Driving Direct-to-Consumer Growth Through Paid Media for Dr. Barbara Sturm
Building a scalable paid media strategy across global markets
We helped Dr. Barbara Sturm, a luxury skincare brand, move from a reseller-led model to a profitable direct-to-consumer strategy. With no historical data or analytics in place, we built a full-funnel paid media approach that unlocked performance in core markets and scaled across multiple territories. Our phased strategy nearly doubled ROI while increasing media spend, giving the brand a new level of commercial control and customer insight.
What we did
Market expansion strategy
Paid search & social activation
Data & analytics setup
Creative & audience testing
The results
0x
spend on paid media channels
0x
increase in revenue
0%
ROI improvement
The challenge
When we began working with DBS in early 2020, the brand was heavily reliant on resellers to drive online sales. With no usable performance data and limited internal understanding of digital media impact, our challenge was twofold: build a case for measurable ROI and grow direct sales through their own ecommerce site. This required taking internal stakeholders on a journey of education and trust, while proving performance market by market.
Our approach
To protect the brand and reduce competitor visibility, we used paid search to safeguard branded queries. As performance and stakeholder confidence grew, we expanded the activity to new regions, prioritising markets based on ROI. This phased rollout included additional English and German-speaking territories across Europe and beyond.
We continued to evolve our platform mix by incorporating YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, unlocking new audience segments and broadening the brand’s reach. To improve traffic quality in our upper-funnel campaigns, we layered high-performing demographic and interest-based segments with targeted keyword strategies. We also focused on maximising visibility in areas with the strongest demand and return, ensuring investment was directed where it would make the greatest impact.
Testing was central to our approach. We regularly trialled new combinations of channels, creatives and audiences to identify opportunities for scalable growth. All performance was tracked through a centralised, integrated data dashboard, ensuring every stakeholder had full visibility and confidence in the results.
