L’Oréal’s integrated onsite and offsite retail media triumph drives 1770% ROAS for YSL Beauty

The challenge: Unlocking L’Oréal’s retail media prowess for YSL Beauty

For over a century, L’Oréal has been the global leader in fulfilling consumers’ beauty aspirations with inclusivity, ethics, and sustainability at its core. With a diverse portfolio of 37 international brands and a strong commitment to sustainability through initiatives like L’Oréal for the Future, the company offers quality products while celebrating beauty’s diversity. L’Oréal boasts a workforce of 87,400 and sales spanning various distribution channels, including ecommerce and retail—making the company a driving force for innovation shaping the future of beauty and a powerhouse in Beauty Tech.

L’Oréal wanted to showcase their retail media expertise with a dynamic full-funnel campaign centered around YSL Beauty’s Black Opium Eau de Parfum. In collaboration with Criteo, L’Oréal leveraged the online retailer Parfumdreams as a key channel to enhance the brand’s visibility and drive sales through targeted digital advertising.

The solution: Combining offsite and onsite for optimal success

In August 2023, Criteo helped L’Oréal launch an initiative to target ready-to-buy shoppers on the open web to engage with them on the Parfumdreams website, boost brand visibility, and drive sales for the retailer—all while optimizing ROAS of onsite Sponsored Product Ads. To achieve this, L’Oréal leveraged Criteo’s Commerce Max solutions across offsite and onsite campaigns.

The offsite campaign ran on the German open web (AGOF reach). It utilized various IAB standard formats (Skyscraper, Halfpage, Medium Banner, Large Baner, Leaderboard, Wide Leaderboard) dynamically displaying ads that garnered over 3.6 million impressions and more than 23,000 clicks. Commerce Max employed an in-market filter to target shoppers who had browsed relevant categories but hadn’t made a purchase yet.

The onsite campaign on Parfumdreams addressed shoppers over the entire campaign period, focusing on two target groups: First, users who previously browsed or purchased YSL products on Parfumdreams. Second, new customers who browsed Parfumdreams during the active campaign. Sponsored Product Ads were then strategically placed across various sections of the retailer’s website, including category pages, search results, the homepage, product detail pages, and the shopping cart. As a result, the onsite campaign achieved 1.7 million impressions and generated 4,500 clicks.

Steffen Sommerfeld, E-Com Media Manager Corporate, L’Oréal Austria Germany Switzerland shared, “Retail Media is playing a central role in our marketing mix – not only as it drives incremental sales, but also as it helps us make business decisions based on new commerce insights.”

The results: Converting shoppers with remarkable ROAS

The integration of both offsite and onsite strategies yielded remarkable results for L’Oréal’s campaign with YSL Beauty.

Compared to onsite-only efforts in best performing environments for Black Opium Eau de Parfum, the combined offsite and onsite campaigns drove a remarkable +92% surge in revenue per user, +27% boost in onsite click-through rate, and +14% increase in conversion rate. Additionally, the onsite campaign drove a 1770% return on ad spend, marking a notable +14% increase.

“In partnership with Criteo, we were able to engage new and existing customers for our iconic scent Black Opium Eau de Parfum by YSL Beauty offsite and onsite, creating a successful customer journey for them,” shared Isabel Zur Hausen, Digital & Communication Manager YSL Beauty, L’Oréal Austria Germany Switzerland.