Case study · Home and local services
Fireplace Company · Boston
A business with a hard seasonal peak, where most of the year's revenue is decided in about four months and the marketing has to be built around that calendar.
How does a seasonal home improvement business grow?
By spending where the season is, not evenly across the year, and by using the quiet months to build the organic visibility that will be in place before the next peak arrives.
This Boston fireplace company reported 20% growth after a website redesign and Google Ads. What that 20% measures was not specified on the original case page, so this page does not specify it either.
A year decided in four months
A fireplace company wanted to grow sales.
Fireplace and hearth businesses in a northern climate have one of the sharpest seasonal curves in home improvement. Interest begins when the weather turns, peaks through autumn as people think about winter, stays high through the cold months, and then falls to almost nothing. A company can do the large majority of its year's business inside a few months.
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That shape changes every marketing decision. An advertising budget spread evenly across twelve months wastes a substantial portion of itself on months where nobody is buying, and is then underweight in the weeks that actually matter. Organic work has the opposite problem in reverse: it takes months to mature, so it has to be started in the quiet season for a peak that is half a year away.
The company also had the classic hearth retail problem, which is that the product is visual, expensive, highly configurable and mostly bought in person. The website's job is not to sell a fireplace. It is to get somebody into the showroom or to book a survey.
Why the redesign was part of the advertising plan
In 2020, Google commissioned Deloitte and 55 to monitor mobile load times across 37 brand sites and more than 30 million user sessions. They then measured what a 0.1 second improvement did. The study is dated and it is still the largest of its kind.
For a seasonal business the argument is sharper than the study itself. During a four-month peak, every conversion improvement is compressed into the months when the traffic actually exists, so work done before the season is worth considerably more than the same work done during it.
What we assessed
The shape of the demand across a year
Before anything else, the actual seasonal curve for the category in this market. Where it starts, where it peaks, when it collapses. Every budget and content decision follows from that shape.
What people search at each point in the season
Early season searches are exploratory and product-led. Peak season searches are urgent, installation-led and local. Late season is servicing and repair. Three different intents needing three different treatments.
Whether the site could show the product properly
Hearth products are chosen visually. A site that cannot display the range clearly, with fuel types, sizes and styles navigable, is asking a buyer to do work they will do on a competitor's site instead.
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How installation and survey were handled
The genuine conversion in this business is a showroom visit or a home survey, not an online sale. We looked at how easy either of those was to arrange and how clearly the process was explained.
How the ad budget was distributed
Evenly, which is the default and is wrong for a business with this curve.
Marketing built around a calendar
| Item | Before | After the work |
|---|---|---|
| Ad budget distribution | Even across the year | Weighted to the season |
| Off-season activity | Reduced advertising | Content and organic groundwork |
| Product display | Difficult to browse | Navigable by fuel, size and style |
| Primary conversion | A contact form | A showroom visit or survey booking |
| Search intent handled | One campaign | Exploratory, urgent and servicing |
| Installation process | Unexplained | Set out step by step |
Redesign in the quiet months, spend in the peak
Rebuild the site before the season, not during it
A redesign launched mid-peak is a risk taken at the worst possible moment. The work was done while demand was low, so that any teething problems happened when they were cheap.
Make the range genuinely browsable
Products navigable by fuel type, size, style and installation requirement, with enough detail for a buyer to shortlist before visiting. The aim is a better-informed showroom visit, not an online transaction.
Make the real conversion the obvious one
Booking a showroom visit or a home survey, prominent on every product page, with the process explained: what happens at a survey, what it costs if anything, and what the buyer needs to have ready.
See the remaining steps: Redesign in the quiet months, spend in the peakHide the remaining steps: Redesign in the quiet months, spend in the peak
Weight the ad budget to the curve
Spend concentrated where demand is, with the early-season build-up treated differently from the peak. Off-season spend cut back to a maintenance level rather than sustained out of habit.
- Early season: product and comparison searches
- Peak: installation and local urgency searches
- Late season: servicing, repair and safety
Use the quiet months for organic work
Content and technical work take months to mature. Doing them in the off-season means they are in place when the season arrives, at no ongoing cost per click.
Why seasonal bidding is harder than it looks
In a seasonal category everyone's budget rises at the same time, which changes the auction dynamics in ways an even budget cannot respond to.
During a peak, competitors increase their bids simultaneously and costs rise for everyone. A business that has improved its landing experience beforehand holds its position more cheaply, because the auction is not decided by the bid alone.
This is the practical connection between a redesign and an advertising budget, and it is why they were part of one engagement rather than two. The site work makes the media spend go further at exactly the moment the media is most expensive.
