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Beauty is never just beauty | Untangled Newsletter

PLUS: Prose debuts personalized scalp serum

Author

Zihan Lyu
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

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Welcome to Untangled, your essential newsletter for haircare eCommerce professionals.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Sector Spotlight 💡

BEAUTY PRODUCT INNOVATION

Paul Mitchell Clear line—comprising shampoo, conditioner, serum, and glaze—targets consumers with sensitive scalps through minimalist, dye- and fragrance-free formulas, aiming for $30 million in first-year sales.

CELEBRITY BRAND PARTNERSHIP

Garnier's partnership with Becky G leverages her wide appeal and authenticity to launch the Fructis Sleek & Stay Hair Serum, driving an experiential “Put It to the Test” campaign featuring influencer collaborations, exclusive content, and live activations—key tactics for engaging consumers in beauty marketing.

BEAUTY INNOVATION TRENDS

Prose launches a personalized scalp serum addressing over 85 unique scalp factors, leveraging natural, microbiome-friendly ingredients for a targeted, data-driven hair health solution.

Marketers can note this product’s use of customization, science-backed claims, and sustainability as key consumer engagement levers.

BRAND LEADERSHIP STRATEGY

Amy Whang’s approach at LOréal—overseeing Maybelline, Garnier, and Essie—prioritizes trend alignment, multicultural targeting, and cause-driven branding, delivering 5.6% global sales growth in 2024 and actionable insights into consumer engagement.

Amy Whang | Courtesy

BRAND AMBASSADOR STRATEGY

Jawara’s appointment as international brand ambassador for Hair Rituel by Sisley aligns his celebrity influence and expertise with the brand’s global expansion and focus on scalp care innovation.

For marketers, this collaboration underscores the strategic value of expert-driven storytelling and holistic wellness positioning to drive product differentiation in a competitive global market.

Influencer Corner 📢

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

Rumour has it that OpenAI might be quietly working on a native Shopify checkout inside ChatGPT.

Apparently ‘leaked’ code shows:

👉 'shopify_checkout_url'
👉 'buy_now'
👉 'product_offer_ratings'

No redirects. No search. Just chat, compare, and buy in one flow. Unconfirmed, but catching attention.

If this happens?

Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change.

Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

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