Stop Being Overlooked. Start Getting Seen.

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

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Guest post covering:

By Alex Mann

5:47pm, Tuesday. The office is emptying. I'm still at my desk, screen glare in my eyes, closing the same kind of ticket I closed yesterday, and the day before that. The coffee beside me went cold an hour ago. I drink it anyway, out of habit, and grimace when it hits my tongue.

I'm good at this job. Everyone says so. Lately, "good at this job" feels less like a compliment and more like a sentence.

Then, out of nowhere: a leadership position opens up. My stomach drops the way it does at the top of a rollercoaster - half excitement, half dread.

Can I actually do this? Would anyone even listen to me?

Imposter syndrome, running the show in my head. But one line won't leave me alone: you don't ask, you don't get.

So I go for it. Suit on, shoes polished, palms a little too warm. I walk in and give it everything. I answer well. I even surprise myself.

A week later, I'm called into the director's office. I remember the carpet. The closed blinds. The particular silence of a room where you already know the news before it's said.

"You didn't get the job."

It went to my best mate. The one who didn't even want it.

He looks at me across the desk, already braced for what happens next, because it's what happens every time. Nod. Say "no worries", "congrats" to my mate. Walk out. Then, in the corridor, in the group chat, at the pub: grumble. Mutter about favouritism. Let the resentment simmer for months.

Instead, I look the director dead in the eye and ask one question:

"What can I do to be ready for next time?"

He blinks. Genuinely thrown. Like no one has ever asked him that in this room before.

I didn't have the language for it then, but what happened next is something I'd later recognise from Carla Harris's Expect to Win: I'd just started building a sponsor.

Here's the part that stings if you let it: the decision had already been made in the director's head, weeks before that interview ever happened. Fair? No. Reality? Absolutely. And here's the only question that actually matters once you accept that:

How do you get into that person's head before the decision gets made?

You stop waiting for the job description and start asking the person who'll actually make the decision what success in the role looks like, months out, not in the interview. You ask them to mentor you.

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So that's what I did. I set up weekly catch-ups with the director and asked him to mentor me: what to pick up, what to fix, what a leader in that seat actually does. He started testing it, too, giving me real opportunities to prove it. When my manager was away, he had me run the team.

A year passes.

Another opportunity comes up.

This time, there's no drop in my stomach. No dread. Because this time, I'm already in the director's head. There's no contest. No corridor gossip. No "must be favouritism."

I get the job.

If any part of that Tuesday-desk feeling is familiar, capable, doing good work, watching someone less prepared get the nod while you wonder what you're doing wrong, I want to be direct with you: it is almost NEVER a skills problem. It's a visibility problem. No one has taught you how to get into the right head, at the right time, before the decision is already made.

That's the actual work I do now. I help tech, support and operations professionals turn quiet, unnoticed competence into evidence a decision-maker can't ignore, in their CV, in interviews, and in the conversations that happen long before any job is ever advertised.

The question I asked in that office was one small habit. It's the same habit I now teach, step by step, to people who are done being overlooked.

Stop being overlooked. Start getting seen.

Want to learn more about me?