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Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads
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.
FROM THE DESK
I mapped every water source within a mile of my house last month. The creek I knew about. The fire hydrant, sure. But I also found two natural springs I'd walked past for years without noticing, a community pool, and a neighbor's rain barrels that reminded me to set up my own. When you start looking for water with preparedness eyes, it's everywhere.
Here's what I've got this morning.
THE BRIEF
Hidden Water: Sources You Walk Past Every Day
We've covered water storage (Issue 3), purification (Issue 22), apartment solutions (Issue 39), and rainwater harvesting (Issue 48). This week is about finding water when your stored supply runs out and the tap stops flowing.
Start inside your home. Your water heater holds 30 to 50 gallons of drinkable water. Turn off the power or gas to the heater, open a hot water faucet somewhere in the house to break the vacuum, then drain from the valve at the bottom of the tank. This water is already treated and safe.
Your pipes hold water too. After the main supply stops, there's still water in your plumbing. Open the highest faucet in your house to let air in, then collect from the lowest faucet. You'll get a few gallons.
Toilet tanks (not bowls) hold clean water if you haven't used chemical treatments or tablet cleaners. The back tank, the upper part, is filled with the same water that comes out of your tap.
Outside your home, think about bodies of water within walking distance. Creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes, swimming pools, decorative fountains, and retention ponds all contain water that can be purified. Map these now while Google Maps works. Note the distance and route from your home.
Dew and condensation collection work in humid environments. A tarp laid on grass overnight collects dew that can be wrung into a container. It's slow, maybe a cup per session, but it's water from nothing.
Neighbors with pools have thousands of gallons. A standard residential pool holds 15,000 to 30,000 gallons. Treated with chlorine, it's already partially purified. Run it through a filter and it's drinkable. This isn't about raiding your neighbor's pool. It's about community resources during community emergencies.
The hierarchy is: use stored water first, then tap your water heater, then harvest rain, then procure from environmental sources and purify. Each step requires more effort and more treatment, so work through them in order.
Know your purification options for each source. Water heater and toilet tank water is already safe. Pool water needs charcoal filtration to remove chlorine. Creek and pond water needs full purification (filter plus chemical treatment or boiling). Match the treatment to the source.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Locate three water sources within walking distance of your home.
A creek, a pond, a pool, a fire station with a hydrant. Mark them on your paper map (Issue 28) or your offline digital map (Issue 31). If your stored water runs out, you need to know where to go next.
ON THE RADAR
EPA Tests: 176 Million Americans Have PFAS in Their Tap Water
New EPA test data place 176 million Americans on tap water contaminated with PFAS — four million more than the agency’s previous count. The CDC has detected PFAS in the blood of 99% of Americans, including newborns. EPA is keeping the 4 parts-per-trillion limit on PFOA and PFOS but extended the compliance deadline to 2031 and dropped regulatory limits on four other PFAS chemicals (GenX, PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS).
For most households this means stored water has cleaner specs than what comes out of the tap. A point-of-use filter rated for PFAS removal — reverse osmosis or NSF/ANSI 53/58 certified activated carbon — does what your municipal supply isn’t required to.
LESSON FROM: MYKEL HAWKE
Mykel Hawke's Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook is designed as a pocket reference, and the water section is one of its strongest chapters. His approach to water procurement follows the military doctrine of "water discipline," always knowing where your next source is before you need it.
Hawke teaches a three-tier water strategy: carry water, find water, make water. Carrying is obvious. Finding means identifying sources in your environment before the emergency. Making means collection methods like solar stills, transpiration bags, and dew collection that produce water from the environment itself. The third tier is slow and labor-intensive, but it works when nothing else is available.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
Iran Strikes US Warship Off Jask as Trump Launches Strait of Hormuz Convoy
Two missiles from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy reportedly hit a US Navy warship near Jask on May 4, hours after President Trump activated Operation Project Freedom — guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, and 15,000 service members deployed to escort civilian vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. About 20,000 seafarers and several hundred ships have been stranded since the strait’s de facto closure following the April ceasefire. Iran is calling any escorted convoy a ceasefire violation.
The strait carries roughly a fifth of global oil. If this escalates, expect gasoline, diesel, and shipping insurance to move first, and grocery prices to follow within weeks. Top off vehicle tanks and check generator fuel reserves now, before the rest of the country starts panic-buying.
WHAT WE’RE TESTING
This is a collapsible water bottle that rolls up to the size of a fist when empty. I carry two of them in my go-bag. When I need water, they unfold and hold a liter each. When I don't, they take up almost no space.
I've filled them from gas station sinks, stream crossings, and my own water heater drain during a test run. They thread onto a Sawyer filter for in-line purification. The material is BPA-free, taste-neutral, and durable enough that I've been using the same pair for over a year without leaks.
For go-bags and daily carry, collapsible containers beat rigid bottles because they don't reserve space when empty. That matters when every cubic inch counts. About $15 each.
Budget alternative: Zip-lock freezer bags (quart or gallon size). They hold water, they're lightweight, and they cost almost nothing. Not durable for repeated use, but functional in a pinch.
OVERRATED / UNDERRATED
Overrated: Survival straws for home preparedness. They work, but you can only drink water through them, not collect, transport, or cook with it. A gravity filter or pump filter gives you versatility that a straw can't match.
Underrated: Your water heater as an emergency water source. Most households are sitting on 40 gallons of clean, drinkable water and don't know how to access it. Learn the drain procedure now. It takes two minutes.
THE LINK DUMP
ThePrepared.com: Emergency Water Sources — Comprehensive guide to finding water in urban and suburban environments.
USGS Water Resources — Real-time stream and groundwater data for your area.
Drought.gov — Current drought conditions and forecasts.
Grokipedia: Water Purification — Background on treatment methods for different source types.
NEXT ISSUE
Power options beyond generators. Solar basics for the homeowner who wants backup power without fossil fuel dependence.
PS: That community pool down the street from my house holds about 20,000 gallons. Properly filtered, that's enough drinking water for my neighborhood for weeks. I mentioned this to the HOA president. She'd never thought about it that way. Neither had I, until recently.
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