From Stuck to Scaling: A Beauty Brand Case Study on Smarter Growth

June 10, 2025
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When you’re in the weeds of trying to scale a DTC beauty brand, it can feel like a constant guessing game:

  • You test new ads—some perform, some don’t.
  • You launch a promo—but results are inconsistent.
  • You hire an agency—yet ROAS still stays flat.

It’s frustrating. Especially when you know your product is great, your customers love you, and your brand looks better than ever.

So what’s missing?

That’s exactly what one 8-figure DTC beauty brand asked us last year when they came to Tier 11. Despite years of growth and loyal customers, they had hit a wall. And every new tactic felt like throwing spaghetti at the wall—without any real results.

What happened next is why we’re sharing this beauty brand case study. Because their story is likely yours too.

The Symptoms: Growth Had Flatlined

Before working with us, this brand had already done everything right—at least on paper.

✅ Clean, modern branding
✅ High customer retention
✅ Steady Meta and Google ad budget
✅ Influencer partnerships and social content
✅ Dedicated in-house marketing team

But growth had plateaued. CAC was rising. Attribution was muddy. And the team couldn’t figure out what to fix first.

They had the right tools—what they lacked was alignment.

The Shift: Building a Connected Growth System

When they came to us, we started with a simple question:

“What’s your system for turning ad clicks into profitable customers?”

The answer? There wasn’t one.

Each department was optimizing in isolation:

  • Media buyers running ads to best-guess pages
  • Designers building creative without conversion feedback
  • CRO teams testing headlines without context on traffic sources
  • Analysts piecing together reports from disconnected tools

What they needed was cohesion—a Conversion Engine™.

What Is the Tier 11 Conversion Engine™?

The Conversion Engine™ is our proprietary system that aligns:

🔹 Paid Media – matched to audience segments and intent
🔹 Creative Strategy – built around messaging that converts
🔹 Landing Pages – custom-designed to mirror ad angles
🔹 Data & Attribution – tracked across every touchpoint

The goal? Eliminate guesswork and build compounding performance.

We tested UGC variants for TikTok paired with landing pages built for Gen Z conversion flow—and dropped CAC by 22% in just 30 days.

With this brand, we didn’t touch the budget. We didn’t rebrand. We didn’t switch platforms.

We simply aligned the funnel—and everything changed.

The Results: 6 Months of Smart Growth

Within six months of launching the Conversion Engine™, the numbers spoke for themselves:

📈 57% Year-over-Year revenue increase
💰 28% reduction in CAC
🛍️ 19% lift in average order value from new customers

How?

Let’s break it down.

1. Creative Was Aligned With Conversion

We started by mapping their best-performing ad angles—and comparing them to landing pages.

What we found was stunning:

  • Ads focused on “clean ingredients,” but LPs talked about subscription models.
  • Influencer videos emphasized skin feel, but product pages led with clinical stats.
  • Retargeting ads offered urgency, but the checkout flow felt sluggish.

We fixed this with direct alignment: every ad led to a page that continued the same story.

Result? Session-to-checkout conversions rose by 24%.

2. Smarter Targeting With Tiered Funnels

Instead of dumping all traffic into one generic funnel, we segmented users based on entry point and intent.

  • Cold traffic from paid social → education-first pages with UGC
  • Warm retargeting → benefit-driven landing pages with testimonials
  • Email clicks → offer-specific LPs with minimal distractions

Additionally, we tested UGC variants for TikTok paired with landing pages built for Gen Z conversion flow—and dropped CAC by 22% in just 30 days.

This helped reduce bounce rate and increased time on site—two major signals for both conversions and retention.

3. Real-Time Attribution = Real-Time Improvements

We integrated UTM tracking and CRM data into one unified dashboard.

That meant:

  • Media buyers could see exactly which creative drove the highest LTV
  • Designers knew which visual themes correlated with purchases
  • CRO teams prioritized testing based on high-traffic pages—not assumptions

The result? We weren’t guessing. We were optimizing in real time.

Lessons Learned for Other Beauty Brands

This wasn’t a “lucky break.” It was the result of replacing disconnected tactics with a connected system.

If you’re a beauty founder or head of growth asking:

  • Why aren’t our ads scaling profitably?
  • Why is our AOV dropping?
  • Why are we working harder but seeing fewer results?

Here’s your answer: you don’t need a new tactic—you need alignment.

Want Results Like This?

You don’t have to overhaul your entire team. You don’t have to rebuild your tech stack. And you definitely don’t have to hire 3 more agencies.

You just need a system built for the way modern beauty brands grow.

That’s exactly what the Beauty Growth Blueprint session is designed for.

In 30 minutes, we’ll help you:

  • Spot the gaps in your current funnel
  • Prioritize the top 3 fixes for fast wins
  • Decide whether the Conversion Engine™ is right for your brand

And yes—it’s free.

Ready to stop guessing and start scaling?

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