Space NK – Best Paid Social Campaign
Performance Marketing Awards 2026
Visit spacenk.com/uk/home
Space NK delivered record-breaking paid social performance, driving double-digit year-on-year session growth at improved efficiency alongside double-digit new customer growth, to deliver the channel’s strongest day ever.
About Space NK
Space NK is the ultimate beauty destination. From iconic to emerging, we are home to the most in-demand beauty. With over 80 UK stores including our flagship in London’s Oxford Circus, a strong online presence and a thriving loyalty programme, we have built a flourishing beauty community.
The challenge
Black Friday represents one of the most competitive and commercially critical periods for retailers, particularly in the saturated beauty market. Rising media costs, increasing platform competition and evolving customer expectations make it challenging to scale efficiently. For Space NK, the challenge was to exceed ambitious growth targets while maintaining efficiency, ensuring every pound of media investment worked harder to drive sessions, acquire new customers and compete effectively in a crowded promotional landscape.
The solution
The strategic approach
Our strategy centred on a full-funnel, data-driven paid social approach across Meta, TikTok and Pinterest. We prioritised audience intelligence, AI-led optimisation and platform-native creative to maximise both scale and efficiency, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to tailor activity by channel and funnel stage. We deployed Smartly’s Predictive Budget Allocation to dynamically shift spend towards top-performing campaigns in real time, delivering a double-digit year-on-year improvement in cost per session for traffic campaigns, while a precision-led audience strategy activated customers across all lifecycle stages and reduced wasted spend. Recognising creative as a primary driver of performance, Space NK invested in platform-specific, native content and creator-led assets rather than repurposing a single suite.
The technology deployed
We partnered with Smartly to enhance efficiency and unlock AI-driven optimisation during peak trading, enabling real-time budget allocation and the scalable deployment of creative across platforms. In parallel, CRM-led segmentation ensured precise audience targeting, allowing us to tailor messaging to distinct customer groups and maximise relevance and performance at every stage of the journey.
The boldest decision
The boldest decision was to abandon a one-size-fits-all approach and invest in platform-native, creator-led creative at scale. This required a step change in production, testing and collaboration between creative and paid media teams, but proved critical in unlocking performance and driving efficiency during peak trading.
The results
The campaign delivered exceptional full-funnel performance, exceeding all expectations across scale, efficiency and customer acquisition. Paid social drove significant growth in sessions while improving cost efficiency, demonstrating the strength of a data-driven, AI-optimised approach.
Crucially, the strategy accelerated both new and reactivated customer growth, proving its effectiveness in driving high-value audiences during peak trading. This culminated in the strongest paid social trading day in Space NK’s history, validating the impact of a precision-led, creative-first strategy at scale.
The strongest entry in the category. The combination of AI-powered budget allocation, audience precision and platform-native creativity delivered measurable efficiency gains during the hardest trading period of the year.
- Ambitious objectives and agility
- Exceptionally well-structured commercial objectives with pre-agreed targets spanning sessions, new customers, efficiency and revenue, and a session growth target that aggressively outpaced the budget increase.
- Top-tier execution
- A well-considered three-pillar framework across three platforms, with targeted audience exclusions to reduce cannibalisation and a strong mix of templates and authentic creator-led content.
- Standout innovation
- The transition to Smartly predictive budget allocation was a meaningful step forward from manual optimisation, enabling smarter, faster budget distribution and creative production during the most competitive time of year.
- Outstanding results
- Every target exceeded, with session growth and new customer acquisition particularly strong, delivering historic growth in both sessions and new business and the strongest paid social day in Space NK history.
Innovate to win at peak
In an environment where platforms, competition and customer expectations are constantly evolving, repeating last year’s approach is no longer enough. Brands must continuously innovate to drive growth. Partnering with the right technology, such as Smartly, enables more efficient execution and smarter optimisation, allowing teams to deliver greater impact with fewer resources while staying competitive during peak moments.
