urge you to be very careful. A design that has not been tested in the real world can lead to a lot of bad things!
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