Beauty Industry Advertising Strategy: How to Find Your Target Market

5 Min Read

If you’re a cosmetics and beauty marketer, you know there’s no shortage of beauty products to choose from these days. The cosmetic market is projected to hit $805.51 billion by 2023, and half the growth in beauty is in digital spaces. And according to Laura Cox, CMO of skincare brand Oars and Alps, newer channels like Connected TV, also known as OTT advertising, are making an impact on marketing success in the industry. This makes targeting the right audiences – in the right places – to drive sales, research, and in-store traffic more important than ever.

We know audience segments such as beauty service subscribers, hair care shoppers, and natural beauty lovers all have specific interests when searching for the products that will work for their needs. Over the last few years, these consumer profiles have fragmented even further, and a personalized approach to finding your target market for cosmetics, skincare, and beauty products has become the norm.

How Do I Advertise My Beauty Products?

MNTN has partnered with LiveRamp and other data providers to allow beauty brands access to an endless number of audience targeting options. With access to Oracle targeting data, there is plenty of opportunity out there for any digital marketer looking to expand their customer base leveraging one of the most effective ad channels out there–Connected TV. 

Discover how you can reach new audiences with MNTN Performance TV.  

With all these advertising possibilities at your fingertips, we’ve helped you get started by recommending some audience segments that we’ve seen perform.

Strategy: Beauty Service Subscribers

• Market Segment Name: Women’s Subscription Box Shoppers
• Why You Should Use this Audience: This target audience is looking for consistency and convenience in their beauty product purchases. Consumers are more 65% more likely to buy from an online retailer that knows their purchase history, so this segment allows for the greater personalization that this audience in particular is searching for.

Strategy: Food Fanatics

• Market Segment Name: Diet & Weight Loss, Organic Food Shoppers
• Why You Should Use this Audience: One of the biggest trends these past few years has been the emergence of food as preventative medicine. Take advantage of the audience searching for this benefit by advertising ingredients such as superfoods and oils. For example, spending on beauty products with avocado oil has increased 31% since 2016, and across consumer goods.

Strategy: Skincare Aficionados

• Market Segment Name: Dermatology
• Why You Should Use this Audience: This target audience is the largest segment in the beauty industry, with skincare making up 37% of yearly revenue industry-wide. But the skincare products category is one of the most complex and diverse in cosmetics, so it can be important to know your audience well. Luckily, like the rest of the beauty industry, these shoppers are more accessible than ever. Consider targeting them on Connected TV, which allows skincare brands to tell their story in longer video ad formats that will appeal to these engaged consumers.

Strategy: Cruelty-Free Buyers

• Market Segment Name: Vegetarians
• Why You Should Use this Audience: Many beauty product users are abandoning their usual brands in favor of cruelty-free alternatives. If you offer a product that would appeal to this growing segment, make sure to target them specifically with eco-friendly messages and natural ingredient call-outs in order to effectively capture this growing audience.

Strategy: Hair Care Shoppers

• Market Segment Name: Hair & Beauty
• Why You Should Use this Audience: After skincare, this segment spends the second most in the industry – around 22% of the total revenue. One of the reasons for this is the growing male-centric beauty industry, so don’t leave this audience out of your digital marketing plans or you will miss out on a growing audience.  

Strategy: Natural Beauty Lover

• Market Segment Name: Organic Beauty & Skincare Products
• Why You Should Use this Audience: Like with cruelty-free buyers, this target audience is becoming more conscious of the ingredients and processes that went into their beauty products. And this audience can be a large one – 53% of consumers say the absence of undesirable ingredients is more important than the inclusion of beneficial ones. Make sure to target them by including information about your products’ ingredients in your copy. Otherwise you may be missing out on a segment that generated $1.3 billion in annual sales during 2017.

Strategy: Makeup Experts

• Market Segment Name: Makeup Researchers
• Why You Should Use this Audience: This target audience is extremely valuable, considering 10% of beauty customers generate 80% of the revenue within the beauty and cosmetics industry. This audience is willing to spend a little more on their purchases, but will do plenty of research to make sure they are spending effectively. They also like to be on the forefront of the beauty research curve, and are more willing to absorb comprehensive brand stories. By expanding your channels and adding CTV advertising to your marketing mix, you can make sure that your brand messaging gets in front of this target group.

Effective Audience Targeting is the Key to Winning

The growth of the skincare, cosmetic, and beauty industry continues to defy gravity. As new technologies and trends expand this industry, it’s more important than ever to continue to evolve your digital marketing strategy through more precise audience targeting. Be smart about who you go after, and deploy an omnichannel marketing strategy that can get your cosmetic ads in front of eyes across all devices, from Connected TV to mobile and web. If you make a healthy habit of doing that, your campaigns should be in good shape.

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