THE CLIENT

CMBT Nutrition

CMBT Nutrition is an Australian-made sports nutrition brand co-owned by two-time UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski. The brand produces HASTA certified supplements including protein bars, plant protein powder, hydration drinks, and pre-workout formulas. Every product is banned-substance tested for over 250 WADA prohibited substances before reaching consumers.

With ambitions to expand into major Australian retail chains including 7-Eleven and Coles, CMBT needed a digital presence that matched the calibre of the brand and its athlete ambassador.

THE CHALLENGE

Where Things Stood

When we started working with CMBT, the online store was running on a basic Shopify theme with minimal customisation. Product pages had limited content. There was no structured SEO strategy. The site had virtually no organic search traffic. Blog content was outdated with articles referencing discontinued products. And the brand was preparing to launch its most important product to date: The Volk Bar, a high-protein bar co-created with Alexander Volkanovski.

The site needed to look, feel, and perform like a premium Australian sports nutrition brand. Not a startup. Not a side project. A brand going into national retail.

THE WORK

What We Built

Complete Website Rebuild

We designed and built 8 custom pages from scratch on the Embrace theme. Every page was purpose-built for conversion: the homepage served as a Volk Bar landing page with video content, comparison tables, and social proof. Each product detail page included expandable nutrition panels, ingredient science sections, FAQ accordions, multimedia grids, and review integrations. The About Us page was rebuilt with 8 sections covering the brand’s four pillars, the Volkanovski partnership, community impact, trust badges, and customer testimonials.

The design system followed CMBT’s brand guidelines throughout: Navy (#0f203b), Blue (#305ca9), Archivo typography, sharp corners, and professional product photography. Every element was built mobile-first.

The Volk Bar Product Launch

The Volk Bar launch was a coordinated effort across the website and email channel. We built a waitlist signup system using Omnisend, configured a pre-launch email capture popup, created a dedicated Volk Bar product page with full ingredient science, comparison tables, and FAQ schema, and coordinated the transition from waitlist to live Add to Cart.

The result: The Volk Bar waitlist sold out in 6 hours. The email launch sequence generated $14,700 in revenue across 4 emails, with the waitlist campaign converting at 16.51%.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

We implemented Judge.me review integration across the site, migrating 64 reviews from the previous brand (4.86 average rating) which has since grown to 239 reviews at 4.80. Cart drawer upsells with a free shipping progress bar at $150 threshold were added alongside cross-sell recommendations on every product page. An Omnisend popup offering $10 off orders over $80 was configured for email list growth.

The site now maintains a conversion rate above 2%, which Miles describes as strong for the brand.

SEO Foundation

The site had virtually zero organic search presence when we started. We built the SEO infrastructure from the ground up.

AI Search Visibility

One of the most forward-thinking elements of the engagement was optimising for AI search engines. Through the combination of schema markup, structured product data, and blog content built specifically for AI citation, CMBT is now being cited by Grok (6 citations across 7 pages) and Google AI Overviews (1 citation). When people ask AI tools about protein bars or sports nutrition in Australia, CMBT is appearing in those answers. This is a channel most brands in the category haven’t begun to address.

Technical Fixes

Beyond the visible work, we resolved several technical issues: a white screen bug caused by duplicate Swiper CDN libraries conflicting with the theme’s built-in components, an Omnisend popup transparency issue requiring a global CSS override, PageSpeed optimisation including hero image loading priority and CLS fixes, Microsoft Clarity integration for user behaviour tracking, and Google Analytics 4 installation.

THE RESULTS

By the Numbers

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

I have gone from being an agency owner for over a decade to now running my own FMCG and CPG based brands and to say that I have worked with a lot of specialist contractors in my time is an understatement. Writing testimonials is not something I typically do, but for Ali I must. He has been such a consummate professional during our engagement and the quality of work and time to delivery has been impressive. As a business owner, I want things done fast and done right. I have launched one of the most important product launches of one of our journey with Ali at the helm of web dev, email and SEO and he smashed it for us. I cannot speak highly enough about Ali and our engagement and recommend him to anyone looking for a trustworthy and reliable specialist to engage for your brand.

Miles Muecke

Founder, CMBT Nutrition

SERVICES DELIVERED

MGN Ventures

Web Development  |  SEO  |  Email Marketing  |  Conversion Optimisation

Ready to build something like this for your brand? Let’s talk.