Case Study Customs Support Group
Built to Last: Five Years of Marketing Inside Europe's Fastest-Growing Provider of Customs and Trade Solutions
Many marketing relationships are episodic. A project, a handover, a reset. With Customs Support Group - through acquisitions, rebrands, and leadership change - this one kept going. Thecontent still ranks. The scope has expanded. The relationship continues to grow
5 years
Continuous partnership
500+
Pieces of content written
10,000s
Site visitors generated and counting
Trusted
With the content that matters most
What follows is the story of how a single SEO brief grew into a five-year partnership - across an acquisition, a rebrand, multiple leadership changes, and a group operating in 14 countries across Europe. It is a story about what continuity produces when it is given time and trust to compound.
A Blog a Week. A Brief That Compounded.
In March 2021, Logistics Marketing began working with UK Customs Solutions on a single brief: one SEO-driven article per week.
Clear scope. Modest start. Write content that ranked for what potential clients were actually searching for.
The first article published was a guide to calculating UK import duty and VAT – directly drawing on Chris’s time as a customs specialist. It generated over 1,200 clicks in its first three months and became one of the three best-performing pages on the domain. The traffic impact was immediate.
That result set the pattern for what followed. A T1 forms article pulled 8,675 clicks and over 125,000 impressions in the final 16 months of the domain’s life. Content that ranked, held, and kept working long after it was published.
Then, in November 2021, UK Customs Solutions was acquired by Customs Support Group.
The Relationship Survived What Most Don't
Acquisitions reset everything. Teams change. Supplier lists get reviewed. Freelance relationships rarely survive the handover.
This one did – because the value was already proven. Customs Support Group is a pan-European customs clearance and trade solutions business operating in 14 countries across Europe. Martijn Rijk, heading up group marketing at the time, made the decision to bring the working relationship across.
UKCS work continued through the rebrand period into mid-2022. Group-level work started almost immediately – beginning with a LinkedIn campaign for the introduction of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, which placed a hard customs deadline on vehicles crossing between the UK and EU.
By the end of 2022, Logistics Marketing was the primary content resource at group level. Contributing the majority of articles. Writing across multiple brands and territories.
"Chris is the kind of person who always goes one step beyond, delivers on time and exceeds expectations.
I highly recommend contacting him in caseyou need really good content."
- Martijn Rijk, former Marketing Director, Customs Support Group
What made that transition clean was accumulated context. No onboarding. No briefing from first principles. The sector knowledge was already there – aligned to how CSG’s clients thought, searched, and bought.
That working relationship is now in its fifth year.
Customs is a deep and fast-moving discipline. No external partner can know everything. This partnership goes directly to CSG’s own specialists and consultants, speaks the language of the trade, and takes the heavy lifting of that conversation off their plate.
The knowledge stays with the experts. The translation – into content their clients can actually use – is what Logistics Marketing brings.
That instinct showed up early. The T1 forms article was among the first pieces written for UKCS. When the domain went offline after the acquisition, a competitor found it on the Wayback Machine and republished it as their own.
Before the article could be republished on the CSG site, that had to be resolved. Publishing while the competitor’s version was still indexed would have looked like CSG had copied from them – damaging their SEO standing and their credibility in the same move.
In the UK, the author holds the IP – so a direct copyright assertion was made to the competitor. The content came down. The article was rewritten, improved, and published on CSG’s domain.
It ranks. It drives traffic. It was handled without prompting – and without it ever reaching the CSG marketing team as a problem to solve.
That is what having someone genuinely on your team looks like. Not a supplier managing a brief. A partner who treats your assets as their own.
A Full Website. One Brief. Minimal Oversight.
In H1 2024, CSG needed copy for their Irish domain – customssupport.ie. The brief was handed over with a clear objective and a degree of trust that took years to earn.
The deliverables covered the full scope:
- SEO research to identify what the Irish market was actually searching for
- Page hierarchy and UX structure to give the site the right architecture
- Every page of copy, written for an Irish audience from scratch
- A full copy document presented back to the team for review before the site was built
One project. Minimal back-and-forth. The kind of working arrangement that is only possible when a client already trusts the person delivering it.
The.ie domain launched in H1 2024 and ran as a standalone site until it was absorbed into the main group domain during a wider rebuild in H2 2025. In its final five months as a live domain, the results were measurable.
"Working with Chris on the launch of our Irish domain was a very smooth experience. With a deep
knowledge of our business, Chris helped craft content that feels authentic and engaging to our Irish
market.
His professionalism and creativity made the entire process seamless."
