Client Case Study
Blue Tree: 25.5× booked value per marketing dollar.
Customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value and return across the managed marketing program, including SEO, AEO, Google Ads and Meta Ads. Follow 145 acquired customers from August 2025 through August 2026.
A Defender Digital growth-network result. Historic work delivered by a specialist partner, shared with permission.
acquisition cost
booked to date
marketing dollar
August 2025 through August 2026. Booked value before project costs, not collected cash or profit.
“I've already recommended Jason to two or three people.”Jerome Besnard
Sales and Marketing Manager, Blue Tree Outdoor Living
Excerpt from the recorded client testimonial
A 43-year reputation.
A new way to explain the work.
Blue Tree Outdoor Living builds pools, landscapes and hardscapes across Southeastern Pennsylvania. Its website needed to help homeowners understand the company and make a considered project decision.
The broader engagement begins.
A specialist partner in the Defender Digital growth network began the broader marketing engagement. Jason Spencer coordinated the website, search, paid media, lead tracking and reporting.
The new website launches.
A new way for homeowners to understand Blue Tree and its work.
The site enters the conversation.
Blue Tree's sales team was hearing customers refer to the site's explanations during conversations about their projects.
Blue Tree Outdoor LivingRecorded testimonial · July 2026
“It was multiple webpages connecting together and giving you the story of the company.”
Read the full quote
“It was not just one webpage. It was multiple webpages connecting together and giving you the story of the company. That's exactly what was missing on the previous website.”Watch Jérôme’s recommendation
The website and the sales process share the same questions.
at the June 2026 launch
- Real project imagery
- The people behind Blue Tree
- Financing information
- Service-specific routes to an estimate
See the work.
Real project photography shows the pools, hardscapes and landscapes Blue Tree builds.
Understand the project.
Service pages explain the process, financing and questions that arise before an estimate.
Start a conversation.
An estimate request connects the website to Blue Tree’s sales team.
Comparing bids / Understanding the process / Dealing with township requirements
Website structure described in this case. A route through the site is not a measured conversion result.
Search work made the services and locations clearer to search systems. Reporting followed recorded sources into inquiries, estimates and signed projects.
Connect the work to the commercial record.
- Recorded source
- Inquiry
- Estimate
- Signed project
- Google and Meta delivery
- Agency fees
- Website investment
Marketing-source results, total company results, projects and customers have distinct definitions.
That gives Blue Tree a basis for its monthly decisions: which sources are producing work, what the program costs and where the next improvement belongs.
See the related scopes for SEO services and reporting and website design around the buying decision. These describe the work; the case record establishes the periods and limits of the results.
The website helps homeowners understand the work.
The new bluetreelandscaping.com went live in June 2026 with 21 pages built to turn a visitor into an estimate request. Real project photos, financing options with named lenders, the people behind the 43-year company, and service pages for what Blue Tree sells now share one clear path to a quote.
"Awesome work on the new website. Thank you all!"
The June 10 launch is shown here as design and content work. These screenshots do not measure conversion-rate lift. The dated commercial and ranking records appear in their own sections.
$284,655in August booked work from Google and AI search sources.
8signed projects
August 1–31, 2026 · Blue Tree Outdoor Living
Each signed project keeps its recorded source. Together, Google organic search, Google Business Profile and AI Search account for the total below.
Google organic search
$125,751
Booked contract valueGoogle Business Profile
$130,811
Booked contract valueAI Search
$28,093
Booked contract valueSource: Blue Tree’s August 2026 Growth Dashboard, restated in September from current CRM records. Values represent signed contracts recorded under each primary source.
What the source record establishes
Closing-month totals can include leads acquired earlier. These figures do not isolate additional revenue caused by the June website.
AI Search is the CRM category. This record does not identify the engine for that signed project.
The website reached
the sales conversation.
Two accounts from Blue Tree.
August 2026. Reported by the people who spoke with the leads.
Blue Tree Outdoor Living
“Teaching how to compare bids, deal with township etc. was hugely helpful”
A new lead had made a point of praising the website’s educational content. Jérôme’s reply identified that lead’s source as ChatGPT.
Read the full quoted passage
“Teaching how to compare bids, deal with township etc. was hugely helpful for them to understand the process and the transparency is really appreciated.”
Chris DiVito, email to Blue Tree’s sales leadership, August 10, 2026. Chris reported the buyer’s feedback; Jérôme Besnard supplied the ChatGPT source in his reply.
