Adriatic Furniture
Retail & Furniture · Melbourne, Victoria
Over 380% growth for an eight-figure retailer
A three-year paid media and growth engagement that grew an eight-figure-a-year furniture retailer by over 380%, with cost per acquisition down 62%.
380%
Business growth across the engagement
62%
Reduction in cost per acquisition
27%
Increase in average order value
2
New showrooms opened during the engagement
The Challenge
Where Adriatic Furniture started
Adriatic Furniture was already a substantial business — an eight-figure-a-year Melbourne furniture retailer with established showrooms and a loyal local customer base. Businesses at that size are the hardest to grow by a large multiple, because the easy wins are long gone.
Furniture retail also carries structural problems that most ecommerce categories don't. Considered purchases with long decision cycles. Bulky stock that ties up capital. Damaged and end-of-line inventory that has to move somewhere. And an online channel that competes with the same brand's physical showrooms rather than replacing them.
The constraint was acquisition cost. The business could sell, and it could deliver, but the cost of winning each new customer decided how far the budget could stretch — and therefore how fast the whole thing could grow.
The Approach
What we did
Treat paid media as a growth engine, not a channel
The engagement covered paid media alongside the wider growth picture — offer, conversion path and how online and showroom demand support rather than cannibalise each other.
Optimise relentlessly against acquisition cost
Every campaign decision was measured against cost per acquisition rather than impressions, clicks or platform-reported conversions. That single discipline is what took CPA down 62%.
Turn problem stock into a profitable campaign
A warehouse-sale campaign was built specifically to move damaged and end-of-line stock — and it moved it profitably, converting a working-capital problem into revenue instead of a write-down.
Grow online without undercutting the showrooms
Online sales grew by multiple seven figures a year while the business opened two new physical showrooms during the engagement — the two channels scaled together.
The Results
What changed
- Over 380% growth for the business across the three-year engagement.
- 62% reduction in cost per acquisition.
- Average order value up 27%.
- Online sales grew by multiple seven figures a year.
- Two new physical showrooms opened during the engagement.
The warehouse sale: making dead stock a growth lever
Every furniture retailer carries stock that can't be sold at full price — floor models, transit damage, end-of-line pieces. The usual outcome is a write-down, or a clearance that shifts the units and loses money doing it.
The warehouse-sale campaign was built to move that stock profitably. Targeting, creative and offer structure were designed around buyers who are actively looking for a bargain on quality furniture and are unbothered by a scratch on a piece that will sit against a wall. The stock cleared, the campaign paid for itself, and the freed warehouse space and working capital went back into stock that sells at margin.
It is a good illustration of what a growth engagement should do that a media buyer cannot: look at where the business is losing money and ask whether marketing can turn that into revenue rather than simply spending against the products that were already selling.
Why cost per acquisition was the number that mattered
In a business with physical showrooms, warehousing and delivery, acquisition cost is not an abstract marketing metric — it decides how much of each sale survives to the bottom line, and therefore how much can be reinvested into growth.
Driving CPA down 62% did two things at once. It made every existing dollar of spend go substantially further, and it made previously marginal audiences worth buying. That is what makes growth of this scale possible without the ad budget expanding to absorb all of it.
Average order value rising 27% over the same period compounds the effect: more revenue per order, less cost to win the order. Those two lines moving in opposite directions is the whole engagement in one sentence.
Online growth alongside physical expansion
Retailers often treat ecommerce growth and showroom expansion as competing bets. Adriatic did both at once — online sales grew by multiple seven figures a year while two new showrooms opened.
That only works when the marketing accounts for how furniture is genuinely bought: research online, sit on it in a showroom, then purchase through whichever channel is convenient. Campaigns measured purely on last-click online revenue tend to strangle exactly the demand that walks into a showroom a fortnight later.
“Our online presence has never been stronger.”
Lenny Catalano
Managing Director, Adriatic Furniture
Watch the video testimonialQuestions about this engagement
How long was the engagement?
Three years of paid media and growth work with the retailer, across which the business grew by over 380%.
What happened to acquisition costs?
Cost per acquisition fell by 62% while average order value rose 27%.
Did the online channel replace the showrooms?
No. Online sales grew by multiple seven figures a year and the business opened two new physical showrooms during the same period.
Services behind this result
Google Ads Management
Search and shopping campaigns measured against acquisition cost.
Facebook & Meta Ads
Paid social built for considered, high-value retail purchases.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Getting more revenue from the traffic already arriving.
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