Nick Stenson Beauty · Regional Performance Test · Report through August 18, 2026

Overall performance

Since launch, site demand has roughly doubled

9,918sessions, 28 days

13purchases

$333tracked revenue

All figures compare the campaign period to the equal length period immediately before launch, using the brand's site analytics. Revenue is reported as tracked on site and should be read directionally while checkout tracking is validated.

+0%Sessions

More people are arriving, and they are arriving from the markets we are buying.

+0%Engaged sessions

Growth in engaged sessions is keeping pace with traffic, so the new visitors are qualified, not just volume.

+0%Site revenue

Revenue is growing more slowly than sessions, which is the gap the conversion recommendations below are designed to close.

0Sessions · last 28 days

Up from 897 in the same window last year.

0New users · last 28 days

Up from 593 last year. Nearly every visitor is meeting the brand for the first time.

0Add to cart events

133 checkouts started, 13 purchases, 8 first time buyers.

$0Tracked revenue · last 28 days

More orders than last year (13 vs. 9) with smaller baskets; eight days in the window did not record purchases.

Market lift

Every test market is up. The newer markets are up the most.

5active metros

+1,558%Atlanta, top lift

1market held for retail launch

Chicago went live first and Dallas followed on July 22 with the full channel mix; Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York were added to search and display in early August. Minneapolis is held for the fall retail launch so its media lands when product is on shelf.

Active market, marker sized by session liftHeld marketRetargeting runs nationally

Sessions vs. prior period

Atlanta+1,558%

Chicago+729%

Dallas+621%

Los Angeles+129%

New York+123%

Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas started from smaller bases, so their percentages are large; Los Angeles and New York were already established audiences and are still more than doubling. Read: the media is creating awareness where the brand had little organic footprint, which is exactly what a regional test is meant to prove.

Channel scorecard

Paid search is carrying revenue. Video and display are carrying reach.

0.17%display CTR, 3x category

45,921households reached on CTV

$8.41per key event, search family

Each channel has a job. Search captures intent the other channels create; connected TV and programmatic display build the audience; short form video is in test and learn mode. Below is where each stands against its job and against category benchmarks.

Where the last 28 days of sessions came from

Social referred · 31% Untagged programmatic · 24% Paid social · 12% Direct · 11% Shopping and cross network · 10% Paid search · 7% Organic search and other · 5%

Direct is 11% of sessions but 69% of transactions. That is people who saw the ads and came back on their own. We are tightening campaign tags so the social and programmatic slices get accurate credit.

Channel	Since last sync	Benchmark read	Status
Paid SearchSince July 7	1,178 sessions vs. 153 prior (+670%). About 45% engagement rate. 108 add to carts, 32 checkouts started, 3 purchases, $650 tracked revenue. Top driver of add to carts and revenue among all channels. Shopping listings restarted after a feed cleanup. Across the search, shopping, and cross network lines together in the last 28 days: $2,675 spend, 1,942 clicks at $1.38 per click, 318 key events at about $8.40 each.	Beauty search clicks currently run near $5.70 in the category, so the brand is buying clicks at roughly a quarter of the category rate. Cost per lead in beauty fell about 35% year over year; search is a favorable auction right now.	Strongest
Programmatic DisplayGeo now full US	Click through rate 0.17%. Geography expanded from the test metros to full US to feed the retargeting pool; a traffic line was added to lift site visits.	Display averages roughly 0.05% to 0.07% click through. The brand is running about three times the category norm.	Above benchmark
Connected TVStreaming and smart TV	75,754 smart TV impressions, up 17% week over week. 45,921 unique households reached, up 33%. The "How To Gift" video remains the top performing creative.	Reach is growing faster than impressions, so frequency is healthy and we are finding new households.	Scaling
Short Form VideoPaid social	Month to date spend $1,067 of $1,600. The lookalike audience was paused after two weeks with no conversions ($384). Budget moved to the broad audience, which has produced 5 conversions on $685.	Paid social typically converts at 0.5% to 1.5% and works as a discovery channel. Broad targeting is the standard play; the early result supports the shift.	Optimizing
Social FeedPaid social	Not yet live. A platform side access issue has blocked launch since early July; that budget was redirected to short form video so no spend was lost. Restart date to confirm.	Not benchmarked until live.	Confirm

Search family · last 28 days

$0Cost per click, blended

Category beauty search runs near $5.70. The cross network line buys clicks at $0.61, shopping at $3.28, keyword search at $2.15.

