How Beauty Brands Are Winning in 2025: Marketing Mix Strategies from Skincare, Makeup & Fragrance

The beauty industry in 2025 looks very different from just a few years ago. Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube now play a central role in product discovery. At the same time, traditional tactics like sampling, in-store demos, and glossy magazine ads still matter.

Winning beauty brands aren’t choosing between digital or traditional – they’re blending both into smart, integrated campaigns that maximize reach, trust, and conversions. In this post, we’ll break down how skincare, makeup, and fragrance brands are shaping their marketing mix this year, with examples and tips you can apply to your own business.

1. Digital First — But Not Digital Only

Over the last decade, beauty has shifted heavily toward digital, with giants like Estée Lauder investing 75% of its advertising budget into digital and influencer marketing. Social platforms – TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube – have become the new launchpads for product discovery.

• Makeup thrives on TikTok virality; think Maybelline’s mascara campaigns.
• Skincare brands like CeraVe win by turning dermatologists into trusted content creators.
• Fragrance has tapped into “PerfumeTok,” where consumers describe scents in emotional storytelling.

But digital alone isn’t enough. As Estée Lauder’s CEO put it: “Influencers drive discovery, but samples close the sale.”

2. Traditional Marketing Still Packs a Punch

Despite the digital boom, traditional tactics remain vital in beauty:

• TV & Cinema Ads: Luxury fragrance brands (such as YSL, Lancôme) still release cinematic campaigns that define aspirational brand identity.
• Sampling: Free samples in pharmacies, department stores, and event activations continue to deliver one of the highest conversion rates in the industry.
• OOH & Print: Out-of-home and print channels remain influential in beauty marketing. Glossy magazine spreads reinforce premium positioning for luxury skincare, makeup and fragrance. Rare Beauty’s innovative scratch-and-sniff billboard in New York showed how even a classic format can be reimagined to spark buzz and digital amplification. By bringing a sensory, interactive twist to the streets, it bridged offline engagement with online conversation.
• Events & In-Store: Face-to-face experiences remain one of beauty’s strongest conversion drivers. Trade shows like Beauty Fair highlight the industry’s appetite for in-person connection, while live demos, pop-ups, and retail activations let consumers test, play, and immerse themselves in a brand’s world. These touchpoints don’t just drive trial — they build emotional resonance that digital alone can’t replicate.

3. The Evolving Budget Split

Every brand’s mix looks different, but industry leaders highlight a common trend: digital is now the majority, while traditional remains the foundation of credibility and sensory experience.

• Estée Lauder: 75% digital (mainly influencers), balanced with high spend on below-the-line tactics like sampling and counters / in-store experiences.
• Niche brands: Often start almost 100% digital, then add print, retail OOH, and experiential once they scale.

L’Oréal: Between 56–70% of L’Oréal’s ad spend is digital, but they still invest significantly in global OOH and TV campaigns.

Spotlight: How L’Oréal Masters the Marketing Mix

L’Oréal is a textbook example of how omnichannel marketing drives results. With 56–70% of its advertising budget invested in digital, the company leverages influencers, social-first launches, and paid campaigns across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to fuel discovery. But L’Oréal doesn’t stop there. It layers on traditional powerhouses like TV ads, glossy magazine spreads, and massive OOH activations to build trust and global awareness.

L’Oréal Paris connects spectacle with scale: a global TV spot gets cut into short-form reels for Instagram and TikTok. At the same time, larger-than-life activations – like Maybelline’s AI-powered London campaign that showed a giant mascara brushing lashes onto buses and tube carriages – generate viral online buzz. This hybrid strategy ensures every campaign touchpoint works harder by amplifying others, driving online discovery, sealing trust offline, and cementing L’Oréal as the world’s leading beauty brand.

Key Lesson: Omnichannel marketing is the secret to dominating reach and recognition in competitive categories like beauty.

International Advertising Solutions works with brands to analyze where their audiences spend time and ensure their media mix is weighted for reach, relevance, and ROI.

4. Integration Is the Winning Formula

The magic happens when digital and traditional are not siloed but integrated:

• OOH feeding digital: A bold billboard sparks viral sharing online and social engagement.
• Sampling amplified online: Free samples are paired with influencer reviews to build credibility.
• TV spots repurposed on social: Broadcast ads are re-edited into short-form videos for TikTok and Instagram.
• Events extended digitally: In-person launches livestreamed to global audiences.

5. Key Takeaways for Beauty Brands in 2025

1. Don’t abandon traditional:

TV, OOH, and Retail remain critical in beauty. When people are putting products on their skin, trust is non-negotiable – and traditional channels bring the legitimacy, scale, and awareness that digital alone can’t match.

2. Invest in creators

Influencer marketing is now central, but authenticity matters more than follower count. Today’s audiences see through paid partnerships quickly. The creators who move the needle are the ones who feel authentic, have genuine expertise, and align naturally with the brand’s identity.

3. Think Omnichannel

The strongest campaigns are built to move people through the marketing funnel across both digital and traditional touchpoints. A bold OOH placement may create top-of-funnel awareness, while influencer content builds mid-funnel consideration, and in-store sampling helps close the loop with trial and purchase. By mapping the customer journey and designing campaigns that connect offline and online seamlessly, brands ensure every touchpoint reinforces the next – driving not just attention, but conversion and loyalty.

4. Tailor by category:

Not all beauty is marketed the same. Skincare often requires education and proof, so authority and expertise are key. Makeup thrives on spectacle, color, and transformation, making bold visuals and cultural moments essential. Fragrance is rooted in sensory storytelling, so immersive retail, packaging, and experiential campaigns carry huge weight. 

Each category leans differently, but all benefit from integrating digital and traditional levers.

5. Measure across channels:

It’s not enough to know which channel performed well in isolation. Leading brands measure how channels fuel each other – how OOH sparks digital buzz, how TV builds the baseline awareness that accelerates social conversion, or how influencer sampling drives retail lift. This holistic view turns campaigns into growth engines, allowing for optimization instead of disconnected efforts.

In 2025, beauty marketing isn’t about choosing between digital and traditional. It’s about designing a marketing mix where every channel plays a role: 

Final Thoughts

• Digital = discovery
  
• Traditional = trust
  
• Integration = impact

At International Advertising Solutions, we help beauty brands around the world build smarter advertising strategies that connect every part of the mix. Whether you’re launching a skincare line, scaling a makeup brand, or entering a new fragrance market, our solutions ensure your campaigns not only reach your audience but resonate with them.

Because in beauty, as in advertising, balance is everything.