Wunderbrow (Image via Wunder2)
If you’re female, aged anywhere between 25 and 60, and based in the UK or perhaps the US, it’s entirely likely you may have been targeted on
If not there, perhaps you’ve read an online editorial about it, spotted it on the London Underground, seen it in various print magazines, or even watched it on television. You may additionally have noticed it popping to the top of the best-seller lists in its category on Amazon.
Riding the crest of a key beauty trend for prominent eyebrows (driven largely by celebrities like Cara Delevingne and her own bushy pair) this small, relatively unknown brand has been steadily and consistently maximizing paid media in a bid to drive user acquisition for just over a year.
"We came in at a really good time in the market in terms of the trend for 'brows'. [That] has been monumental in getting first impressions and spiking interest. If we sold deodorant, we would be having a much harder time," explains Michael Malinsky, founder of KF Beauty, which owns Wunderbrow and the Wunder2 Cosmetics line it comes under.
Indeed the brand, which launched in January 2015, has grown 30-fold in the past year alone. It’s not just the fact its hero product taps into this beauty trend that’s turned it into a sellout item however, but the unique selling and marketing process that it’s put in place around it.
Beyond a relative degree of omnipresence, it’s about removing any emotion from media decisions and instead basing them on intensely detailed measurement and targeting, Malinsky explains. “It’s a mathematical approach combined with a very passionate feeling for the product itself. Having a combination of that is what makes something like this a success.”
Volume of spend also helps. KF Beauty will now spend anywhere between $40,000 and $50,000 on Facebook advertising every day. To contextualize that: for numerous other “small” brands in the sector, this could be their social media advertising budget for an entire year.
Wunderbrow social ads aren’t usually your typical glossy model shots either (though those do also exist). What the team found resonates with consumers the most is "demonstration" content, or in other words, real women showing what the product does. So it hired 30-40 video bloggers to produce short videos, added regular bloggers writing reviews, and then amplified all of that content.
“We find the ones that generate the most engagement and we structure ads around them,” Malinsky explains. “From a tracking perspective we see what audience is responding best; what demographics, age groups, and fan groups deliver the strongest result. We then apply programmatic/performance logic to adjust bids daily to continue optimizing acquisition costs.”
Beauty blogger @valelorenbeauty with the Wunderbrow product (Image via Wunder2 on Instagram)
Big spend aside, this lines up as a pretty straightforward strategy so far. Where Malinsky has been particularly clever however, is in the way he has coupled Facebook ads with a general amplification of the brand via high volume native advertising networks.
“We take earned media that we’ve gotten – interesting pieces that reference the product in the likes of Hello magazine or Cosmopolitan – and we use traditional native content platforms like Taboola and Outbrain to advertise those articles and enhance the voice of authority about the product. Then we can target people who have seen the authority platform with more direct ads to the product too,” he explains.
What Malinsky is attempting to capitalize on is the idea that online browsing behavior today very heavily surrounds both social media and the consumption of news or entertainment. “In either of those scenarios, there is now a likelihood that [women aged 25-60] would end up seeing our product. It’s allowed us to grow much more quickly than [such a company] normally would. It enables us to acquire customers at an ROI that also allows the business to grow on top of that.”
Such online spend is supported with traditional advertising – print, outdoor and TV. While much of that is more a branded effort and not as in-keeping with the company’s strict measurement focus, this still gets put into place where possible. Print ads for instance, will always come with a unique telephone number attached to them for orders, enabling sales to be tracked back to each publication (yes, people still actually call up).
“It means we know when a placement of an ad at a certain cost can give a positive ROI, and we know in some cases when it will not and then we choose not to run it at that price. It’s not an emotional decision – it’s not based on how fancy a publication might be – it’s really based on mathematics,” Malinsky explains. “Plenty of ad budgets much more than ours are being blown generating far less sales.”
Wunderbrow, and its stable of other products including a mascara, cleanser and anti-wrinkle treatment, among others, are available to buy in the UK, US, Canada and France from the group’s website. It’s also possible to buy them at Boots in the UK and on Amazon. Maintaining tight distribution, but also offering the consumer certain choice, has been key, Malinsky explains.
All measurement therefore takes into account the fact that circa 20-30% of consumers will go to Amazon, 10-20% will go to Boots, and another portion will click away from the ad, open a different window, and type the product name into search.
“We’ve provisioned for all scenarios. In fact we know it takes 6-8 touches of the brand for the customer to make a buying decision,” says Malinksy.
“The most important aspect of tracking is being able to attribute the sale to the right source. This technology has existed for a bit of time, but it has improved in the last year and a half, so it is now much easier for a brand that doesn’t have an in-house technical team to take advantage of those tools. By paying attention to tracking and measurement, it’s now possible to be as effective online today as a very big company.”