- Hannah Holland, former Brand Communications Manager, Customs Support Group
What Continuity Produces
In Q1 2025, Logistics Marketing led the SEO consultation for CSG’s new group website. The largest share of service page copy came from this partnership — written in collaboration with stakeholders across the group, with the remaining pages reviewed and proofed before they went live.
Not a new supplier brought in for the project. The natural extension of a relationship in which the voice, the keyword landscape, and the commercial context were already fully internalised.
Over five years, the scope has moved from a single weekly article to group-level content strategy, multinational website builds, and SEO consultation. Direction to in-house writers across a growing marketing team came with it.
CSG has changed significantly in that time. Leadership changes. Acquisitions. Geographic expansion. New contacts, new chains of reporting, new briefs. None of it required starting again.
"Chris has adapted quickly to a new working environment as we have grown as a company, taking new contacts and chains of reporting in his stride. He doesn't over promise, keeping work on the track, consistent and reliable. The benefits of his measured approach never prevent him from exceeding expectations."
— Bee Newboult, Head of Regional Marketing & Expansion, Customs Support Group
That adaptability is not just a personality trait. It is what happens when a working relationship is given time and trust to compound.
"I feel confident if he has reviewed it that the content is right — and there's no risk we're saying something that's not true. In customs, that matters. There are very few people who combine deep customs knowledge with strong writing and SEO. Chris has deep expertise — but he also knows what he doesn't know, and he knows who to reach out to when he needs specialist input. I can almost 100% delegate it — and for a marketeer, that frees up time."
— Bas van Steekelenburg, Digital Marketing Manager, Customs Support Group
The knowledge doesn’t leave when the people change. The context builds. The work gets better.
The next phase is already taking shape. Logistics Marketing is now working alongside CSG’s local marketing teams to extend the SEO results already achieved in English into local language markets. The ambition is significant. The foundation is already there.
The Relay Model in Practice
Marketing is an ecosystem. It works best when the people doing it understand the business — not from a brief, but from sustained time inside it.
The T1 article ranks because the person who wrote it protected it. The Ireland site performed because someone who understood the market wrote it. The group content lands because the person writing it understands what CSG’s clients actually need to know.
Complex subject matter — trade agreements, customs procedures, compliance changes — often starts with CSG’s own specialists. The role of this partnership is to sit in those conversations and extract what matters. Then turn it into content that CSG’s clients can actually understand and act on.
That’s the relay model. Not a handoff. A partnership where familiarity is the mechanism, and continuity is the competitive advantage.
“Chris quickly became an integral part of our marketing team. He brings a rare blend of expertise: deep customs knowledge, outstanding SEO capabilities, and strong copywriting skills — which together deliver exceptional value.
His contribution has played a key role in strengthening our position as a leading marketing team and content producer in the sector.”
— Julia Verbunt, Group Marketing Director, Customs Support Group
The Earlier You Start, the More It Compounds
The biggest lesson from five years inside a fast-growing, multinational group: the operators who build the marketing foundation early arrive at growth moments with something behind them.
The ones who wait until a topic becomes current — instead of anticipated — are improvising instead of strategising. Every time.
If you’re a logistics business owner who knows the marketing needs to be better — and you want a partner who already speaks the language — that’s the conversation Logistics Marketing is built for.
Logistics Marketing is a marketing agency for freight forwarders, customs brokers, and independent logistics operators. Built by people who have worked inside the industry, the business operates on a single principle: that the best marketing in logistics is builtwith the client, not delivered to them. Services cover positioning, SEO, website strategy, and content – all designed to support your sales process so that you can close better deals. logisticsmarketing.com
Customs Support Group (CSG) is Europe’s leading independent provider of customs clearance and trade solutions, enabling seamless cross-border operations through cutting-edge digital innovation and deep industry expertise. With a presence in 14 European countries at major strategic locations, CSG offers the most comprehensive range of customs services in the market. Serving over 60,000 customers and backed by a team of 1,700 dedicated customs professionals, CSG helps businesses enhance operational efficiency and regulatory compliance in an increasingly complex trade environment. customssupport.com
Get Started
Stop Explaining Your Industry to the People Marketing It.
The freight background is already here. Bring the brief, bring the problem, bring the sector context. Let’s make it happen, together.
- Free 30-minute consultation — no obligation
- Logistics-specific expertise - not generic advice
- Trusted professionals - rated 5* on Google
- Upfront prices - no hidden costs
- Payment plans available — from £500 initial deposit
“Chris quickly became an integral part of our marketing team. He brings a rare blend of expertise: deep customs knowledge, outstanding SEO capabilities, and the ability to produce content that performs.”
Book a Free Consultation
On submission you will be redirected to our calendar to book a time. Otherwise, queries will be answered within one business day.
By submitting this form you agree to our Privacy Policy. Your details will never be shared with third parties.