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Roots to Revenue | How 'No Mow May' Became a Marketing Win for Sustainability Brands

Plus: Aldi enters the home tech race with premium features at a budget price point.

Author

Sophie Bruxner-Randall
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

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Welcome to Roots to Revenue, your essential newsletter for outdoor living eCommerce professionals.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Sector Spotlight 🎥

HOME TECHNOLOGY

Aldi’s new robot lawn mower, priced at $199, is among the most affordable on the market, offering features like app-controlled scheduling, obstacle detection, and variable cutting heights for up to 400m² lawns. This aggressive pricing challenges established brands and signals shopper demand for accessible smart home and garden tech. For marketers, it underscores the rising importance of price-driven, entry-level smart products in mass retail.

HOME AUTOMATION

Robot lawn mowers are reshaping consumer expectations in the home and garden category, offering hands-free lawn maintenance with minimal annual operating costs—typically $5–$15 plus basic blade replacements. While manual edge trimming remains necessary, the core value proposition lies in time savings and consistent lawn health. For marketers, this signals rising demand for smart garden solutions and lifestyle-driven automation. Positioning robotic mowers as part of a premium outdoor care ecosystem can unlock new value segments and foster brand differentiation in an increasingly tech-forward market.

YARD INNOVATION

DeWalt’s top-performing yard and garden tools—such as cordless pruners, trimmers, and portable power stations—are earning consistent praise for their reliability and efficiency. The brand’s interchangeable battery platform enhances upsell and retention potential across its product ecosystem. For marketers, this presents a blueprint for leveraging product integration, online reviews, and cross-category utility to drive bundled sales and high-LTV campaigns in the DIY and home improvement verticals.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

The Garden Storage Shed Market is poised for substantial growth through 2032, driven by rising demand, technological advancements, and evolving consumer needs across residential and commercial sectors. Marketers should leverage detailed segmentation by material, application, and region to target expansion opportunities. Data-driven decision-making and adaptability remain critical.

SUSTAINABLE GARDENING STRATEGY

No Mow May encourages homeowners to let lawns grow for a month, supporting pollinators and biodiversity, yet requires a structured approach to avoid damaging garden health. Marketers promoting sustainability or eco-friendly brands can leverage this trend by educating customers on proper preparation, plant selection, and post-campaign lawn recovery. Strategically communicating these actionable steps positions brands as both environmentally responsible and practically helpful.

LUXURY OUTDOOR LIVING

Exmark’s data-backed recommendations on ideal mowing heights by grass type and season offer more than lawn tips—they serve as a blueprint for content-driven customer engagement. For marketers, this illustrates the value of blending product utility with practical education to deepen trust and increase brand affinity. Positioning your brand as an expert resource in lawn care not only drives organic traffic but also builds long-term credibility with high-intent audiences.

Influencer Corner 📣

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

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Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

ClickZ is a Contentive publication in the DTC Ecommerce division