Less Spend, More Results: Why Skin At Work Chose Glued
Learn and steal the strategy that we used to help boost key metrics so you can implement it and see similar metric lifts.
+407%
+208%
+39%
In this case study, we'll unpack how Skin At Work achieved a 407% conversion rate increase and 208% ROAS improvement while cutting advertising costs by 87%. More importantly, you'll discover how to escape the expensive traffic trap that's bleeding budgets everywhere: pouring more money into ads instead of fixing what happens after the click. These strategies will show you how to transform your existing traffic into dramatically better results, proving that optimization beats acquisition every single time.
At glance
For context, we're a team of top strategists, designers, writers, and developers who've helped 350+ DTC brands boost conversions through web, email, and landing page optimization.
If you want a sneak peak of what your site or email could look like optimized, you may grab a free audit where we'll analyze your site/email, show you redesign samples, and give you an actionable roadmap. Or book a strategy call with our founders for a live site review, all 100% free.
Otherwise, enjoy the read and steal what works for your brand.
Skin At Work is a skincare brand focused on helping working adults maintain healthy skin despite stressful lifestyles and environmental challenges, but here's what matters for your strategy: they're a perfect example of a brand that discovered the expensive way that more traffic doesn't solve conversion problems. Like every growth-focused company, they were caught in the cycle of increasing ad spend to hit revenue targets, watching their ROAS slowly decline as costs climbed. Sound familiar? Every marketing leader faces this pressure: leadership wants growth, but they also want efficiency, and most agencies only know how to deliver one or the other.
The "Spend More to Make More" Trap
You know that sick feeling when your ROAS drops from 2.0 to 0.6 and everyone starts questioning your entire marketing strategy? That's exactly where Skin At Work found themselves before we started working together. They were trapped in the classic digital marketing death spiral: declining performance leading to higher ad spend leading to even worse efficiency, all while the pressure to hit numbers kept mounting.
Here's what every performance marketer learns the hard way: when your landing pages aren't converting, no amount of traffic optimization will save your campaigns. Skin At Work was stuck at 0.6-0.75 ROAS, bleeding money on every campaign while their competitors seemed to effortlessly maintain profitable growth. We knew from our Free Website Audit & Redesign that the problem wasn't their traffic quality—it was what happened after people clicked. At Glued, we've seen this pattern countless times: brands throwing more money at the symptom instead of fixing the disease.
Trust, Education, and Conversion in the Skincare Space
This is where most agencies completely misunderstand the skincare market. They treat it like any other ecommerce category, but skincare buyers—especially working adults—need education and trust before they'll convert. At Glued, we approach skincare differently: we design for skeptical customers who've been burned by overpromising before, and we build trust through transparency, not hype.
Every marketing executive in regulated or trust-dependent industries faces this challenge: how do you optimize for conversions without looking desperate or sacrificing brand credibility? The breakthrough came through A/B testing our "FREE" versus "Just Pay for Shipping" messaging, improving blog visibility to position the brand as educators rather than just sellers, and creating a dedicated BFCM bundles page that made purchasing decisions feel smart rather than impulsive. Our approach with their new product launch for The Deep C Diver proved that when you solve for trust first, conversions follow naturally. At Glued, we believe that in industries where credibility matters, the fastest path to conversion is building genuine authority, not clever sales tactics.
When Less Becomes More
Here's the truth that will change your next budget planning meeting: the most profitable growth often comes from optimizing what you already have, not buying more of what isn't working. Within months of launch, Skin At Work's ROAS jumped from 0.6-0.75 to 1.35—a 208% improvement. But here's the part that makes this a career-defining win: they achieved a 407% conversion rate increase while cutting their advertising costs by 87%.
You know that pressure you feel to justify every marketing dollar while somehow achieving exponential growth? This is how you solve both problems simultaneously. The 74% conversion improvement and 39% AOV increase meant that every visitor became dramatically more valuable, while the 75% increase in BFCM volume proved the strategy scaled during their most important selling season. At Glued, we've learned that when you fix conversion fundamentals, every other metric gets easier to improve because you're working with a solid foundation instead of trying to optimize broken systems.
Key Takeaways: Efficiency Over Volume
If you're tired of explaining why your ROAS keeps dropping despite increasing budgets, these insights will fundamentally change your approach to growth marketing. The opportunity is massive because most brands are still choosing expensive traffic over effective optimization.
1. Test value perception before scaling traffic: We A/B tested "FREE" versus "Just Pay for Shipping" messaging and found that perceived value matters more than actual price in skincare. This sounds simple, but here's what shocked us: the difference in conversion rates was dramatic enough to completely change their unit economics. At Glued, we always test messaging positioning before recommending budget increases—if you want to book a call with us, we can show you exactly how this testing framework works for your industry.
2. Turn your blog into a conversion asset, not just content: You've probably invested thousands in content marketing that drives traffic but doesn't convert. We improved blog visibility by adding strategic links to navigation, footers, and slide-outs, turning educational content into trust-building that directly impacts purchase decisions. In skincare, customers who read educational content convert at 3x higher rates than those who don't.
3. Design seasonal campaigns for efficiency, not just volume: Most brands treat BFCM like a traffic-buying contest, but we created dedicated bundle pages that made purchasing decisions feel strategic rather than impulsive. At Glued, we've learned that seasonal success comes from making offers feel valuable and time-sensitive without feeling desperate—the difference is everything in trust-dependent categories.
4. Platform constraints are opportunities in disguise: Working with Replo as a new platform forced us to be more creative and collaborative, ultimately leading to better results than if we'd used familiar tools. Sometimes limitations force innovation that you wouldn't discover otherwise. The key is maintaining close communication and treating platform challenges as design problems to solve together.
5. Collaboration beats assumptions every time: Here's the insight that every marketing leader should take to their next agency evaluation: the most successful projects happen when agencies share their CRO expertise while respecting brand vision. At Glued, our process with Thomas proved that transparency and frequent feedback create better outcomes than agencies who disappear for weeks and return with "solutions" that ignore brand context. Start with our Free Website Audit & Redesign to see exactly how much efficiency you're leaving on the table, and discover why optimization always beats acquisition for sustainable growth.
These metrics reflect performance at the time our implementations were measured and analyzed. Results may vary over time as products evolve, market conditions change, or additional modifications are made.