5 Key Lessons from the Beauty Industry’s Top 700 Performers
It’s an exciting time for beauty brands. Despite global economic challenges, consumer interest is strong and digital platforms are buzzing with beauty-related content. For those brands willing to invest in a marketing strategy that’s tech-savvy and data-driven, the opportunities for growth and expansion abound.
In our latest Beauty Insights report from the second semester of 2022, we analyzed data from over 700 brands to uncover the latest trends in influencer marketing, the best-performing platforms, the most lucrative sales regions, and more.
Based on those insights, here are 5 lessons we can take away from the beauty industry’s top 700 performers.
1. Regional strategies pay dividends.
The best marketing strategies for beauty brands depend on the region they’re targeting. Based on our S2 2022 data, we can see that the APAC region relies heavily on KOLs to drive value, while in EMEA, Media remains the key Voice.
For beauty brand marketing to reach its potential, it’s important to devise regional strategies that take geographic differences into account and leverage the most compelling Voices in each market.
2. Micro-influencers are worth engaging with.
With smaller, more targeted audiences, micro-influencers provide a unique opportunity to tap into a particular niche. And while their share of MIV® was only 7.7% in S2 2022, they were the only influencer tier to see year-on-year growth.
All-Star influencers were still the best performers overall, driving 45% of all MIV® with an average of $21K per placement. However, brands can benefit from an influencer marketing strategy that distributes campaigns across different tiers, capitalizing on the loyal and engaged communities of micro-influencers.
3. Owned Media is an increasingly powerful Voice.
If we look at the share of MIV® by Voice, Owned Media (i.e., a brand’s own channels and outlets) grew by a sizeable 23%. The power of Owned Media profiles is that they give you complete control over your content and how you convey your brand image.
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By making it a part of your strategy to grow your Owned Media audiences and use your owned content to create a deeper connection with them, you can maximize the ROI in these channels.
Posting celebrity content to Owned Media channels is one strategy with proven success for top-performing brands. As we can see, MIV® from Celebrity-owned channels decreased significantly year-on-year (-24%) – but celebrity endorsements, when amplified by other Voices such as Owned Media, continue to drive massive ROI.
4. TikTok is the dominant platform for reaching younger audiences.
Instagram remains one of the most important channels for beauty brands – but it is TikTok that’s leading growth. Year-on-Year, TikTok’s MIV® grew by an impressive 127%. Thanks to the platform’s younger demographic and highly algorithm-driven content discovery process, it’s ideal for connecting with a Gen Z audience.
Brands should also be aware that different influencer tiers play different roles on different social platforms. For example, Mid-Tier and Mega influencers have more impact on TikTok thanks to their more relatable presence, while All-Star influencers play a bigger role on Instagram. This highlights the need for brands to understand each platform’s nuances and use data-driven tools to measure performance and optimize influencer campaigns across different tiers.
5. Tracking data across different dimensions is key.
Despite global challenges, we can see that the beauty industry is thriving, allowing for strong growth opportunities across different markets and within the various beauty categories.
To make the most of these opportunities, brands need to take a multidimensional approach to tracking and measuring data. By benchmarking against the competition, and monitoring performance across products, categories, and Voices, brands can get the deepest possible understanding of their performance and work to continually optimize their marketing activities.
These are just some of the lessons and insights from our latest beauty industry report. To learn more 👉 download the full report here for free.
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