How ILIA Beauty Uses VIP-First SMS and Attentive AI to Drive Repeat Purchase at Scale
2026-02-18 19:06 Diff
https://www.attentive.com/case-studies/how-ilia-beauty-uses-vip-first-sms-and-attentive-ai-to-drive-repeat-purchase-at-scale

Scaling personalization without sacrificing brand voice

ILIA uses SMS to turn first-time buyers into repeat customers, with loyalty and lifecycle automations doing most of the work. As the program grew, the team wanted to scale personalization without defaulting to broad, frequent sends.

ILIA is also intentional about how the brand shows up in-channel. From tone and creative to the way product details are communicated, the team wants every message to feel consistent and customer-respectful, especially as the program scales.

“We like to speak to our customers at a mature level. We’re very promotion-averse, and we can exclude certain language to make sure we’re not saying anything that isn’t extremely held close or owned by us.”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

Building repeat purchase around replenishment, preference signals, and loyalty

1) Turn first-touch list growth into meaningful segmentation

ILIA prioritizes collecting useful customer signals early—understanding what a shopper is looking for, then using that information to tailor messaging across the lifecycle.

“The customer experience focus starts at the first touchpoint and continues through our highest-LTV customers.”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

2) Welcome offer testing built for a competitive beauty landscape

With new customer growth becoming more challenging, ILIA moved beyond a default opt-in incentive and tested:

  • Different discount tiers
  • Free gift offers
  • Free gift + discount combinations bundles
  • Starter/mini sets as an alternative to discounting

This testing-first approach gave ILIA a clearer view of what actually entices new shoppers—without forcing the brand into a hyper-promotional posture.

3) Lifecycle timing centered on replenishment and seasonality

ILIA uses data on when customers are likely to run low to test timing earlier vs. closer to depletion.

They also test seasonal prompts—like when to retake a complexion or skin-match quiz as sun exposure changes shade needs.

VIP segmentation is ILIA’s most reliable performance lever

“When asked what consistently performs, my answer is immediate: VIP customers. Our VIP program includes account holders who earn points, and we’re approaching ~500K VIPs.”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

For BFCM, ILIA went beyond the typical “VIP early access” play and introduced a tiered offer:

  • 25% off for VIPs
  • 20% off for non-VIPs
“VIP messages—despite being a smaller subset than a full-file send—drove some of our top SMS performance, especially among ‘redeeming’ VIPs who we actively engage with points and rewards gamification.”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

AI Journeys: the unlock that helped ILIA scale while sending smarter

“AI Journeys was a ‘huge unlock’—it was initially nerve-wracking because of brand voice control, but it was quickly validated by performance. AI Journeys helped drive substantial year-over-year performance, rein in full-file sending, tighten campaign segmentation, and let journeys carry more of the workload.” - Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

A core need for ILIA is keeping lifecycle messaging aligned during major moments like BFCM and Friends & Family.

“Attentive enabled a capability for AI Journeys to recognize active promos and automatically adjust journey copy to include the sale name, discount, and offering—removing the tradeoff between ‘AI on’ and ‘promo-accurate messaging.’”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

AI Journeys saw:

  • 49% clicks lift
  • 280% median 0-day click + view purchase lift
  • 246% median 0-day click + view revenue delta
  • 76x median 0-day click + view ROI
  • 270% UI purchase lift

AI Pro in action: Audiences AI + Identity AI for smarter reach and higher-intent recovery

Audiences AI: expanding reach while keeping targeting efficient

  • 18% revenue lift (0-day click + view)
  • 44% send lift overall
  • Up to +97% revenue lift (0-day click + view) in a standout campaign

Identity AI: stronger abandonment capture across high-intent behaviors

  • 13% revenue lift in Identity AI abandonment journeys (0-day click + view, SMS)
  • 14% revenue lift weekly (0-day click + view)

Integrations that support replenishment and subscription upsell

ILIA uses the Recharge integration for subscribe-and-save—supporting subscription updates and using purchasing behavior (ex: repeat purchasing) to intelligently upsell customers into subscriptions with benefits like discounts and free shipping.

Partnership: an extension of a lean team

“I'm effectively a team of one, and Attentive (including my CSM and partners) have been highly responsive—supporting everything from rapid builds to working sessions built around testing, performance review, and scaling learnings across regions (US, UK, Canada).”
- Alexandra Salai, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, ILIA Beauty

Results

Total program and lifecycle outcomes (SMS)

  • 31x total program ROI
  • 225x automated journeys ROI
  • 364x welcome journey ROI
  • 12x campaign messages ROI