A backyard plan led to a recommendation.
Jérôme described a homeowner who said ChatGPT had referred her to Blue Tree while she was planning her backyard.
- 01Planning a backyardThe homeowner was using ChatGPT.
- 02Finding a professionalShe reported a referral to Blue Tree.
- 03Hearing it in salesJérôme retold the account at the meeting.
What these accounts establishClient-reported discovery stories. The source records do not connect either account to the $28,093 signed project.
Google organic · September 2, 2026
146first-page organic rankings.
Across Blue Tree’s 434 tracked keywords.
are at #1.The first organic position.
47 at #199 at positions 2–10
Each square represents one of the 146 first-page keyword rankings. The 47 gold squares are at position one.| Organic position | Before launchJune 9, 2026114 keywords tracked | Expanded trackingSept 2, 2026434 keywords tracked |
|---|---|---|
| #1The top position | 4 | 47 |
| Top 3 | 7 | 80 |
| Top 5 | 10 | 104 |
| Top 10First page | 17 | 146 |
| Top 20 | 25 | 203 |
| Top 100 | 31 | 232 |
114 to 434 keywords.
We added 320 keywords on June 15. They have no June 9 observations, so these columns show the coverage recorded at each date, not growth across an unchanged set. The bars share a 0–434 keyword scale.
Source: SE Ranking September 2 export, Google USA localized to Schwenksville, PA. Both columns use single-day organic positions. Counts are cumulative: a #1 ranking also counts in the top 3, top 5 and other thresholds. Local-pack positions are measured separately. June 9 is the day before the website launched.
109 more first-page rankings.
First-page organic rankings rose from 37 to 146 after tracking expanded. June 15 is the first date with observations for the full set, five days after launch.
+109 first-page rankings · Same tracked set.
How the original 114 keywords changed
For a strict comparison, the original 114-keyword set recorded 24 first-page rankings on September 2. The additional 320 keywords account for 122 of the current 146 first-page rankings. On June 9, the original set contained 31 keywords with a recorded organic rank and 83 observed without a rank.
| Position threshold | June 9 | September 2 |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | 4 | 6 |
| Top 3 | 7 | 7 |
| Top 5 | 10 | 10 |
| Top 10 | 17 | 24 |
| Top 20 | 25 | 37 |
| Top 100 | 31 | 44 |
Local-pack top-three positions for this original set declined from 49 to 32. This is separate from the organic results above.
Examples with a documented June 9 baseline
| Keyword | June 9 | September 2 |
|---|---|---|
| plunge pool builders | 6 | 2 |
| custom pools and landscaping | 2 | 1 |
| outdoor hardscaping | Observed, unranked | 7 |
| custom pool designers | Observed, unranked | 7 |
| custom pools | Observed, unranked | 8 |
Blue Tree in Google's AI Overviews
The September 2 export records Blue Tree appearances for 43 of the 140 tracked keyword results with an AI Overview.
The export has no historical AI Overview series. It supports current coverage, not an AI-visibility growth rate or a promise of future recommendations.
What did it cost to acquire a customer, and what was that customer worth?
Across the managed program, 145 acquired customers averaged $28,658 in booked value through August 2026. Marketing acquisition cost averaged $1,125 per customer, including advertising, agency fees and website investment.
$163,062 in recorded investment divided by 145 acquired customers.
First and later signed projects from the same customers through August 31, 2026.
A booked-value return multiple. Project costs and sales payroll are outside this calculation.
August 1, 2025 through August 31, 2026. The full program includes SEO, AEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads and email. Booked LTV is observed to date, not a future lifetime forecast or profit.
Closing-period results
The separate view below groups signed projects by closing date. It contains 180 projects and $4,156,970.01 in booked contracts across 13 months. It is not the customer-cohort numerator used for LTV above.
August 1, 2025-August 31, 2026
booked contracts
and website investment
dollar invested
Booked contract value before project costs. It does not represent collected cash or profit. The ratio covers the whole marketing program.
180marketing-source signed projects
What goes into the investment
- Ad deliveryGoogle and Meta delivery
- Agency feesOwner-confirmed fees
- Website investmentWebsite, branding and accessibility
The deposit and installments are counted once.
Exact amounts and how to read the ratio
Exact investment: $163,061.62. Marketing-source booked contracts: $4,156,970.01.
