Celtic Timber

Celtic Timber is a Welsh timber merchant based in Pembrokeshire. It sells solid oak fireplace beams, mantels and surrounds, box beams that hide structural steel, made-to-measure shelves and cladding, genuine whisky and wine barrels turned into planters, water butts, garden tables and ice baths, and kiln-dried firewood.

Sustainability is part of the brand rather than a footnote. The website says the business has planted 15,514 trees and donated £23,263 to rewilding projects, uses sustainably sourced certified timber, and aims for zero wood waste.

Celtic Timber came to Castle after two years of flat revenue. The products sold, the reviews were good and the previous agency had been running ads throughout, but the business couldn’t get past the same ceiling.

A plateau like that is rarely one problem. More often it’s a set of channels each doing a reasonable job in isolation, with nobody asking whether the ads, the shopping feed and the emails add up to more than the sum of their parts. The brief was simple: grow again.

Most of what Celtic Timber sells is a considered purchase. A fireplace beam is made to size, so people measure first. An oak barrel ice bath costs hundreds of pounds and needs a space in the garden. Somebody browsing a water butt in spring may not buy until they’ve checked with whoever shares the garden.

Products like that rarely sell on the first visit, which is why Meta retargeting was central to the plan. It keeps the products in front of people who have already looked, with the reasons to buy that answer the questions they’re likely to have: made to your size, about a week’s lead time, brackets and oil included, rated five stars on Google.

The creative leads with the product and what it fixes, not with the brand. Recent ads in the account show the pattern:

• “Say goodbye to ugly steel beams” for oak box beams that slot over structural steel, made to size with nine oil finishes;
• solid air-dried oak mantel beams with hidden brackets and roughly a one-week lead time;
• whisky-barrel water butts “rated 4.9/5 by 114 verified UK customers”, from £173 including delivery;
• whisky-barrel garden tables, and a new Black Edition oak ice bath for cold-water therapy;
• seasonal pushes such as kiln-dried firewood for winter, a Black Friday homeware sale and a January sale on oak beams.

Seasonality matters for a business like this. Firewood and fireplace beams sell into autumn and winter, barrels and garden furniture into spring and summer, and ice baths around the new year. Matching the creative to the season means the budget is always behind something people want that month.

Celtic Timber’s catalogue is wide: around 125 products, from heat logs at about £12 to an ice bath and chiller bundle at more than £1,100. A Shopping account that treats all of that as one pot will spend in the wrong places.

Castle rebuilt the Google Shopping campaigns so the catalogue is grouped and bid on in line with how each product line actually sells, putting budget behind the lines that sell rather than spreading it across everything.

Castle runs Celtic Timber’s email flows, the automated sequences that go out when someone signs up, leaves a basket, or buys. They now generate more than 15% of the store’s monthly sales.

That’s in line with what email platforms see at scale. Klaviyo’s 2026 email benchmarks found that automated flows bring in nearly 41% of email revenue from just 5.3% of sends. For a business with long consideration times, an abandoned-basket email is often the nudge that turns a measured-up beam into an order.

Within three months of Castle taking over, revenue was up 30%. That was the end of the plateau, and growth has continued since.

Celtic Timber now generates more than 127% more revenue than it did in 2024, more than double, with email flows accounting for over 15% of monthly sales.

• Look at the channels together. A plateau usually means the ads, the feed and the emails aren’t working as one system.
• Retarget for the buying cycle. Made-to-measure and big-ticket products need follow-up that answers the questions people have between visits.
• Lead with the product and the problem it solves. “Say goodbye to ugly steel beams” sells harder than a logo.
• Let email do its share. Automated flows took more than 15% of monthly sales for Celtic Timber.

How did Castle break Celtic Timber’s revenue plateau?

By changing every paid channel at once: product-focused Meta creative, retargeting built for considered purchases, rebuilt Google Shopping campaigns and automated email flows. Revenue rose 30% within three months.

How much has Celtic Timber grown?

The store now generates more than 127% more revenue than it did in 2024, and growth has continued since the first three months.

How much revenue do the email flows bring in?

More than 15% of Celtic Timber’s monthly sales come from automated email flows, the sequences triggered by sign-ups, abandoned baskets and purchases.

Why does retargeting matter for timber products?

Products like made-to-measure oak beams and barrel ice baths are rarely bought on the first visit. Retargeting keeps them in front of people while they measure up and decide.