Integra Beauty is focused on developing fashion, beauty, and lifestyle companies. Through groundbreaking original development, collaboration and acquisitions, the business is at the forefront of emerging e-commerce retail trends. Based in Los Angeles, the team is raising the bar for creativity and is constantly evolving to embrace a diverse marketplace.
The company develops their own digital platforms and promotes products across online, mobile, social, and retail markets. Their most popular brand, L’ange Hair, sells professional-grade styling tools and salon-quality hair care products to help customers live the mantra: your hair, your style, your choice. L’ange caters to a digital-first consumer through email, social media, and rewards marketing.
To scale revenue, L’ange needed a unified and cohesive omnichannel marketing plan. Segment became a central force in their data-powered customer engagement strategy, helping to build a more efficient and accurate data infrastructure. The brand now sends more personalized product recommendations using real-time customer data. As a result, they have seen increased customer engagement and expanded participation in their VIP Rewards Program.
Overcoming customer data issues to scale the business
Honing in on personalized product recommendations was crucial if L’ange was to scale the brand and optimize their marketing efforts. They zeroed in on three personalization goals:
Dynamic audiences synced to marketing channels for targeted messaging
Product recommendations based on previous purchases and buying behavior
Personalizing web landing pages and promotions for different audiences
First, L’ange needed to be able to build dynamic audiences and centralize their data. That required automatic data uploads instead of static data exports. They also needed dynamic audiences to understand how consumers engaged with their platform. Increased visibility would allow them to send more targeted messaging across all marketing channels.
Second, they wanted to offer product recommendations based on customer purchasing and browsing behavior. If a customer bought X, they wanted to be able to recommend Y. To do so they had to collect a lot of first-party data to recommend the right products at the right time.
Their final goal was to create personalized landing pages for different audiences. If a blonde consumer visited a landing page that recommended a brunette booster, that recommendation wouldn’t feel personal. Identifying if a customer was blonde, brunette, or another hue would help them recommend more accurate products for higher conversions.
L’ange also needed a cohesive data strategy to help keep up with customer demand. Despite massive growth that generated millions in annual sales, they still faced challenges.
Static audience building
Limited customer attributes
No single source of truth
First, reliance on static audience building was a problem. Use of manual data exports prevented them from including or excluding users for audiences in real-time, and kept them from having up-to-date information about actions taken by consumers on their platforms.
Second, building audiences from limited attributes was a hindrance. By expanding their list of attributes, it would open the door to creating more refined audiences. It would also allow them to target customers with more personalized messaging.
Their final hurdle was not having a single source of truth. Because customer data was stuck in silos, the information available to departments was disconnected. And because audiences were maintained differently across departments, it prevented teams from having a full view of the customer.
A better tech stack solved data flow pain points
L’ange chose Segment as their customer data platform. Initially their tech stack included multiple microservices and systems that needed to flow into one place but didn’t. Once Twilio Segment was integrated they could control the flow of data from their web and mobile apps, cloud apps, and servers and send it to downstream destinations.
Using an AWS infrastructure and Shopify backend to run their platforms, their data moves from those systems into cold storage (S3 bucket), their data warehouse (Snowflake), then through Segment to other downstream destinations so all teams have real-time information.
L’ange’s client-side data is sent directly to FullStory for analysis and additional customer data is sent to their marketing platform. This process allows the marketing team to have enriched data about users when creating campaigns. Most analysis is done locally through Python Jupyter notebooks while other teams manage tools relevant to their side of the business.
The power of Twilio Engage and identity resolution
Twilio Engage connects each session for a single user through identity resolution mapping. It merges the complete history into a single profile – across devices, websites, mobile, and social media. Before using a CDP, L’ange customers would log in through an in-app Facebook browser, mobile browser, or desktop and each session would appear with no way to associate them. Rather than creating an audience for a user with three different identifiers, dynamic audiences turns those identities into one customer profile.
Leveraging consented customer identity has been a turning point for L’ange. Not only does it help them improve product recommendations, it provides visibility into the number of events in their event stream. Viewing previous customer purchases and browsing behaviors across sessions allows them to more precisely cater promotions and marketing campaigns.
Better customer data boosted their loyalty program
L’ange wanted to revamp their customer loyalty program, while maintaining an exclusive feel. Improving the VIP Rewards Program was also part of a larger LTV goal. The program offers special perks such as discounts to members who reach Silver, Gold, or Rose Gold status.
Member engagement has increased as a result of more accurate product recommendations and improved incentives. Targeted messaging also plays a role. When a user earns or redeems points, the action triggers an email in real-time that updates the customer on how much more engagement they need to reach the next tier, which unlocks more perks.
Faster data sharing and increased customer engagement
L’ange transformed their business by collecting and organizing data across every touchpoint. Validating and transforming their data to ensure it is clean and accurate was a game changer.
The brand increased operational efficiencies by consolidating user profiles across sessions with less overhead. These improvements drove more personalization across all communication channels. What’s more, personalization at scale allows their marketing, product, and analytics teams to see improved customer engagement and omnichannel effectiveness.
What’s next? L’ange Hair’s success also includes the stalwart support of their brand incubator. Integra Beauty’s team of innovators and visionaries is passionate about pushing the envelope and taking bold risks that inspire people to realize their beautiful potential. They plan to use Twilio Segment as a template to help more brands achieve amazing results.
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