Home

AcceptedInvestigate at the time

Halden & Rowe · Digital · Media

Approved the Easter paid-social burst on garden intent audiences.

Cleared 71% of the modelled overhang without touching price. Repeat play for bank-holiday windows going forward.

Ana · Digital Retail AnalystDecided Wed 4 MarAccountable · James Whitfield

Context

What was in the room.

The source recommendation and the situation as it was understood at the moment of decision. Frozen — this is what the decision was actually made on.

Source · Standalone

Early garden overhang with two weeks of media runway.

Digital · Media

Ana's recommendation at the time

Redirect £22k of March budget into a garden-intent audience burst for the ten days leading to Easter.

Rationale

Why it was decided.

The accountable owner's reasoning for the verdict. One paragraph; the record of judgement, not a defence of it.

Preferred the paid-media route to protect full-price integrity ahead of the mid-season reset. Cash risk was small enough to trial as a single window.

Evidence at time of decision

What Ana was reading.

The signals in play when the decision was taken. Preserved so the decision can be judged on the information it was made on, not on hindsight.

  • Category cover

    11.4 weeks

    vs 6-week target

  • Full-price sell-through

    62%

    of plan

  • Prior burst benchmark

    0.9× ROAS

    on the same audience

  • Budget available

    £22k in March

  • Days to Easter

    10

Accountable owner

James Whitfield

Head of Digital

Collaborators

  • Aoife Callaghan · Head of Customer

Outcome

Expected vs actual.

The number Ana modelled against the number that actually landed. Variance is shown honestly — ahead, in line, or behind expectation.

Expected

£145K

full-price revenue captured · ten-day burst

Methodology

£22k spend × modelled 1.1× ROAS × basket uplift on garden category, held at prior sell-through.

Actual

Ahead of expectation by 12%

£162K

Cleared 71% of the modelled overhang; ROAS landed at 1.24× against the modelled 1.1×.

Measured Fri 4 Apr

What Ana learned

The lesson, in one paragraph.

The pattern Ana takes from this decision into the rest of the organisation's memory.

Ana · what changed for future recommendations

The lesson

Garden-intent audiences underperformed the sitewide benchmark historically because the budget was spread thin. Concentrated ten-day windows lift ROAS meaningfully — the pattern held for two consecutive bank-holiday tests.

Applied from now on

Overhang prompts with a bank-holiday runway will now surface paid-media as a first-class alternative to markdown, with the expected ROAS band and the days-to-holiday cutoff.