How CMA Exam Academy Skyrocketed Course Sales by 125% in a Single Year

Nathan Liao, a certified management accountant, identified a gap in CMA exam preparation resources and launched CMA Exam Academy in 2014. The business had solid fundamentals — a functional funnel, valuable course content, and good conversion rates.

The challenge wasn't the product or the funnel — it was traffic. Nathan needed to scale the top of the funnel without burning through budget on channels that didn't deliver lasting returns.

Nathan had tried Google and Facebook paid advertising — and burned through budget without meaningful ROI. Social media was slow and resource-intensive. But his initial blog posts and basic SEO work were showing better results than any paid channel.

I tried paid traffic, I burned a lot of cash through paid traffic, but I was not getting the results.

— Nathan Liao, Founder, CMA Exam Academy

• Google and Facebook ads consumed budget without generating sustainable ROI
• Social media growth was slow and demanded constant manual effort
• Early blog posts and basic SEO outperformed paid channels organically
• As CEO, Nathan lacked bandwidth to scale content marketing on his own

DCP implemented a comprehensive strategy that started with quick technical wins, then built a scalable content engine that would compound over time.

• Technical SEO audit diagnosed and fixed issues limiting organic visibility and rankings
• Quick win optimization rewrote and re-optimized existing blog posts, producing immediate ranking improvements
• Custom content strategy created a scalable, hands-off content production process integrated with Nathan's existing workflow
• Monthly reporting tracked campaign progress and outlined next steps, giving Nathan clear visibility into growth

We were able to follow your guidance and zero in on the low hanging fruits, the keywords that would make a difference.

— Nathan Liao, Founder, CMA Exam Academy

Results became visible by month three and kept compounding — organic traffic replaced paid as the primary growth engine, delivering sustainable returns that increased every month.

Organic search transactions grew nearly 4× — and unlike paid ads, the traffic kept flowing without ongoing spend. Weekly user growth averaged 116%, and the compounding effect meant each month outperformed the last.

Even today, six months after working with DCP, our rankings keep going up every month. It's an investment with a huge ROI.

— Nathan Liao, Founder, CMA Exam Academy