Months of audience management and offer optimization fuel soaring holiday sales for this beauty brand. Read this case study to see how we partnered with the AS Beauty team on a year-long focus to create this resounding holiday success.

The Challenge

Posting Black-Friday- and Cyber-Monday-like sales numbers in the days that followed for Laura Geller Cosmetics.

The Success

As a result of a year-long segmenting effort, increased email volume and aggressive offers, Laura Geller posted the second-best sales day of the year on Thursday, Nov. 30, just behind Cyber Monday, and beating Black Friday by almost 30 percent.

The Big Picture

Throughout 2023, Laura Geller and Alchemy Worx used segmentation to identify highly engaged individuals in Laura Geller’s file who would be receptive to more frequent messaging. Alchemy Worx also identified individuals who could be moved from lower-engaged segments into the more-active segments. At the same time, Laura Geller created Deals of the Day to re-engage their audience.

The aim was to significantly increase email and SMS volume overall while maintaining high engagement.

As part of the year-long effort, Alchemy Worx divided Laura Geller’s digital file into around 30 segments, including:

• High-Value buyer Engaged 
• High-Value buyer Unengaged
• Multi buyer Engaged 
• Multi buyer Unengaged
• One-Time buyer Engaged 
• One-Time buyer Unengaged 

Within those six broad segments are sub segments including: 

• High-Value buyer engaged – purchased in the last 30 days
• High-Value buyer engaged – purchased in the last 31-60 days
• High-Value buyer engaged – purchased in the last 61 – 180 days
• High-Value buyer engaged – visited the site in the last 30 Days 
• High-Value buyer engaged – visited the site in the last 31-60 days
• High-Value buyer engaged – visited the site in the last 61 – 180 days

Each of these segments is treated differently in terms of frequency and volume of massaging and offers. For example, multi buyers and non buyers received different deals of the day, and high-value, highly engaged customers get more messaging than other segments.

Moreover, the segments are continuously adjusted according to individuals’ behavior.

Through strategic segmentation, Laura Geller and Alchemy Worx was able to significantly increase email and SMS volume, resulting in a triple-digit percentage increase in revenue in 2023 over 2022. 

For Cyber Monday week 2023, Laura Geller and Alchemy Worx doubled the overall volume of email and SMS messages sent over the corresponding period in 2022. Revenue rose 140 percent, conversion-to-sale rates rose 50 percent and total orders shot up 147 percent.

Moreover, the eCPM rate, or revenue per thousand messages, increased 20 percent year over year for the same week, indicating that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the massive spike in volume did not have a negative effect on Laura Geller’s digital-marketing efforts.

During Black Friday week, ending Nov. 26, email and SMS revenue increased 23 percent over the previous week, accounting for 30.69 percent of Laura Geller’s site revenue.

The highest-volume days by far in terms of messages sent were Black Friday, Nov. 23, and Cyber Monday, Nov. 27. Conversion rates hovered between 7 percent and 8 percent between Black Friday and the following Sunday.

Then on Cyber Monday, conversion rates spiked to 11.61 percent, presumably the result of people waiting for what they figured would be the best deals.

For the next three days, outbound messaging volume dropped by half. A strategic “last-chance” sale featuring every previously offered deal of the day unlocked drove conversion rates north of 12 percent. 

Through offer and audience management techniques, Alchemy Worx and Laura Geller kept recipients interested and engaged well after Cyber Monday, setting the stage for aggressive offers that would result in the Thursday following Cyber Monday being the second-best sales day of the year, even beating out Black Friday.

“What we have done is significantly fine-tune the formula to maximize both engagement and revenue while minimizing churn,” explained Allan Levy, CEO of Alchemy Worx. “That’s where we add significant value.”

“Our Deal of the Day offers really helped maximize our engagement, and combining those offers with Alchemy Worx’ audience management helped us maximize our success this holiday season,” says Katherine Cabe, Senior Director of Retention, AS Beauty Group Inc.

About Alchemy Worx

Established in 2001, Alchemy Worx is a global agency providing a full-service solution with best-in-class email marketing, paid social, and SMS support, to more than 125 e-commerce and enterprise-level companies. Our team includes more than 100 team members in seven offices spanning three continents.

In addition to strategy, ESP solutions, design, content, HTML coding, deployment services, reporting & analytics, we are the leading implementer of Intelligent Automation. This solution automates message delivery, content, analytics, and optimization, whatever the ESP, allowing our clients to send highly personalized messages to everyone all the time.

We have also developed an industry-leading subject line tool, Subject Line Pro. It uses an ever-expanding database of more than 21 billion emails to instantly predict open, click, and delivery rates before campaigns are sent, which, according to Smart Insights, may eliminate the need to A/B test subject lines.

We can help you realize your revenue potential. 

Get your complimentary acceleration plan that includes the following: 

• Email/SMS engagement metrics and best practices
• Segmentation/reactivation review and recommendations
• Review of your emails and SMS automation and recommendations

setting you on the path to realizing gains in under 4 months!

Reach out to us at perfectyourprogram@alchemyworx.com for your plan, or visit us at https://alchemyworx.com/lets-talk/.