Overview
Home improvement projects and outdoor living products fall in the high-consideration purchase category, including weeks of research, comparison, and phone calls before the sale closes. For DTC brands in this category, that long, research-heavy runway is exactly where a generic ecommerce playbook falls apart.
The businesses in this report compete for the same homeowner: someone furnishing, upgrading, or building out their house or yard, often comparing a specialty brand against big-box retailers with far bigger ad budgets. Steel brackets, kitchen cabinets, pergolas, solar lighting, pond supplies, HVAC systems — different products, same challenge: earn trust and attention long before the sale, then be there again when the buyer is finally ready to convert.
The Problem: Where Home & Outdoor Living Brands Get Stuck
Across the six brands in this report, the starting points looked remarkably similar. Before partnering with LP, these businesses were running into a combination of four walls:
Rising Costs & Declining Efficiency at Scale
As budgets grew, competing against big-box retailers for the same generic search terms drove costs up and returns down — leaving high-intent niche buyers harder to reach.
Single-Channel Dependence
Growth was concentrated in one platform or one campaign type, with no coordinated strategy connecting paid search, social, and email into a single funnel.
Attribution Blind Spots on Long Sales Cycles
High-consideration purchases that closed by phone, custom order, or weeks after the first click made it difficult to connect ad spend to real revenue, leading to reactive budget decisions.
Untapped Owned Channels
Email and lifecycle marketing were minimal or nonexistent, leaving repeat-purchase revenue and warm past-purchaser lists sitting idle.
The Playbook: How LP Builds Revenue for Home & Outdoor Living DTC Brands
The specific tactics vary by brand, but the category playbook is consistent. Four moves show up again and again in the winning accounts:
Segment Paid Search at the Product Level
Single keyword and single product ad groups isolate which items and terms actually drive performance, protecting budget from being absorbed by lower-margin products. HighSEER segmented more than 500 active products by brand, type, and function to scale profitably.
Layer Automation Onto a Manual Foundation
Manual campaigns establish reliable, well-attributed data first; automation then scales what’s already proven to work. HighSEER moved from manual Smart Shopping into Performance Max only after establishing an attribution model, unlocking further growth without losing visibility.
Expand Paid Social for Prospecting & Remarketing
Lookalike prospecting introduces the brand to new buyers, while segmented remarketing re-engages visitors, cart abandoners, and past purchasers at each stage of a long consideration window. Right On Bracket paired durability-focused video ads with full-funnel remarketing to help maximize revenue despite rising social costs.
Activate Email & Lifecycle Marketing
Post-purchase flows, abandoned-cart automation, and consistent promotional cadence turn one-time buyers into repeat customers. HighSEER launched email marketing for the first time through Klaviyo, doubling its contact list and driving a 47% rise in revenue.
Outcomes Across the Category
The results below are pulled directly from the six featured case studies. Together, they show the range a home or outdoor living DTC brand can expect when the playbook is executed well:
Right On Bracket
+237%
Organic Revenue
Discount Kitchen Direct
9x
Blended ROAS
Bon Pergola
+141%
Revenue
Outdoor Solar Outlet
+153%
Revenue from Paid Search
Blue Thumb
12x
Return on Ad Spend
HighSEER
+47%
Revenue Growth
The Category-Level Takeaway
Home and outdoor living brands that pair paid search with at least one supporting channel — email, social, or SEO — consistently outperform accounts running paid search alone. HighSEER, running paid search, Amazon, paid social, and email in a single coordinated strategy, posted the category’s most sustained growth: an 18x return on ad spend alongside a 47% year-over-year revenue increase.
