• by Ray Schultz , July 28, 2023

Ulta Beauty needed to streamline its marketing and reduce the manual effort that went into it. 

It turned to email firm Movable Ink to help it with this challenge, according to a case study issued this week. 

For one thing, the team found inefficiencies in updating specific product SKUs when items were out of stock.  

The old manual method relied on static product data that kept the team busy throughout the day.  

With the help of Movable Ink, the beauty firm launched a campaign  that used five API data sources: inventory, product recommendations, store information, ratings and reviews, and the firm’s loyalty system.  

Movable Ink synchronized the information and targeted customers based on the time of day and their recent behaviors.  

The emails featured dynamic headlines, such as, "Hi, Liz - we noticed you eyeing these beauties" and the headline: "Do It For The Points." 

The campaign, in which Movable Ink calculated the number of points each customer will earn based on their loyalty status, decreased production time by 95% and the conversion rate by 34.1%.  

In addition, the effort increased the click-through rate by 316.7% and clicks by 20.8%.  

“With a little over four times the size of New York as members in our email database, we have the fun challenge of making each individual guest feel like we curated their experience specifically for them,” says Liz Beer, manager of email development & innovation at Ulta Beauty. 

Beers concludes, “We’ve connected all of the data and have blended the conversation. Because at the end of the day, you can have hundreds of campaigns, hundreds of channels, but you only have one customer you’re speaking to.”