Efficiency

$0Cost per key event

318 key events (add to cart, checkout, purchase) on $2,675. Cross network is the most efficient at $4.28; shopping is the most expensive at $19.63 but delivers 52% of impressions and starts most journeys.

Attribution read

0%Of orders close on a direct visit

Last click credits paid channels with only $149 of tracked revenue in this window. That view misses the return visits the media creates and the eight untracked days, which is why we read multi touch paths alongside it.

Site funnel · last 28 days · all channels

9,918

Sessions

11x last year

405

Add to cart

4.1% of sessions

133

Checkout started

33% of carts

Purchases

10% of checkouts started

The two red steps are the leak: two in three carts never start checkout, and nine in ten started checkouts do not finish. This is a site and offer problem more than a media problem, and it is fixable inside the test window.

How the channels work together. The average buyer touches the brand 5.5 times over about 14.7 days before purchasing. Shopping listings are the leading first touch (about 22% of journey starts) and carry 52% of paid impressions; search and social carry the middle of the journey; the most common paths to purchase run through organic search and referral after a paid first touch; direct traffic has risen since launch and closes most orders, which is the awareness channels doing their job. Purchases were not recorded on site from July 16 to 28 because of a checkout platform change on the brand side, now fixed, so revenue and purchase counts understate the period.

Creative in market and the storefront it lands on

What the audience is seeing, and where it sends them

0.17%display click through, 3x category

How To Gifttop connected TV video

320x50welcome banner, top display unit

The launch set leads with the 20% first order welcome offer across three model executions and three hero product cuts, in social square, story, standard display, and connected TV formats. Below is a sample of the units running, then the storefront exactly as a phone and a laptop render it today.

Square social creative, model with the welcome offer

Welcome offer · model seriesSquare unit for paid social. Three model executions rotate; this treatment carries the founder story angle for the first market.

Square social creative featuring Hydrating Oil

Hero product · Hydrating OilProduct led square. Currently held out of rotation while the product is sold out on site.

Square social creative featuring Dry Shampoo

Hero product · Dry ShampooProduct led square for the best seller. In rotation on short form video and retargeting.

300x600 · half pageProgrammatic display, model series.

300 by 600 display banner featuring Light Hold Hairspray

300x600 · Light Hold HairsprayProduct led half page for retargeting.

300x250 · medium rectangleThe workhorse display size. We are adding two more variants this week so the top unit has a real A/B test.

Formats in flight: 1080x1080 and 1080x1920 for social and story, 728x90, 300x600, 300x250, 320x50, and 160x600 for display, and three video cuts for connected TV. The 320x50 welcome banner is the top display performer; the "How To Gift" video leads connected TV. Creative runs about six weeks before we judge fatigue.

Short form video · creative leaderboard · July 15 to August 19

Creative	Offer	Spend	Clicks	Click rate	Conversions
Flat hair fix · gift	Free gift over $90	$298	153	1.98%	3
Dry shampoo · gift	Free gift over $90	$253	127	1.39%	1
Flat hair fix · welcome	20% off first order	$80	38	1.40%	1
Flat hair fix · promo video	Free gift over $90	$264	55	1.59%	0
Dry shampoo · welcome	20% off first order	$67	27	0.86%	0
Model styling · gift video	Free gift over $90	$32	66	0.34% to 0.60%	0
Model styling · promo video	20% off first order	$32	12	0.35% to 0.65%	0

What the leaderboard says

5conversions on $2.15 per click, 1.01% click rate

Problem led creative beats model styling: the "flat hair fix" angle carries 4 of 5 conversions and the highest click rates. The gift with purchase offer outperforms the welcome discount for conversion at similar click rates. The model styling videos buy the cheapest reach ($0.18 per click on the best unit) but do not convert, so they stay as reach units, not conversion units.

Next test: put the "flat hair fix" angle on the welcome offer at full budget, and build a second problem led angle (frizz or volume) in the same structure.

