More revenue, stronger margins, better decisions.
Context
Horwood Homewares is a long-established UK kitchenware business operating across multiple brands in a highly competitive, often promotion-led category.
Stellar had already built strong momentum online, with growing traffic, revenue and customer engagement. The challenge wasn't generating growth, it was understanding how to scale it more profitably.
The leadership team wanted clearer strategic direction, better visibility of the commercial drivers behind performance and reporting that went beyond platform metrics and ROAS. The objective was to accelerate growth, improve margins and reduce reliance on promotions and paid media. The foundations were in place; what was needed was sharper prioritisation, stronger commercial insight and a clearer roadmap for growth.
Objective 01
Increase net sales by 30%
Objective 02
Reduce reliance on paid acquisition and heavy promotions
Objective 03
Improve reporting and commercial visibility
Decisions
Growth decisions were being driven by channel metrics rather than commercial outcomes.
Marketing activity was largely assessed using ROAS, which masked the commercial reality of different products, promotions and acquisition sources. Without visibility of contribution margin and operational costs, it was difficult to answer key questions:
Which products drove profitable growth
Which acquisition channels created long-term value
Whether paid media was scaling profitably
Where to invest to reduce reliance on promotions
Before scaling activity, we needed to fix how performance was measured.
Priorities
1. Rebuild commercial measurement
Sales, cost of goods, marketing spend and ecommerce-specific operational costs were connected to track:
Contribution margin (CM1)
Contribution after marketing costs (CM2)
Customer acquisition economics
This created a single commercial view of performance aligned to the P&L.
2. Reduce reliance on paid and promotional activity
The goal was to ensure paid media scaled profitably. Investment was redirected towards strengthening:
Lifecycle and retention marketing
Organic search performance
Conversion rate optimisation
3. Increase customer value
Customer value was improved through:
Product bundling
Better onsite merchandising
Stronger lifecycle marketing
This allowed revenue growth to come from better economics, not just more traffic.
Execution
With the commercial framework in place, priorities were carried into execution.
Paid Media
Paid acquisition was restructured around margin contribution rather than revenue alone, allowing spend to scale more confidently.
Retention
Email marketing evolved into a genuine retention channel, introducing lifecycle flows designed to increase repeat purchase and customer value.
Conversion Optimisation
A structured CRO programme introduced continuous A/B testing across product pages and checkout journeys, alongside improved product merchandising and bundle propositions.
Organic Growth
Content and technical improvements strengthened organic visibility and reduced reliance on paid acquisition for core product searches.
Change
With clearer economics and aligned priorities, the business was able to scale with confidence. The results below compare performance against the previous 12 months, showing how revenue accelerated and margins strengthened.
Result 01
+120%
Net sales (vs +30% target)
Result 02
+59%
Media spend
Result 03
+107%
Orders
Result 04
+6%
AOV
Result 05
+3pp
CM2 margin (32% to 35%)
Learnings
The biggest shift came from changing how success was measured. Once decisions were evaluated using contribution margin rather than channel metrics alone, it became much clearer where to invest and where to pull back.
The results came from clearer priorities, stronger commercial measurement, and the confidence to scale what worked.
As soon as we met Growth Society, we knew they were the right partner. It's rare to find a team that blends broad capability and strategic focus without blowing the budget — their fractional approach is perfect for us. Will and the team made an immediate impact with clear plans and deep industry experience.
Richard Sharp
Marketing Director, Horwood Homewares
