Direct-to-consumer skincare brand
Rebuilding paid social around creative testing, then using email flows to turn first orders into second ones.
- Sector
- E-commerce
- Timeframe
- Six months
- Focus
- Paid social return and repeat orders
- Services
- Paid MediaEmail & AutomationCRO
Illustrative artwork for a sample project
- return on ad spend
- 3.1×
- repeat purchase rate
- +42%
Illustrative figures for a sample project.
This case study shows how we run and report a project of this kind. The business and the numbers are not a real client's.
How the figures are countedThe challenge
Growth leaned on paid social, and the account had stopped learning.
Paid social was carrying almost all of the brand's growth, and every month it cost a little more to win the same customer.
Spend was spread across many small ad sets, each with too little data to tell a winning ad from a lucky week. New creative went live when someone had time to make it, not on a schedule.
Most first orders were a single product bought at a discount, so the return on that spend depended on a second order that nobody was actively asking for.
What the audit found
Too many ad sets, too little signal
Budget was split so thinly that no ad set gathered enough conversions to be judged fairly.
Creative made ad hoc
There was no record of which hooks, formats and offers had been tried, so old ideas were retested and weak ones stayed live.
Nothing after the first order
One welcome email and a monthly newsletter. No post-purchase, replenishment or win-back flow.
What we did
Simplify the account, feed it better creative, then earn the second order.
The plan ran in one sequence: fix what the account can learn from, give it better creative to learn with, then make each new customer worth more.
01 Paid Media
Paid Media & PPC
We consolidated the account into a few campaigns with enough budget each to give a clear read, and moved creative testing into its own campaign with fixed rules.
- Structure reduced to prospecting, retargeting and a dedicated testing campaign
- A weekly creative test with a written rule for what graduates and what is paused
- A shared log of every hook, format and offer tested, and what each one showed
- Budget moved each week toward ad sets that held their return at higher spend
02 Email & Automation
Email & Marketing Automation
With Klaviyo already in place, we built the flows that should follow a first order and timed them to how long each product lasts.
- A post-purchase series on how to use the product and what to expect from it
- Replenishment reminders timed to typical use of each product size
- A win-back flow for customers who pass their expected reorder date
- First-time and repeat buyers separated in every campaign send
03 CRO
Conversion Rate Optimization
Ads were sending people to general collection pages. We tested landing pages matched to the promise in each ad, and removed friction from the product page and cart.
- Landing pages built for the two strongest ad angles
- Product page tests on review placement, bundles and subscription wording
- A cart and checkout review on mobile, where most paid social traffic arrives
- Every test written up with a hypothesis, a result and a decision
What changed
A return that holds as spend grows, and customers who come back.
By the end of the period the account was simpler, new creative arrived on a schedule, and repeat orders had become a planned part of the return rather than a bonus.
Spend could rise without the return falling away
Fewer campaigns and a steady supply of tested creative meant budget increases went to ads that had already proved themselves.
More first-time buyers ordered again
Post-purchase and replenishment flows gave new customers a reason, and a reminder, to reorder.
A testing habit the team kept
The brand's own team now has a creative log and a test backlog it can run with or without an agency.
How this was measured
Sample figuresReturn on ad spend is platform-attributed revenue divided by ad spend, checked against store revenue for the same dates. Repeat purchase rate is the share of first-time customers who placed a second order within 90 days, compared between customer groups before and after the flows went live.
Illustrative figures for a sample project.
What comes next
Go deeper before going wider.
The next phase adds depth to the channels that are working before any new channel is opened.
Creator-made video in the weekly test
Short-form video from a small group of creators, tested under the same rules as every other concept.
A subscription offer where reorders are highest
Tested on the two products customers already buy again, with margin checked before it is rolled out.
SMS in the replenishment flow
For customers who opt in, a text reminder when a product is due to run out.