Curate Beauty -
PAID SEARCH AND SOCIAL ADS
Increased leads and achieved 34% ROAS for indie beauty marketplace
The Brief
Curate Beauty is a wholesale marketplace for indie beauty brands.
Curate Beauty had accumulated a fairly large selection of independent brands, but they did not have enough retailers on their platform. They had never run ads for their business before, so they approached CFD to find an efficient way to generate leads through paid search and social ads. The secondary goal was to increase revenue by attracting purchases from these retailers.
Approach
Since it was the first time Curate Beauty was using paid advertising, the first few months were all about testing. There were two big priorities:
- Finding the right audience
- Finding the right offer/appeal
From there, it would be possible to test and iterate on the ads.
facebook ads
Facebook ads focused on titles and occupations related to retail and beauty, as well as interest and behavior-based categories relating to the retail industry.
To find the right offer, CFD A/B tested ads leading straight to a registration form, as well as ads that led to lead magnets, including a free sample pack and a free report.
Over time, we added more audiences and offers to combat ad fatigue and potentially increase results. Our lookalike audience performed well as did new offers including a 10% discount for new purchases and a gift pack for larger purchases.
google ads
CFD’s main goal was to capture as many B2B-related searches as possible while avoiding B2C-related searches. The challenge was the high degree of keyword overlap between the two audiences.
To avoid overlap as much as possible, the keyword strategy included synonyms and proxy terms that only B2B audiences would use. It was also necessary to keep an eye on keywords with high levels of traffic, which is typically an indicator of B2C-related keywords. Once these were identified they were turned off to help drive only the most relevant traffic.
Additionally, ad copy emphasized the B2B nature of the offerings, so that fewer people clicked on the ads expecting a B2C ecommerce experience.
Results
On Facebook, it was easy to see that the free report lead magnet was highly effective. In some instances, the report generated leads at a price 3 times lower than the other two approaches.
Overall, the average cost per lead was £10 – a great result for the B2B market.
Moreover, CFD succeeded at generating more than £14,000 per month in secondary sales with an ad spend of £500. That’s a ROAS of 34.12!
