Benefit UK Drove 40x ROAS in 3 Months
"Merx’s AI-enabled platform gave us a smarter way to engage. It’s helped us personalise at scale, collect real insight, and rebuild our CRM with people who actually convert"
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Benefit UK is the British arms of Benefit Cosmetics, the brand behind cult bestsellers like Benetint and Roller Lash. Part of the world's leading luxury brand portfolio, the LVMH group, Benefit has >3,000 Brow Bars across >50 markets and is one of the most globally recognised names in Beauty.
Benefit Needed a New Channel as SMS Costs Rose and Engagement Slowed
As CRM Manager at Benefit UK, Molly Ratcliff knows how to keep customers engaged, whether they're new to the brand or coming back for their go-to products. But after successfully building a 50,000-contact SMS list, she noticed engagement from customer messages falling flat.
Molly understood that visual, educational conversations were essential to building real connections, but SMS didn’t support her vision. SMS also lacked the intelligent automation Benefit needed to have personalised conversations. Without AI-enabled responses, her team was limited to short, one-way texts through pre-scheduled campaigns - no product demos, birthday flows, or holy-grail product recommendations.
This limited format also meant Benefit missed out on valuable zero-party and first-party data that could inform future products and campaigns, including insights like customer interests and needs. "We had this big group of people, but we didn't know what to do with them,” Molly recalls.
On top of everything else, Benefit’s SMS solution was expensive, and the results didn’t justify the cost. For every £1 spent, Molly only saw a return of £1.15. The team tested product replenishment triggers to improve channel performance, but time-based flows took months to send and even longer to measure. These delays made it nearly impossible to optimise campaigns in real time.
Beyond SMS, Molly's team also wanted conversational commerce tools to build stronger customer relationships. While Benefit captured robust on-site behavioural and purchase data, their existing tech stack couldn't help them understand what customers truly wanted from the brand.
The team also lacked visibility into purchases across different retailers. Unless customers purchased directly from Benefit, they could still appear as "new" in Benefit’s system. This skewed customer segmentation data made tailored outreach challenging. The team recognised these challenges as an opportunity for change. They needed a tool to support visual product education, capture customer preferences, and surface data and loyalty signals that weren’t visible in their existing stack. And for Molly, timing was everything. With Q4 approaching, Black Friday promotions and product launches were right around the corner, including Benefit UK’s first new foundation in years.
When Benefit’s global team introduced Molly to Merx's WhatsApp solution, she knew the tool was exactly what her team needed.
Cost-Effective Engagement with Rich Customer Insights
After a smooth onboarding with Merx, Molly's team gained much more than a texting channel. Now, they have a flexible, AI-powered WhatsApp solution built for real connection. Using natural language processing, Merx understands and responds to customer questions like a trained beauty advisor. The team can easily share visuals, ask questions, and host genuine, two-way conversations all within WhatsApp.
"The platform is so user-friendly and easy to use," explains Molly. Now, the team experiments freely with hyper-personalised content, including visual product demos, interactive experiences, and birthday and welcome flows. Even better? Merx’s immediate feedback loops help Molly’s team test and optimise campaigns in real time, so they’re no longer stuck waiting for insights to trickle in.
With their new AI tool, Benefit automatically breezes through the educational conversations that drive connection. Trained on the brand’s full product catalogue and website, Merx’s AI assistant responds to countless customer questions, including inquiries about product recommendations and even application tips.
Through Merx's Q&A capabilities in WhatsApp, the team can also review unanswered intents. The team quickly discovered that customers frequently ask about beauty services, booking appointments, and product offerings.
And as customers engage, the platform automatically captures zero-party and first-party data from every exchange. This feature allows Molly’s team to build exciting campaigns, develop powerful messaging strategies, and create stronger user segments.
Behind the scenes, Merx also integrates with Molly's existing tech stack to streamline data. By pulling customer details from Benefit’s CDP, Merx connects every on-site and in-message interaction. Even customer follow-up questions are designed to prevent fragmented data, like whether customers have purchased from the brand before. This new data flow ensures better visibility and a sharper read on customer loyalty for every new opt-in.
With that foundation in place, Benefit launches campaigns that were never possible with SMS, like exclusive Black Friday offer codes and custom shade-matching journeys for their new foundation launch.
Merx Delivers 5,000 New Opt Ins and an 8x Higher ROAS than SMS
With Merx, Benefit gained more than a new channel. The team also unlocked a performance engine they can build on. Within 3 months, WhatsApp drove 6% of the team’s total annual revenue while reaching just 1% of their customer base.
Wins also showed up across the board:
- 40x ROAS on WhatsApp marketing spend
- £15 higher AOV vs. site average
- 5,000 new WhatsApp opt-ins within one month
Plus, Benefit UK’s first WhatsApp campaigns immediately resonated with customers. Response rates reflected 30-50% engagement, much higher than the average benchmark from other channels. But customers weren't just engaging, they were spending. WhatsApp customers averaged £54.30 per order compared to the site benchmark of around £40.
After Molly’s success, Benefit’s global team expanded the Merx rollout across more than five markets, including France, Mexico, and Germany.
And Molly’s team is already planning what’s next for Benefit UK: automated abandoned cart flows, back-in-stock alerts, an expertly crafted referral program, and and integrating their booking provider, Booxi, into WhatsApp to create a seamless booking journey with automated follow-ups and reminders.
