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The beauty industry has always fueled the desire, aspiration, and self-expression of its audience. And it still does. What’s changed is the shopper’s path from product discovery to purchase, raising expectations for how brands show up, listen, and respond to their consumers.
That shift has reshaped what a brand’s growth playbook looks like, explains Liza Heller, Vertical Director, Beauty, Fashion & Luxe at TikTok.
“We are moving from an attention economy to an intention economy,” Heller says. In this new reality, growth doesn’t come from chasing a lightning-in-a-bottle moment, but from sustained emotional connection through always-on, community-led storytelling.”
How Community-Led Storytelling Drives Growth
While a popular phrase in modern marketing, community-led storytelling can be misunderstood. For some, it translates into posting more often or loading up a content calendar. But Heller sees it differently.
“It starts with understanding the community you’re trying to connect with,” she says. “They’re showing up in so many different ways. So, how are you going to create a real connection — one that makes them want to invite your brand and become part of the community?”
To put that in beauty terms, skin care minimalists, ingredient obsessives, acne-prone teens, and luxury fragrance collectors may all engage with the same brand, but they respond to wildly different cues, creators, and conversations.
For beauty marketers, this means letting go of the idea that one perfect message will carry the brand. Increasingly, growth comes from being in the right conversation at the right time in real time.
So, how does a beauty brand become a top performer in this environment?
1. Think in Loops, Not Funnels
Traditional marketing funnels assume a straight line, moving neatly from awareness to consideration to purchase. TikTok operates on a different logic. Heller describes it as an “infinite loop,” where discovery, validation, purchase, and loyalty continually feed one another. For example, a consumer might discover a product through a creator, validate it in the comments, buy it online or in-store, then re-enter discovery through trends or user-generated content.
The fast-moving loop’s only real constraint is speed.
That’s where TikTok’s Smart+ Performance Solutions can help. Designed to keep pace with culture without sacrificing control, Smart+ finds the right audience, learns which creatives are driving results, and scales what’s working. Marketers remain hands-on with strategy, creative direction, and budget, while automation runs quietly in the background to support more consistent performance over time.
The impact is already visible in beauty. Leveraging TikTok’s Smart+ automated performance solution, Lancôme delivered a 228% year-over-year increase in ROAS across the Black Friday–Cyber Monday period.
“What excites us most is not just the strength of these results, but what they signal for the future. This momentum gives me tremendous confidence in TikTok’s Smart+ Performance product, as we look ahead to the future of social commerce,” says Laura Azaria, Chief Marketing Officer, LUXE Division, L’Oréal.
Over at Ulta, adoption of TikTok’s Smart+ Catalog Ads with website and app optimization allows for the seamless, tailored experience Ulta Beauty guests were craving, according to Jillian Levine, Vice President for Paid Social at Ulta Beauty’s agency IPG Mediabrands Kinesso. The result was a 27% increase in return on ad spend, a 30% drop in cost per acquisition and a 35% reduction in cost per click.
In both cases, automation allowed strong ideas to travel further and perform harder.
2. Stop Focusing on the “Last Click”
Another way TikTok is fueling growth is by stoking a consumer’s desire to shop offline.
“When brands focus only on the final click, they miss much of what’s actually driving growth,” Heller says.
Recent MMM (Media Mix Modeling) studies from Monks show that for a leading fashion and beauty advertiser, more than half of TikTok’s total impact has occurred offline (i.e., in real stores) over the past three years.
That translates to 29% higher omnichannel ROI across DTC, retail partners, and physical stores. In other words, TikTok is where online hype meets real-world results.
3. Tap into Trends as Intent Signals
Beauty brands have always chased trends, but in an intention economy, trends function less like fleeting moments and more like early signals of demand.
TikTok Next Trend Forecast highlights how trends often build quietly before breaking through. A recent example is the “2016 is the new 2026” brow trend, which began as creators revisited brow past aesthetics with humor and nostalgia before it reached wider saturation.
Tools like TikTok Market Scope help brands spot emerging search behavior and creator activity early, while TikTok One’s Content Suite shows how audiences are already engaging across organic and paid content. Together, they allow brands to enter conversations sooner and extend relevance beyond a single spike.
The shift for beauty marketers is subtle but important: winning isn’t about jumping on trends at their peak. It’s about recognizing intent early and staying present long enough for that intent to translate into action.
4. Bet on Communities, Not Committees
Asked what really defines the behavior of today’s winners, Heller says, “Their leaders are the ones bold enough to bet on their communities and not their committees.”
It’s a cultural mindset shift as much as a marketing one. The brands that thrive in an intention economy build with their communities, treat storytelling as an ongoing relationship and use technology to scale creativity without sanding down its edges.
On TikTok, culture, commerce and community don’t operate in separate lanes. They reinforce one another—and the brands that understand that are the ones shaping what beauty growth looks like next.