It also argues for doing the site work early. A landing page improved in August is working throughout the peak. The same improvement made in November has missed most of what it was for.
What changed, and what 20% refers to
The company reported 20% new growth after the redesign and the Google Ads work.
What that 20% measures was not stated. It could be revenue, enquiries, sales, traffic or showroom visits, and the original case page does not say. We have kept the figure because it appears on the live page and carried the ambiguity forward rather than resolving it in our favour, which would have been easy and dishonest.
If a reader wants to know whether this represents a good outcome, the honest answer is that it depends entirely on which of those things grew, and nobody recorded it. The method is the transferable part: for a business with a sharp seasonal curve, doing the site work in the quiet months and concentrating the spend in the peak is the structural decision that matters, and it is available to anyone in a seasonal category.
About these results
The 20% figure was published as new growth without specifying what grew. It could refer to revenue, enquiries, sales or traffic. We have not chosen one, because the original does not.
No baseline and no timeframe were published alongside it.
Seasonal businesses are difficult to measure year on year, because weather, energy prices and the timing of a cold snap move demand independently of anything marketing does. A percentage measured across one season should be read with that in mind.
Results are from a specific client engagement and vary by market, budget, competition and other factors. They are examples of past outcomes, not a guarantee of future results.
What was actually delivered
- A website redesign, launched outside the peak season
- Product range made browsable by fuel type, size, style and installation requirement
- Showroom visit and home survey made the primary conversion, with the process explained
- Google Ads restructured around the three phases of the season
- Ad budget weighted to the demand curve rather than spread evenly
- Off-season organic groundwork so it would be mature before the next peak
If your business has a season
Map your curve before you plan anything. Pull two or three years of enquiries or sales by month and look at the actual shape. Most seasonal businesses know they have a season and have never written down where it starts, where it peaks and how fast it falls, which is the information every budget decision depends on.
Do your site work in the trough. A redesign, a speed improvement or a new conversion path launched during your peak is a risk taken at the most expensive possible moment, and it arrives too late to benefit from most of the season anyway.
Weight your spend, do not spread it. Even monthly budgets are an accounting convenience, not a strategy. If eighty percent of your demand is in four months, that is where the money should be.
Insist on knowing what a growth figure measures. This case carries a 20% number whose unit nobody recorded, and that is the whole lesson. Before you accept any percentage, from us or from anyone else, ask what grew, from what, over what period.
Have a season you plan around?
We will map your curve first. Where the money should go usually becomes obvious once you can see it.
Straight answers.
Should seasonal businesses stop advertising in the off-season?
Reduce rather than stop, in most cases. A maintenance level keeps the account's history and learning intact and catches the genuine early buyers, who tend to be the best-prepared customers of the year.
The waste is not in off-season advertising, it is in off-season advertising at peak-season levels.
When should a seasonal business start its SEO work?
As early as possible, and certainly not in the peak. Organic work takes months to mature, so content written in spring is what ranks in autumn.
This is the single most common planning error in seasonal categories: the business starts thinking about visibility when it notices demand rising, by which point it is already too late for that season.
What should a hearth retailer's website actually try to do?
Get somebody into the showroom or book a survey. These are considered, configurable, installed products and very few are bought sight unseen.
That means the site should be judged on visits and survey bookings, not on online transactions or on time spent browsing.
Does a redesign really affect advertising costs?
It can, because Google's Ad Rank includes landing page experience alongside expected click-through rate and ad relevance. A better landing page can hold a position against a higher bid.
The effect is real and it is not unlimited. A good landing page does not overcome a bid that is far below the market, it makes a competitive bid go further.
How do you account for weather in a seasonal comparison?
Carefully, and with humility. An early cold snap moves an entire category's demand forward by weeks, and a mild winter suppresses it regardless of anything marketing does.
The practical approach is to compare like periods across multiple years and to treat any single-season percentage as indicative rather than conclusive.
Where this comes from.
Primary documentation and published research behind the guidance on this page.
- Google Ads Help: About ad position and Ad Rank (opens in a new tab)Why the highest bid does not automatically win the auction.
- Google Ads Help: About Quality Score (opens in a new tab)Expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, defined by Google.
- Google Search Central: Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results (opens in a new tab)How loading, responsiveness and layout stability factor into search.
- ENERGY STAR (opens in a new tab)Government efficiency programme referenced across home improvement.
- Google Search Central: Local business structured data (opens in a new tab)The markup that tells search engines what a location is and where it is.
Talk to the team
A short call, a look at how the business currently shows up, and a straight answer on what we would do first.