Free shipping on orders over $45

Shop by Category Shop by Hair Goal About Hair Quiz

Rewards Get It At Ulta Bag

LITER EVENT: 30% OFFShop now

Best Sellers

Discover our beloved hair heroes

Dry Shampoo$34.00

Light Hold Hairspray$34.00

Sold out

Texture Finishing Spray$34.00

Sold out

Hydrating Oil$44.00

Desktop · storefront recreated from the live site's own assets and copy, August 18

Free shipping on orders over $45

☰

Bag

LITER EVENT: 30% OFFShop now

Best Sellers

Discover our beloved hair heroes

Dry Shampoo$34.00

Light Hold Hairspray$34.00

Sold out

Texture Finishing Spray$34.00

Sold out

Hydrating Oil$44.00

Mobile · where 78% of visits begin, with the welcome popup as it appears on first visit

What to notice on the phone: the first screen is the Liter Event promotion and a cookie prompt, then the welcome popup; the founder story and the hero products sit below the fold. On desktop the same page shows the promotion, then Best Sellers, two of which read "Sold out." This is the gap the above the fold and landing page recommendations are written to close.

New this update · site and conversion analysis

Five findings from the site deep dive

78%of visits on mobile

2 of 7purchases on mobile

2 of 4best sellers sold out

We looked at how visitors move through the site from first visit to purchase, by device, over the campaign period, and audited the live storefront on August 18. Five patterns stood out. Each comes with a recommended fix below.

Where visits come from vs. where purchases come from

First visits · mobile78%

Purchases · mobile2 of 7

First visits · desktop22%

Purchases · desktop5 of 7

Purchases July 21 to August 17. Small numbers, but the direction is unmistakable and matches what we see in the category.

Time on site vs. hair care peers · last 28 days

Peer median from the analytics platform's hair care and styling benchmark. Search visitors stay; a large share of social referred visitors leave within a second.

Mobile brings the visits, desktop closes the sale

Nearly four in five first visits happen on a phone, yet most purchases finish on desktop. Across beauty ecommerce, mobile is roughly 80% of traffic and desktop still converts at close to twice the mobile rate, so this is a category pattern. It is also the single biggest revenue opportunity in the test.

Only about 9% of sessions view a product

Either most visitors never reach a product page, or the product view event is not firing everywhere it should. We are validating tracking first. If the number holds, the home page and navigation are not moving people to product fast enough. Paid traffic currently lands on the home page because there is no dedicated offer page yet, so every paid visitor has to find product on their own.

Checkout leakage between start and purchase

A meaningful share of shoppers who begin checkout do not complete it. Industry research puts mobile cart abandonment near 85%, and the top three reasons are extra costs revealed late (like shipping), forced account creation, and long checkouts. Each is testable.

Two best sellers are sold out on the live site

As of August 18, Hydrating Oil ($44) and Texture Finishing Spray ($34) show "Sold out" with no size alternative and no back in stock notify option, and both sit in the Best Sellers row on the home page. Hydrating Oil is also the closing step in the site's own cocktailing guidance and the one $44 product that clears free shipping alone. Any paid visit landing on these pages carries add to cart intent that cannot complete. Demand from the recent retail launch is a good problem; the fix is to stop sending paid traffic to it until restock.

A large slice of new traffic leaves within a second

Average engagement time across all visitors is about 10 seconds against a peer median near 40. Social referred and untagged sessions account for most of the gap; search visitors behave like buyers. We are correcting campaign tags so every channel gets accurate credit, and pacing the low engagement sources down until the landing experience is fixed.

Technical audit · August 19

The storefront is well built. Search visibility and structured data are the gaps.

68site score of 100

58,941organic impressions

0.25%organic click through

We ran an independent technical review of the storefront alongside a look at organic search over the last 28 days. The site scores well on mobile friendliness, speed fundamentals, security, and indexing. The misses are the ones that would help paid and organic search convert better.

Marketing effectiveness score

Out of 100. Above 70 is considered campaign ready; 68 puts the site within reach with the fixes at right.

PassingMobile friendliness, tap targets, viewport, HTTPS, canonical, sitemap, alt text, no broken links, minified and compressed assets.

FixNo structured data, weak backlinks, image sizing and lazy loading, meta description too long, contrast and heading order, email spoofing policy.