The ratio divides contracts booked in the period by recorded marketing investment in that period. Display totals are rounded.
Sales may close after the month that generated the lead. This is a closing-period view of the whole program, not an acquisition-cohort or SEO-only return.
Earlier reports used different CRM histories and windows; their totals are not combined here.
Customer cohort method and exact figures
A customer can sign multiple projects. Blue Tree counts a first dated marketing-source win as a new customer unless earlier dated work proves otherwise. Stable CRM contact IDs are counted once. The 145-customer cohort booked $4,155,343.01 through August 31, 2026, including later work. Recorded marketing investment of $163,061.62 gives $1,124.56 acquisition cost per customer, $28,657.54 average booked LTV to date and a 25.4833× booked-value-to-investment ratio. The source set includes Google Ads, Meta Ads, Google organic, Google Business Profile, Bing organic, AI Search and email. Internal sales payroll and project delivery costs are outside the calculation. This is not profit-based ROI. Better history can restate the classification.
The people and projects behind the marketing
Every image comes from Blue Tree's operation in Southeastern PA: crews at work, finished projects, trucks in the field, and community events. Each campaign points buyers toward work Blue Tree has completed.
Build around the decision your customer has to make.
Project photograph supplied by Blue Tree Outdoor Living.
Make the estimate conversation easier to enter.
Chris's email names the useful content: comparing bids and understanding township requirements. Start with questions your estimators answer repeatedly, then place those answers beside relevant services and project examples.
Read what the sales team heardTrack what happens after an inquiry.
Keep the source attached as a lead moves to an estimate and signed work. Compare project quality and booked value with the cost of the program.
- Inquiry
- Estimate
- Signed work
Set the baseline.
- Keyword set
- Market
- Measurement method
Preserve the keyword set, market and measurement method. Added keywords expand what you can observe; they do not recreate a missing prelaunch result.
Check the ranking comparisonRead the parts that need improvement.
- Organic first-page coverage
- Increased
- Matched local-pack count
- Fell
The matched local-pack count fell even as organic first-page coverage increased. August organic-search booked value was below August 2025, while Google Business Profile and AI Search contributed booked work. Channel detail matters when deciding what to improve next.
Read the commercial recordWhat this case can help you assess.
Did the website create all of these results?
The June 10, 2026 launch sits within a broader engagement that began in April 2025. The commercial record includes paid media and other work. The matched 434-keyword comparison starts June 15; a separate 114-keyword prelaunch baseline is dated June 9. Customer comments describe specific experiences after launch. None isolates the website's incremental revenue effect.
Is the AI Search contract the lead Chris described?
The reviewed sources do not establish that connection. The CRM records one $28,093 AI Search project in August. Chris's email and Jerome's meeting account describe reported discovery experiences. They are presented separately.
Would this approach fit a hardscaper or pool builder?
Start with which projects you want, what buyers need to understand, what your sales team can handle and how booked work is measured. Your market, service mix, margins and capacity determine the scope. Blue Tree's figures are one client's record, not a forecast for another business.
What does an ongoing engagement involve?
Defender Digital starts with a free strategy session to discuss your marketing and priorities. If there is a fit, Defender scopes the work. The proposal defines the services, fee, responsibilities and review points. Blue Tree's recorded investment describes this engagement; it is not a price quote for another business.
Discuss your next
marketing priorities.
Bring your website and the marketing questions you want answered. Best fit: $3M+ home-service businesses across the Southeast.
session
Meet with Jason Spencer and LJ Seeger to review your marketing, identify gaps and decide what deserves attention first.
No purchase required.A researched written roadmap is available separately for $2,499. Implementation is scoped separately.
Sales and Marketing Manager
Blue Tree Outdoor Living
“I’ve already recommended Jason
to two or three people.”
Full quoted passage
“So, would I recommend someone? Absolutely. I've already done it. I've already recommended Jason to two or three people.”
The record behind the page.
- Commercial results Blue Tree's Growth Dashboard
- August 2026Reconciled and relabeled September 6-8.
- Rankings SE Ranking detailed export
- September 2Dated ranking observations.
- Chris DiVito's email Sales-team email
- August 10
- Jerome's meeting account Approved client source packet
- August 5
- Jerome's recorded testimonial Retained with the approved client source packet
- July 2026
Booked work, customer classifications and attribution can change as CRM records improve. Rankings are dated observations. Those limits stay beside the numbers so another owner can assess the evidence.