How Saltyface Achieved Sustainable Growth Through UGC & Strategic Financial Forecasting
Overview
Where beauty meets eco-consciousness in the most stunning way, Saltyface brings together the best of cosmetics, tanning, and skincare, all while sticking to safe and eco-friendly ingredients. Any growth journey in beauty is relentless. For Saltyface, the challenge was clear: how to scale without just throwing more money at acquisition costs.
Together, we created a detailed 12-month financial forecast with Saltyface’s CEO. This aimed to maximize profit while keeping a keen eye on maintaining steady Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). The objective was twofold: to grow the business and to ensure that growth was both sustainable and financially viable.
“I was very impressed with the forecasting that Kynship provided. Their spreadsheets probably had 15 pages of our brand’s micro and macro economics. Super helpful in helping us understand overall strategy in our ad spend that would lead us to our goals.” —David Menzel, Co-Founder and CEO
Understanding Seasonality & Financial Goals
The journey with Saltyface was guided not just by a desire to grow, but to do so in a way that aligns with the brand's seasonal peaks and financial health. Recognizing the importance of seasonality in Saltyface’s business model, we tailored our approach to not only withstand but leverage these patterns to our advantage.
The focus shifted from merely tracking CAC to understanding its role in a larger financial ecosystem. The increase in CAC was anticipated and planned for, with a clear rationale tied to seasonality. The goal was to ensure Saltyface's financial stability and growth potential during its peak seasons, effectively covering OPEX and enhancing the Contribution Margin.
“I was very impressed with the forecasting that Kynship provided. Their spreadsheets probably had 15 pages of our brand’s micro and macro economics. Super helpful in helping us understand overall strategy in our ad spend that would lead us to our goals.”
Strategy
Saltyface had some hesitations about embracing non-branded creative within their marketing strategy. Recognizing the need to navigate this challenge creatively, we turned to user-generated content (UGC) as the solution. This strategy enabled us to tap into the authentic experiences of Saltyface’s customers, who had already been organically sharing their love for the products online. This move effectively mirrored the engagement and authenticity we might traditionally seek through influencer seeding campaigns.
Securing UGC Content Rights
Kynship handled content rights conversations, engaging directly with customers via emails and direct messages on social. These individuals had naturally showcased their Saltyface experiences, making them perfect candidates for our approach.
We ran a social listening campaign through MightyScout to aggregate all organic UGC content, then navigated each conversation with a tailored communication flow chart. This ensures we fully understand the nuances of each interaction, capitalizing on the unique opportunities they present. After securing the necessary content rights, our team edited the raw UGC, elevating these real-life moments into polished, campaign-ready assets.
To date, our proactive outreach has initiated 375 conversations, from which we've secured the rights to content from 113 creators. This has resulted in the production of 332 pieces of content, including both videos and photos, all ready to be repurposed within Saltyface’s paid media strategy.
While we have yet to prioritize traditional influencer seeding campaigns in our collaboration with Saltyface, the possibility of this strategy could be something considered in the future.
A key takeaway: The power of leveraging existing, high-quality UGC. Product seeding isn't the only path to filing an ad account with compelling content. When a brand is already receiving significant organic engagement, Kynship can seamlessly bridge the gap, turning spontaneous brand endorsements (UGC) into a strategic asset for advertising.
Meta Ad Strategy
Kynship implemented a paid media strategy designed to maximize Saltyface’s visibility and engagement on the Meta platform. At the core of this strategy was the use of Automated Shopping Campaigns (ASC) structured with cost cap campaigns for each SKU. This approach ensured that each campaign was operating within profitable margins, optimizing the return on investment. By leveraging user-generated content (UGC) and pushing ad spend significantly, Saltyface capitalized on the high delivery rates achievable at low cost caps.
Results
The period from December 2022 to February 2024 highlighted significant growth and the strategic management of CAC within the context of Saltyface’s broader financial objectives.
Saltyface was significantly underspending on advertising, missing out on a considerable opportunity to leverage their high first order contribution margin (CM) for greater operational expenditure coverage (OPEX) and overall business growth. By strategically increasing ad spend and using cost controls, we not only improved the efficiency of expenditure but also boosted new customer revenue.
While CAC increased drastically from what they were doing in the year prior, reducing CAC was never the goal. Instead, it was about focusing on the overall financial wellness of the brand. They did this by smartly managing their operating costs (OPEX) and putting a strong emphasis on boosting their Contribution Margin.
This speaks volumes about their ambition to not just grow, but to grow in a way that's financially sound. The strategy we deployed helped them find that sweet spot between sales revenue and costs, enhancing profitability on a per-unit basis, which is crucial for their long-term playbook.
Lessons Learned and Future Plans
This strategy played out in two big wins for Saltyface. First, it gave them the agility to ride the waves of market seasonality with confidence. Second, by keeping an eye on the Contribution Margin and making sure their OPEX was in check, Saltyface aligned their growth efforts with the broader goal of financial sustainability. This approach not only built a stronger foundation for the business but also showed the value of making strategic bets in marketing and customer acquisition. Sure, these moves come with their upfront costs, but as Saltyface has shown, they can be the key to unlocking sustainable growth and carving out a solid position in the market.
Additionally, the initial reluctance to adopt non-branded content limited the brand's appeal to a narrower audience segment. Transitioning to user-generated content (UGC) allowed for a more authentic brand representation, facilitating access to new customer demographics.
Moving forward, the focus will be on accumulating more content while continuing to optimize ad spend, ensuring it aligns with the goal of maximizing the first order contribution margin without compromising business growth.
Why choose The Kynship System?