Organic search · last 28 days vs. last year

The site is being shown 2.7 times more often and ranking on page one, but fewer people click. One product page (Root Lifter Spray) accounts for roughly 50,000 of those impressions. Rewriting its title and description for the query it ranks for is the single largest free traffic opportunity in the audit.

Add product and review markup

The store already collects reviews, but no structured data reaches search engines, so star ratings and prices never show in results. Adding it lifts click through on both organic and shopping listings.

Speed and image hygiene

Hero images are not sized or deferred, and the largest visible element on mobile is a placeholder image. Fixing this improves load and layout on the phone, where 78% of visits begin.

Housekeeping with dates attached

The security certificate renews in about two months and the domain registration in about five; the email domain policy is set to none. All three are quick, and two have deadlines inside the test window.

Local and brand presence

No business profile on the major map platform and no brand knowledge panel. Branded queries dominate organic clicks, so a verified profile and consistent brand markup protect that demand.

Recommended tests · for your approval

Six changes for the remaining 55 days

3live within days of approval

2on our side, already in progress

Ordered by expected impact against effort. Each card says what we do and why in one breath; open "why it matters" for the evidence.

Lower the free shipping threshold

Test $35 to $40 instead of $45, or a short no minimum window. A single hero product ($34 to $44) almost never qualifies today.

Why it matters

Unexpected costs at checkout are the number one abandonment reason (about 48% of abandoners). A threshold just above average order value lifts basket size 20% to 30%. The store allows one promotion per order, so the welcome offer and free shipping currently compete; let them stack for new customers.

High impactLow effort

Fix the mobile conversion experience

Express wallets up front, fewer fields, guest checkout by default, sticky add to cart, and a speed pass on mobile product and cart pages.

Why it matters

78% of visits start on a phone and only 2 of 7 purchases finish there. Where the gap is this wide the cause is speed, typing, or missing express checkout. Closing a fraction of a 2x gap on most of the traffic is the largest revenue lever in the test.

High impactMedium effort

Reviews and proof beside Add to Cart

Star rating, review count, one verified quote next to the button, a "stylist favorite" mark on heroes, and product and review markup for search results.

Why it matters

First time visitors convert at 1% to 2% versus 4.5% to 6% for returning customers. Nearly every visitor right now is new. Proof is how a first visit borrows the trust of a returning one, and the markup makes the same stars show in search.

High impactLow effort

Lead with "celebrity stylist" above the fold

Founder story in the first screen, one line naming the problem each hero solves, a product first landing page for paid traffic, and a shorter meta description.

Why it matters

Founder visibility and stylist authority are the strongest trust signals in prestige hair care right now, and celebrity founded hair care has doubled in sales volume. Paid traffic currently lands on the home page and has to find product alone.

Medium impactLow effort

Bundles built around the shipping line

Cleanse and condition duos, a moisture trio, and a "gift ready" set that clears free shipping in one click, paired with the top performing "How To Gift" video.

Why it matters

Bundles lift order value 10% to 25% and give the best connected TV creative a matching landing experience. It also sets up holiday, where more than half of online sales now happen on phones.

Medium impactMedium effort

Paid traffic only to in stock heroes

Exclude Hydrating Oil and Texture Finishing Spray from search, shopping, and display until restock; rotate the Best Sellers row; add back in stock email capture on both pages.

Why it matters

Two of four Best Sellers show "Sold out" with no notify option, and Hydrating Oil is the one $44 product that clears free shipping alone. Sold out pages turn paid intent into bounces; capturing the email keeps the media working and gives the restock a launch list.

High impactLow effort

Validate product view tracking and campaign tags

On our side, no client action. Confirm the product view event fires on every template, and correct campaign tags so social and programmatic sessions get accurate credit.

In progress

Mobile checkout and search title audit

Speed, form fields, wallets, and guest checkout on the phone, plus a rewrite of the Root Lifter Spray title and description that carries roughly 50,000 organic impressions at a 0.25% click rate.

In progress

Benchmark alignment

Where the test sits against the category

6at or above category

3to watch

5gaps we are working

Context, not targets. A 90 day test on new markets should be judged on trajectory. Green is at or above category, gold is watching, rust is the gap we are closing.

