Introduction: The power of retention in beauty

In the beauty and wellness industry, personalisation isn’t just a trend; it’s a growth imperative. It shapes every touchpoint of the customer journey, directly impacting engagement, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value. Yet, overwhelmingly, brands still rely on cookie-cutter email marketing, missing out on the opportunity to build robust, data-driven customer relationships that drive revenue.
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We analysed 200 luxury beauty and wellness brands to measure how effectively they use email marketing for retention. Our findings reveal a significant opportunity for brands to enhance core business metrics such as engagement, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value by strengthening personalisation, improving email lead capture, and implementing data-led retention strategies.

This report explores how beauty brands can strategically leverage personalisation to enhance retention, maximise customer lifetime value (CLV), and transform email marketing into a high-impact retention channel.

Key findings: Where beauty brands stand today

  • ‍Only 34.5% of beauty brands actively collect emails.
    Many brands fail to capture high-intent subscribers from their website traffic. Without an effective lead-generation strategy, retention efforts are stalled before they even begin.
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  • Only 10.5% of brands collect a first name at sign-up.
    Personalisation starts with knowing your customers. Yet nearly 90% of beauty brands don’t collect a first name, making it harder to create relevant, engaging experiences.
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  • 42% of beauty brands use a welcome pop-up.
    A welcome pop-up is often a customer’s first interaction with a brand. However, more than half of beauty brands are not using this simple tool effectively to kickstart a retention-focused email strategy.

Breaking it down

We focussed on three key areas:

→ Welcome Pop-ups – Are brands using them? Do they go beyond email collection to capture first names?

→ First-Name Collection – Is basic personalisation built into the strategy from the start, or are brands missing this crucial data point?

→ Welcome Email Strategy – Is there an active welcome flow? Is it behaviour-driven, static, or absent altogether?

Our findings reveal where beauty brands are excelling, and where they’re falling behind in building an email strategy that drives retention and long-term customer value.

The insights

  • ‍42% of beauty brands use a welcome pop-up → Meaning 58% are missing out on high-intent visitors.
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  • Only 10.5% of brands collect a first name at sign-up → 89.5% are missing a simple but powerful personalisation tactic.
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  • ‍27% of brands have a pop-up but do not send a welcome email → Indicating broken automation, poor setup, or deliverability issues.
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  • 62% of brands send a welcome email, but 40% are static, generic, and ineffective → A missed opportunity to drive engagement, build loyalty, and boost retention.
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  • 19% of brands send a welcome email that never arrives → Likely due to spam filtering or technical issues, wasting a key opportunity.
The data is clear: Brands without personalised, behaviour-driven retention strategies are losing revenue at both ends of the funnel.
  • ‍Top of funnel (TOF): wasted customer acquisition cost (CAC) as high-intent visitors drop off without engagement.
  • Bottom of funnel (BOF): lost conversions, weak retention, and declining customer lifetime value (CLV).

Without a retention-first approach, brands aren’t just losing potential customers, they’re eroding profitability and long-term growth.

The 23-fold shift: Why personalisation is no longer optional‍

In beauty marketing, personalisation isn’t just an advantage, it’s a necessity. To quantify its impact, R360Growth partnered with one of the world’s leading fragrance houses for a three-month A/B test. The findings? A personalised approach significantly outperformed generic messaging across every key metric:

  • +10% Increase in Open Rates → More visibility, more engagement.
  • Up to 113% Higher Click-Through Rates → Higher intent, deeper interaction.
  • 2300% Increase in Order Rate Placement → A 23-fold boost in conversions.

In an industry where consumers demand more than generic promotions, personalisation is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s the difference between conversion and churn.

Email remains one of the highest ROI channels in ecommerce, but only if leveraged correctly. The results above highlight a fundamental shift: personalisation isn’t a passing trend, it’s the foundation of a scalable, retention-first strategy.

Yet, many beauty brands continue to leave revenue on the table.

Implementing personalised, data-driven retention strategies is essential for beauty brands looking to boost engagement, conversion rates, and customer loyalty. This starts with live-component email marketing and a deep understanding of core metrics to drive meaningful connections and sustained growth.

How does your beauty brand compare?

This benchmark report was created to help beauty brands identify the gaps in their email strategy and turn their subscriber list into their most valuable retention asset.

Want to see how your brand stacks up? Contact us at hi@r360growth.com or [schedule a call here] for a custom assessment.

We look forward to exploring growth opportunities with you.

Your journey. Our expertise.

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