CASE STUDY · 2023 · BEAUTY
4 WEEKS · E-COMMERCE ANALYTICS

One promo calendar, rebuilt. $2M in found revenue.

A beauty DTC brand ran promotions on instinct, gut calls on timing and discount depth, no baseline for what a good promo looked like. I pulled every promo in the order history, built a benchmark, and turned it into a playbook. Same budget, 35% more effective, roughly $2M in additional promotional revenue.
ADDED PROMO REVENUE
+$2M

From the reworked calendar

PROMO EFFECTIVENESS
+35%

Same budget, better timing + depth

OF PROMOS ANALYZED
3 YRS

Every code, window, and margin

DISCOUNT PLAYBOOK
1

When to run, how deep to go

The problem.

The brand ran promotions on instinct. Timing was a gut call; discount depth was whatever felt right. There was no baseline for what a "good" promo looked like, so no one could say which ones worked. Some promotions quietly cannibalized full-price demand. Others under- discounted and left money on the table. Same calendar every year, same guesses.

The approach.

I pulled every promotion out of the order history, dates, depth, codes, revenue, and margin, and built a baseline model: expected lift by discount tier, by calendar window, net of the sales the promo would have won anyway. Then I scored each historical promo against it, separating the winners from the ones that only looked good. The pattern became a simple playbook: when to run, how deep to go, and which windows to protect at full price.

The outcome.

Promo effectiveness rose 35% on the same budget, roughly $2M in additional promotional revenue over the following cycle. The team stopped guessing discount depth and started pricing every promo against a benchmark. The birthday sale, the seasonal drops, the flash windows, all of it now runs against a number instead of a hunch.

Running promos on gut feel?

If your discount calendar is instinct and your team can't say which promo actually worked, I'll build you the baseline. One slot open for Q3 2026.

BOOK A 20-MIN CALL