Display click through

0.17%

Roughly 3x category

Display averages 0.05% to 0.07%

Search family cost per click

$1.38

About a quarter of category

Beauty search averages near $5.70

Paid search engagement

About 45%

Healthy

Highest intent paid source; strong engagement expected

Paid search add to cart

9.2%

On track

Category commonly high single digits to low teens

Mobile share of visits

78%

In line

Beauty traffic is about 80% mobile

CTV reach growth

+33%

Healthy frequency

Reach growing faster than impressions

Site wide add to cart

4.1%

Fix the mix

Diluted by low intent social and untagged traffic; healthy on search

Product view rate

About 9%

Validate, then fix discovery

Most sessions should reach a product page

Technical site score

Within reach

Above 70 considered campaign ready

Site conversion rate

0.13%

Biggest gap

Beauty sites commonly 2.5% to 3.5%; premium sits toward the low end

Checkout start to purchase

About 10%

Below expectation

Cart abandonment near 70% overall, 85% on mobile

Mobile share of purchases

29%

Biggest opportunity

2 of 7; best in class stores have nearly closed the device gap

Average engagement time

10s

Traffic quality and landing

Hair care peer median near 40 seconds

Best sellers in stock

2 of 4

Address before scaling

Top placements should be shoppable during paid flights

Industry and competitive context

The category is moving toward the brand

#1prestige hair care, fastest growing beauty category

2xcelebrity founded hair care sales volume

OUAIcompetitor spotlight below

Prestige hair care is the fastest growing beauty category by dollars this year, and celebrity and stylist founded hair care has doubled in sales volume.

52%

Hair buys online

Hair care is the one beauty category where more than half of sales already happen online, and prestige is outgrowing mass. A DTC test in this category is fishing where the fish are.

Fewer, better

Founder led wins trust

Consumers say they want fewer, better products from founders they can see. "Every product is a hero" plus the stylist story fits that brief exactly, which is why the site should say it first.

Split

Discovery by generation

Younger buyers find hair care through short form video; older buyers still trust their stylist and in store browsing. That is why the mix pairs short form video with search and connected TV instead of betting on one.

Competitor spotlight · OUAI · last 30 days

What the category leader in stylist founded hair care is doing right now

19emails in 30 days

39new ads detected

$50free shipping line, with a cart progress bar

Tracked through third party marketing intelligence for the 30 days ending August 19. OUAI is the closest analog to the brand: a celebrity stylist founder, hero product architecture, and a mid prestige price. It is also the most instructive contrast on the two things this test needs most, owned channel cadence and a checkout built around the shipping threshold.

19Emails sent in 30 days, up 11%; roughly four to five a week

26%Of emails carry a promotion; the rest are product education and routine content

39New paid social ads detected, 24 with unique copy

100%Of new social ads are video; average ad stays live about 23 days

40Landing pages tracked, 33 of them campaign pages rather than product pages

30Character subject lines on average; top words: sets, save, only, additional off

OUAI paid social ad, award winning hair care — Social · proof led, 15,000+ reviews

OUAI paid social ad, repair hair in 3 minutes — Social · problem led, repair in 3 minutes

OUAI paid social ad, 20% off friends and family — Social · limited time sitewide offer

OUAI paid social ad, seasonal scent — Social · seasonal scent story

OUAI story ad, 20% off sitewide — Story · sitewide offer

OUAI story ad, free shipping limited time — Story · free shipping, limited time

OUAI email, meet the detox duos — Email · product duo

OUAI email, just your hair type — Email · shop by hair type

OUAI email, good things come in threes — Email · three product set

Owned channel is the gap

OUAI sends four to five emails a week and only a quarter are promotional. The brand's email platform is installed but the channel produced four key events and no tracked revenue in the last 28 days. Every paid visit we buy should be feeding a list that sells for free afterward.

Threshold as a feature, not a footnote

OUAI runs a $50 free shipping line with a live "you are $X away" bar in the cart, and merchandises sets and duos priced to clear it. That is the shipping test and the bundle recommendation in this report, already working for the closest competitor.

Angles that convert

Their ads are proof led ("15,000+ five star reviews"), problem led ("repair in 3 minutes"), and set led, all in video, refreshed about every three weeks. That mirrors our own leaderboard, where the problem led angle carries the conversions.

