A multilingual European cosmetics brand
NL BEAUTY is a European cosmetics brand from Bulgaria, selling across multiple European markets with annual e-Commerce revenue of ±€5 million.
The range spans various cosmetics and skincare products – lipsticks and lip products, eyeshadow sticks, mascara, tanning and body care, and a small perfume line. Distribution runs through the brand’s own online store alongside retail partnerships, including major retail chains such as Douglas and Beauty Line.
Email is managed across 5 separate market accounts, with a total database exceeding 250,000 subscribers.
August works against the calendar
For most cosmetics brands, Summer is usually the lowest season – especially August. For most companies, this a month to absor, not scale & hit peak revenue. However, this time, we decided to aim for the opposite to compensate for the lower demand, by running a Summer BFCM event…
Lower seasonal demand
The holiday period pulls the audience away from routine shopping, and buying intent sits at its lowest point of the year.
No natural occasion
Most months of the year have various occasions to organize a sale campaign, while August is one of the emptiest months.
List health
The volume required meant sending to the full database repeatedly within a single week, including segments normally excluded – exactly where unsubscribe and complaint rates tend to spike.
The objective: run a sale event, at a scale large enough to reverse the month, without damaging the database.
Summer
Black Friday
The concept was to import a Q4 retail moment into August. Black Friday carries built-in urgency and a shared understanding of what it means – deep offers, short window, act now.
The event ran for eight days, from 4 to 11 August, across seven emails.
4.1 Timing
8 days · 7 emails
4.2 Offer
Buy one, get one free, across the range.
No tiers. No minimum basket. Nothing to explain.
One offer throughout: buy one, get one free, across the range. No tiers or minimum basket, nothing to explain. Every email carried the same message, so the sequence could vary angle and creative without diluting the proposition.
The Emails:
Hover to pause · click to open
The other August campaigns
Summer Black Friday was the centrepiece, but not the whole month as the sale was designed to sit inside a full calendar, not replace it.
The highest campaign revenue month of the year
August finished as the highest campaign revenue month of the year, and the second highest month of total store revenue – behind only February, when the brand runs its anniversary sale.
Campaign revenue in August ran 2.6x the monthly average for the year, and 5.4x the year’s weakest month.
The sale accounted for 75% of the month’s campaign revenue in 8 days of a 31-day month – earning at roughly 7x the daily rate of a normal month. On its own, those eight days out-earned an average full month by nearly 2x.
Conversion rates ran 4-6x times the account’s normal campaign rate, across 1.52 million emails.
the monthly average campaign revenue for the year
the year’s weakest month
of the month’s campaign revenue, from 8 days of 31
the account’s normal campaign conversion rate
We’ve been working with PROGS for over a year with the goal of building our core email marketing flows and achieving at least a 30% share of total revenue from email marketing.
Thanks to our collaboration, email marketing grew to generate nearly 40% of our total revenue, which was a fantastic result for us!
PROGS are true professionals with excellent communication, strong organization, and creative ideas. We truly appreciate their professionalism and partnership!
Hot Takes You Can Steal
There is always an occasion - you just have to create it.
Demand in a slow month is not fixed. Borrowing a frame the audience already understands gives a promotion instant meaning. Every quiet month can carry an event.
Blast the list when it matters.
During major sale events, when high conversion rates are expected, email your full list (unless your initial deliverability is bad).
Double up at peak interest.
Two emails on launch day, eight hours apart, carried a third of the sale. Interest peaks at announcement – spacing sends evenly wastes it.
The offer is only half of it - the frame is the other half.
The same 1+1 ran three weeks earlier as a small flash promo and performed like one. Named Summer Black Friday and given a deadline, it did 3.4x. Before deepening a discount, check whether anyone was told it mattered.
Who worked on it
Meet the team →
Time to Reverse Your Low Season?
If you want your success story to look like this, book a free call or write to us at office@progs.agency.
