Case study

The Grove: eight years of marketing for a premium New Jersey venue

The Grove is a wedding and event venue in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. It's one of the busier venues in the state's most expensive wedding market.

How it started

The Grove found me through my design work. They had an old website that wasn't helping them, and their Google Ads weren't working.

I put together a proposal that covered everything: a new brand and website, email marketing, Google, Facebook and Instagram ads, and their listings on The Knot and WeddingWire, with a monthly report on all of it. They said yes, and they stayed about eight years.

What we did

Ran their paid search and social, and moved spend between Google and Meta as each one performed. After a Facebook account problem in 2020, we shifted budget to Google.
Focused the targeting. In 2021 we concentrated the ads on Monmouth and Middlesex counties and raised the budget.
Brought the directories into the plan. In 2025 we took over their Knot and WeddingWire listings so every channel could be judged against the others.
Reported every month, for years, on inquiries, cost per lead and what changed.
Stood by them in 2020. When the pandemic shut weddings down, we cut our own fee and their ad spend so the account could ride it out.

The results

~700inquiries a month at peak, in an estimated top 1% of venues nationally by inquiry volume

71%lower cost per inquiry

67xreturn on ad spend: about $67,000 in estimated booking profit for every $1,000 in ads

~7,900inquiries a year (the 12 months to September 2025)

On $7,600–12,600 a month in ad spend.

Inquiries include every event type and channel: weddings, celebrations, corporate events and phone calls. The Grove changed ownership in 2026.

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