Ulta Beauty
Teaming up with TikTok to spread joy through Beauty during TikTok Beauty Month
The objective
Celebrating joy through beauty
Ulta Beauty was the exclusive beauty partner for TikTok Beauty Month in 2024, launching their largest campaign to date on TikTok. Throughout the month-long omnichannel activation, Ulta Beauty and TikTok's goal was to celebrate beauty and help users find, embrace, and experience joy through beauty with a variety of awareness and engagement activations.
The solution
Nine solutions. One vision.
The month-long campaign was multifaceted and leveraged a range of TikTok solutions, including several new-to-market strategies. TikTok's tailored Beauty Month solutions helped Ulta Beauty amplify its message, engage audiences, and boost brand awareness, positioning the brand as a leader in both the beauty industry and cultural conversations around redefining beauty as a path to self-care, self-expression, self-confidence, and joy.
The omnichannel strategy included a bundle of nine TikTok solutions:
TikTok Out of Phone Billboard & Retail
Ulta Beauty was the first TikTok partner in the US to launch an Out of Phone Retail campaign, activating pop-up billboards in Ulta Beauty stores in four markets: New York City, Chicago, San Diego, and Santa Monica. A digital billboard in Times Square was also live, garnering 21 million impressions over two weeks.
Creator Partnerships
Through TikTok's creative exchange program, Ulta Beauty partnered with TikTok creators @itsmikaylanicolee, @rubeiriplus, and @zoekimkenealy to create content for organic and paid media throughout the campaign. The brand also brought in its Ulta Beauty Collective of 40+ creators to support the campaign.
Partnered IRL Event
TikTok and Ulta Beauty wrapped Beauty Month with an exclusive, creators-first event in NYC, designed to showcase the power of IRL moments in driving deeper brand affinity, storytelling, and shareable cultural impact. More than 100 creators and Ulta Beauty Fans stepped into an immersive beauty environment built for connection and content, featuring a fresh-floral Glambot moment, custom-embroidered hoodies, a permanent-bracelet station, and roaming performances that kept energy high throughout the night.
A standout element of the experience was the integration of a DIVE retail pop-up screen, featuring live Ulta Beauty ads starring several creators in attendance. For many, it was the first time seeing their own Ulta Beauty ads brought to life in a real-world setting, prompting emotional reactions, organic content capture, and a surge of creator pride shared across TikTok. This seamless bridge between digital and physical made the partnership feel personal, validating Ulta Beauty’s investment in creator-led storytelling.
By meeting creators where culture happens, both on TikTok and IRL, the event delivered a memorable, high-impact moment that strengthened relationships, fueled content, and demonstrated the unmatched value of experiential partnership.
Branded Search Hub
Ulta Beauty was the third TikTok partner to launch a Search Hub, giving TikTok users the opportunity to organically search for terms like Ulta Beauty and Ulta Rewards to engage with the interactive content hub.
Branded Mission
Ulta Beauty activated a Branded Mission and Hashtag, inviting audiences to co-create UGC for beauty routines, tips, and rituals with loved ones for the #JoyForward campaign. The Branded Mission provided the campaign with guaranteed scale, resulting in high reach and engagement while amplifying organic visibility. The #JoyForward hashtag exceeded benchmarks with over 109 million video views.
Custom Sound
TikTok and Ulta Beauty collaborated to develop a custom song called "Choose Joy" for the Branded Mission—listen to the track here!
Pulse Premiere
Ulta Beauty's ads appeared adjacent to high-quality, brand-safe content from premium publisher partners in the beauty and fashion space across the TikTok For You page, surpassing industry norms for foot traffic and achieving a 23% increase in store visits.
Top Feed
The brand deployed four Top Feed ads throughout the month to drive reach and awareness, exceeding Ulta Beauty click-through rate benchmarks across all placements.
In-Feed Ads
Ulta Beauty leveraged TikTok's auction traffic objective to drive users down the funnel and further amplify the campaign's messaging.
The results
Driving discovery and traffic across every touchpoint
The Beauty Month activation surpassed benchmarks, driving online and offline awareness, engagement, and traffic for Ulta Beauty via paid, organic, and earned media. Key highlights include an increase in foot traffic in Ulta Beauty stores, omnichannel conversion lifts across the web, app, and offline events, and over 300 million total impressions across the month-long campaign. Ulta Beauty was also the first TikTok partner in the US to launch in-store billboards via TikTok's Out of Phone Retail offering.
This culture-led activation with TikTok helped us accomplish our strategic objectives of delivering creator-fueled storytelling, premium media placements, and true omnichannel reach. The result was a powerful campaign that drove both brand equity and tangible online and in-store retail impact for Ulta Beauty.