dpHUE | Full-Funnel Strategy Unlocks New Customer Growth

The haircare industry is a highly competitive landscape with a consistently high volume of new entrants and challenger brands. After back-to-back years of declining customer rates in 2021 and 2022, dpHUE tasked New Engen with finding a solution that would unlock new growth for the luxury haircare brand.

🤝 Immerse

We approached the task at hand by establishing a 360-degree view of dpHUE’s business. We began by conducting in-depth analyses of the industry landscape, market trends, and target audience demographics, all of which were foundational to our understanding of dpHUE’s unique opportunities and headwinds.

Moreover, we actively engaged with dpHUE's team to learn about their brand identity, values, and objectives. In addition to regular client meetings, we facilitated workshops and brainstorming sessions to foster open communication channels and built strong relationships with key stakeholders across dpHUE.

💡 Inspire

We collaborated closely with dpHUE’s CMO, CFO, and various departments such as its internal influencer team. These strong relationships allowed us to serve beyond our paid media function and instead operate as part of dpHUE’s wider integrated marketing program.

With a full view of the brand marketing funnel, we learned that performance boosts often correlated with high-visibility leadership engagements and authentic messaging. This pattern highlighted that dpHUE’s audience responds well to genuine, user-generated content. Leveraging these insights, we developed a compelling storytelling approach, utilizing UGC and influencer partnerships to enhance dpHUE's presence on platforms like TikTok.

Eventually, our in-depth knowledge of dpHUE’s full-scale marketing program allowed us to extend our campaign learnings across channels, further closing the loop between e-commerce investment and down-funnel efforts on Amazon and ULTA.

💪 Implement

We championed a full-funnel approach to foster a sustainable, thriving paid media environment across dpHUE’s digital efforts. Our meticulously crafted strategy permeated every level of execution & delivery:

💸 Measured media investment against Shopify-reported sitewide revenue.

• This allowed us to track the Total Ad Cost of Sale and adjust our pacing in consideration of revenue impacts in other channels.

🤳 Strategically structured campaigns across channels.

• Analyzed current trends and campaign best practices to methodically test new formats and ad types.
• Leveraged data from New Engen partner platforms Pathmatics & MRI-Simmons to conduct extensive research on dpHUE’s target audience and inform decisions to expand into new channels like YouTube and TikTok.

💡 Championed a cross-learning approach.

• Monitored search term performance to understand consumer mindset and proactively build key themes into creative messaging.
• Extended the value of high-performing UGC TikTok creative by repurposing into into brand awareness campaigns on Meta.

👥 Tested new audiences.

• Identified a third-party tool to help us refine our past purchasers segment into qualitative sub-groups.
• Uncovered a subset of customers that we bucketed into a “Hibernation“ group and targeted with hyper-specific messaging with the goal of reactivation.

🎨 Utilized creative as a key element of our targeting strategy.

• Wielded creative as a targeting lever, based on funnel stage, to efficiently maximize reach within dpHUE’s target audience.
• Incorporated brand language, tone, and messaging into our campaigns - reaching dpHUE’s target audience and nurturing brand loyalty long-term.

☎️ Conducted monthly lookback sessions with our partners at dpHUE.

• Reinforced a constant full-funnel point of view and ensured accurate measurement of our marketing efforts.
• Aligned on goals and methods, with a bias for adapting swiftly as roadblocks arose.

🏆 Impact

Our methodical process unlocked significant business impact for dpHUE and successfully disrupted the declining customer rate of years past. In 2023, gross sales were up +20% sitewide, and the brand saw a +49% boost in attributed revenue. Plus, we made efficiency gains with a +62% increase in ROAS YoY.

Key signals for customer acquisition and engagement came out on top, with a +28% increase in new customers and a +16% rise in returning customers. Overall, sitewide sessions soared by +101%.