Competitive lens · stylist and founder led hair care

OUAI · Jen Atkin · scent and lifestyle led, acquired by a major CPG house Color Wow · hero product strategy, stylist advocacy Kristin Ess · celebrity stylist authority at mass scale Crown Affair · ritual and tools, premium DTC storytelling K18 · Olaplex · repair science, own the treatment conversation dae · Gisou · amika · founder and social native, top ranked at specialty retail

The white space: stylist authority plus a clean, aloe led formula at an accessible luxury price ($34 to $44), below the French prestige tier and above mass. Few brands hold that exact position. On cost, beauty search auctions eased this year, which is part of why paid search is outperforming; we expect that window to narrow into holiday and are pacing for it.

Decisions requested this week

Seven calls from you, two already in motion with us

4approve

3confirm or schedule

Aug 26Day 45 review

Your approval

Shipping threshold test$35, $40, or a short no minimum window. We recommend $40 for two weeks, then read.

Reviews beside Add to CartConfirm the review source; approve placement on all product pages plus search markup.

Above the fold copy"Celebrity stylist, aloe powered, every product a hero." Draft ready to share.

Day 45 budget reallocationA modest shift from connected TV into paid search at the August 26 review; display and CTV stay for reach.

Confirm or schedule

Restock dates and notify captureHydrating Oil and Texture Finishing Spray dates, plus back in stock email capture on both pages.

Social feed restartBlocked by a platform access issue since early July. Agree a restart date so retargeting is live for the final month.

Certificate, domain, email policyCertificate renews in about two months, domain in about five, email policy set to quarantine. We will send exact settings.

In motion with us

Tracking and tag validationProduct view event across templates; campaign tags for social and programmatic; confirmed discovery rate at next sync.

Mobile checkout and search title auditPrioritized fix list for the phone experience and the Root Lifter Spray title rewrite.

Paid traffic off sold out pagesExclusions in place until restock; Best Sellers rotation requested.

Next update follows the same structure so results are comparable sync to sync. Every test is measured against the site funnel and the mobile purchase share shown above.

Return on ad spend · where it stands and what moves it

The media is already efficient. The return is being decided on the site, and that is the part we can change in the next 55 days.

$1.38Cost per click on the search family, about a quarter of the beauty category rate

$8.41Cost per key event across search, shopping, and cross network, 318 add to carts, checkouts, and purchases on $2,675

0.13%Site conversion rate in the last 28 days against a 2.5% to 3.5% category floor. This is where the return leaks.

69%Of orders close on a direct visit after the ads, which last click reporting does not credit to media

Read plainly: on a last click basis inside the site analytics, tracked revenue against the search family spend in this window is well below one to one. We are not going to dress that up. We are going to explain it, because the explanation is the plan.

Three things are true at once. The media is buying attention at a fraction of category cost and turning it into add to cart intent at a healthy rate. Most orders finish on a direct visit days later, so the channel that did the work is not the channel that gets the credit; the multi touch view shows paid channels starting most journeys with 5.5 touches over about 15 days. And the site converts at roughly one twentieth of the category floor, with a checkout that loses nine in ten started orders, a mobile experience that turns 78% of visits into 29% of purchases, and two Best Sellers that cannot ship. Eight days of purchases in this window did not record at all.

Here is the arithmetic that matters. Hold traffic and spend exactly where they are. If the shipping threshold, mobile checkout, reviews, and inventory fixes take the site from 0.13% to 1.25%, which is half of the category floor, tracked revenue on the same media rises roughly ten times. That is the difference between a test that reads as a media problem and a test that reads as a growth engine, and every one of those levers is on the decision list above.

If those fixes land in the first two weeks of September, this media buys a return the test can defend by day 90. If the site stays where it is, no amount of media efficiency will change the number, and we will say that as plainly as we are saying this.

How we will report return from the next sync

Three views, every time. Last click as the analytics platform records it, multi touch with paid channels credited at a conservative half share, and blended store revenue against total media, so no single lens can flatter or hide the result.

Same funnel, same markets, same window. Sessions to add to cart to checkout to purchase, by market and by device, so the effect of each site fix is visible the week it lands.

Spend follows proof. At the mid flight review we move budget toward the channels producing purchase intent and hold reach spend at the level the retargeting pool needs, nothing more.

A number you can hold us to. By day 90 we will show a defensible return on the paid channels or a documented reason the site could not carry it, with the evidence in this same report.