Instagram Ads success story · Beauty retailer

How Sephora US earned 1.56X incremental return on ad spend with creator ads on Instagram.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
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Sephora US already ran ads built to sell online, in stores and in its app. It added creator videos paired with products pulled from its catalog, showed everything only on Instagram, and a lift test measured extra sales across all three channels.

Business: Sephora US
Market: United States
Goal: More sales online, in stores and in the app

Woman applying blush to her cheek with a pink makeup brush while holding a small mirror

The results.

Compared with its usual omnichannel ads alone. The test cell ran the usual omnichannel ads plus partnership ads from creators paired with Advantage+ catalog ads.

1.56Xincremental return on ad spend across online, in-store and in-app sales
1.04Xreturn on ad spend for in-store purchases
3%higher incremental reach

Multi-cell conversion lift test from Meta, August 19-September 15, 2025. All ads were shown to US adults aged 18 and over in Instagram Feed, Stories and Reels.

The challenge.

Sephora US sells more than 340 beauty brands, plus its own label, in its stores, on its website and through its app. Its usual Meta campaigns were omnichannel ads: one campaign that optimizes for purchases in all three places, with store sales sent back to Meta through the Conversions API.

That approach already worked. The question was how to get more out of it: reach new shoppers who were not already in its audience, and give them a reason to visit a store, not just scroll past another product shot.

Meta illustration of a marketer at her laptop, with an Instagram ad and a performance chart beside her

What they did.

Creator partnership ads · Advantage+ catalog ads · Omnichannel ads · Instagram Feed, Stories and Reels only

Creators in the store: Three beauty creators and a creator that uses AI were filmed exploring the New York flagship store, testing products and having fun. The idea, the feeling of walking into the store, was shaped by insights from Meta AI about what brings shoppers in.
Creator posts paired with the catalog: The creator videos ran as partnership ads, posted from both Sephora’s account and each creator’s. Advantage+ catalog ads pulled matching products from Sephora’s catalog to sit beside the creator content.
Instagram only: Every ad was delivered to US adults in Instagram Feed, Stories and Reels, with Advantage+ audience letting Meta look beyond the brand’s usual targeting for likely new shoppers.
A test against the usual campaign: One cell ran the usual omnichannel ads alone. The other ran the same ads plus the creator and catalog layer. A conversion lift test measured what each cell caused.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Creators widen the audience: A partnership ad appears from the creator’s account as well as the brand’s, so it reaches the creator’s followers, people the brand may never have reached before.
Inspiration with a shopping list: The creator shows why a product is worth trying; the catalog shows exactly which products, with a tap to buy. One ad does the job of two.
Store sales counted: Because in-store purchases were sent back to Meta, the campaign got credit for sales made at the counter, and the system learned to find shoppers who buy in person too.
Incremental, not assumed: A lift test compares people who could see the ads with people who could not. The 1.56X is sales the ads caused, not sales that would have happened anyway.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our instagram ads management.

Your catalog, connected: We set up your product catalog and tracking so ads can show the exact items a shopper is most likely to buy, with prices that stay current.
Creators who fit your customers: We find creators your customers already follow, local or national, and run their posts as partnership ads through our Instagram ads management.
Count the sales that happen offline: For businesses with a counter, we send store and phone sales back to Meta so the campaign is judged, and optimized, on real revenue.
Test before you scale: We run a holdout or split test against your current campaign before moving budget, so you know what the change is worth.