Editor’s Note
This article highlights how leading beauty brands are leveraging AI-powered advertising, particularly on platforms like YouTube, to enhance product discovery and connect with key audiences. The results, including significant returns on ad spend, underscore the transformative impact of integrating advanced search strategies into modern marketing.
AI continues to transform how consumers search and discover products. That’s why when Rare Beauty needed a smart strategy to reach a savvy Gen Z audience, they leaned into AI-powered ad solutions to ensure the brand showed up in as many places as possible. By incorporating YouTube in their Search strategy, they saw significantly higher search volume from both new and existing customers, ultimately driving a 7X return on ad spend.
L’Oréal, a global leader in beauty, also saw incremental performance by using AI Max to find new search opportunities and boost ad relevance in their Search Ads campaigns — with a 2X higher conversion rate at a 31% lower cost-per-conversion. Specifically, they were able to unlock more conversions from net-new search queries like “what is the best cream for facial dark spots?” by turning on search term matching in AI Max.
Once a customer discovers a product, it’s up to the brand to make it stand out and convert browsers into buyers. Google Ads offers advertisers the tools they need.
To drive traffic to its stores and call center while still maintaining strong online sales for the launch of its Damier Fine Jewelry collection, Louis Vuitton implemented an omnichannel bidding strategy for Google Ads.
Sleep wellness company Hatch used Gemini to instantly create three target personas, forming the bedrock of “The Everything Machine” campaign when launching its Restore 2. This AI-driven strategy, coupled with ImageFX producing 27 visuals from minimal sets, was a game changer, driving an 80% uplift in click-through rate, a 31% improvement in cost per purchase, and 50% fewer design and production hours.
ba&sh, an online and offline retailer of high-end women’s ready-to-wear clothing, wanted to switch to an omnichannel strategy to maximize both offline and online sales. To enhance campaign efficiency and attract new customers, ba&sh’s strategy was to assign a value to store visits and make them a primary campaign goal, which helped increase both online and offline revenue, improving their ROAS by 8.5%.
Acquiring new customers is just the first step. To build a thriving business, retailers need to inspire those new customers to return again and again. Our new loyalty offerings are one way we’re helping retailers engage with customers throughout their shopping journey.
For example, Sephora US used personalized annotations to show signed-in shoppers specific discounts based on their loyalty tier, resulting in a 20% increase in click-through rate for personalized ads shown to loyal customers.
Consumers are approaching this holiday season more open to inspiration and discovery and over a longer period of time than ever before. Google’s new AI-powered tools are giving retailers the tools they need to show up in all the right moments, make every interaction count and turn customers into brand loyalists.
