Case Study: Beuta
Rock solid digital growth with faux stone edging
Challenge
Scale a unique, highly seasonal new brand
Beuta’s PolyRock™ landscape edging is a unique alternative to stone and wood. It looks incredibly realistic – yet is lightweight, durable, and easy to install without digging or special tools. From humble beginnings in the Amish countryside, Beuta had ambitious goals. But a short peak season required careful forecasting to build up inventory, which was difficult for a young company without much data. Beuta partnered with Quiet Owl to create a digital marketing foundation primed for growth.
Scope & Goals
Scale Amazon without cannibalizing Shopify, unlock upper-funnel channels, improve website conversion.
Amazon / Media mix modeling (MMM) / Pinterest / Website conversion
Amazon: Focus on prospecting to find new customers
Amazon showed promise from the outset. But Beuta had concerns about undermining website sales – and not owning the customer relationship as new products launched. Amazon is also known for aggressively brand bidding against vendors on Google to siphon off their most valuable traffic.
Our Solution
Quiet Owl excluded Beuta’s brand terms on Amazon to focus solely on prospecting. While advertising on your own brand keywords and products may show a high ROAS, it does not ultimately drive growth. The emphasis on non-brand made Amazon a true discovery platform, attracting customers who weren’t already familiar with Beuta. Quiet Owl also favored manual targeting (instead of automatic) to gain more control, prioritize the strongest keywords and products, and grow Amazon revenue without cannibalizing Shopify sales.
Key Benefits
- 353% Amazon 2-year revenue growth
- 3.1x increase in new customers via Amazon (YoY)
Media mix modeling: Understand the value of upper-funnel marketing
When Beuta grew quickly, Quiet Owl knew it was time to add more upper-funnel strategies. However, it’s hard to measure awareness marketing using traditional cookie- and click-based attribution. Cold audiences are less likely to purchase immediately, especially for a product that requires measuring your yard. When was the last time you clicked a YouTube ad and bought something on the spot?
Our Solution
Quiet Owl relies on media mix modeling (MMM) software as another lens to evaluate and optimize digital campaigns. MMM uses statistical models to correlate ad spend from multiple platforms with Shopify and Amazon revenue. This bypasses the limitations of clicks and cookies – especially for longer buying journeys. MMM gave Beuta better insight into how channels intersect and contribute to growth, particular upper funnel ones such as Pinterest and YouTube. It also revealed Amazon’s expansion was largely independent from Beuta’s other D2C marketing efforts, which reaffirmed its value.
Key Benefits
- Confidence in upper funnel, despite weak platform ROAS
- 105% increase in YouTube spend, 26% increase in MMM ROAS (YoY)
Pinterest: Patience and persistence pay off
Beuta spent aggressively on Meta during peak spring season. To sustain growth – and avoid dependency / oversaturation of a single channel – Pinterest was the next logical choice. But initial tests had a ROAS below 1, which would’ve prompted many agencies and brands to abandon the channel entirely.
Our Solution
Quiet Owl knew from experience that Pinterest could drive real growth, yet also took longer than Meta to gain momentum. Buoyed by Beuta’s strong visual creatives, Quiet Owl leaned into contest testing and refined themes based on audience interests (e.g. gardening, DIY, home decor, etc.). This interest-based approach also proved more useful than simple keyword targeting. Critically, media mix modeling showed the impact more quickly than platform ROAS, validating the decision to push hard on Pinterest during peak season ramp-up.
Key Benefits
- 44% increase in Pinterest MMM revenue (YoY)
- Pinterest’s new customer acquisition cost went from 69% higher than Meta to lower than Meta’s by year 2
Website conversion: Don’t make customers edgy
The benefits of Beuta’s faux stone landscape edging are easy to convey. Yet website revenue didn’t keep pace with huge traffic increases in year 1. Conversion was clearly a bottleneck, but the solution wasn’t obvious. Quiet Owl ran user tests and found several key patterns. People were confused by the navigation, unclear why they needed multiple product pages just to compare sizes / colors, and unsure of how much edging to order for their project.
Our Solution
Quiet Owl created a new menu structure to make it easier to find the right product. Plus, we wireframed a ‘universal’ product page so people could select sizes and colors from one place, along with more supporting educational content. Lastly, we devised a project builder tool to help customers measure the right amount of edging to purchase. These changes produced enough uplift to justify a full website redesign at the start of year 3.
Key Benefits
- 92% more users who reached a product page
- 85% increase in add-to-cart rate
- 28% higher conversion rate
- 31% greater revenue per visitor
Results
With support from Quiet Owl to create detailed forecasts and digital marketing targets, Beuta’s business catapulted to new heights. In 2+ years, Beuta improved overall marketing efficiency while achieving:
3.5x
Website revenue growth
4.5x
Amazon revenue growth
Client Approved
“Working with Quiet Owl has been a game-changer for our business. They helped us grow faster, reach new customers, and make smarter marketing decisions. The results have been clear and impactful.”
Merv King | Founder
