LOOKFANTASTIC boosts ROAS and lowers acquisition costs with AppsFlyer and Snap

Overview 

• LOOKFANTASTIC, one of the UK’s largest online beauty retailers, aimed to improve the quality and lifetime value of users acquired through iOS app campaigns.
• To achieve this, the team partnered with AppsFlyer and Snap to run a one-month, iOS-focused experiment in the UK, comparing Snap’s auto-bid strategy with Target Cost Per Action (tCPA) bidding to test cost efficiency and user value.
• Using AppsFlyer’s Single Source of Truth (SSOT) and advanced SRN measurement integration with Snap, LOOKFANTASTIC gained unified, privacy-safe insights into campaign performance, enabling accurate optimization and confident decision-making.
• The experiment delivered measurable improvements, including significant reductions in cost per install (CPI) and cost per acquisition (CPA), and increases in Day 2 and Day 7 return on ad spend (ROAS), proving that efficiency and user value can go hand in hand. In turn, this supported LOOKFANTASTIC’s broader objective of outperforming the top 25% of shopping apps in Day 1 and Day 7 retention.

Background 

LOOKFANTASTIC, part of THG plc, is a leading online premium beauty retailer. THG plc, headquartered in Manchester, UK, operates through two leading consumer businesses: THG Beauty and THG Nutrition. As part of THG Beauty, LOOKFANTASTIC sits alongside platforms such as Dermstore and Cult Beauty, offering a valued route to market for over 1,000 third-party brands, alongside a specialist portfolio of owned brands.

Challenge

LOOKFANTASTIC aimed to enhance customer lifetime value (LTV) by prioritizing the quality of users acquired through its app campaigns. While app install volume was strong, the team sought deeper clarity into which campaigns were truly driving valuable, retained users, as opposed to short-term conversions.

Across channels, each media partner reported results differently, creating data discrepancies and fragmented attribution. This was especially challenging on iOS, where shifting privacy frameworks made performance measurement even more complex.

LOOKFANTASTIC needed a unified, privacy-compliant view of performance that could reconcile data across networks and accurately connect early revenue signals with user quality, particularly for iOS campaigns.

Solution

To achieve that clarity, LOOKFANTASTIC’s App Acquisition team designed a controlled experiment to evaluate how different bidding strategies impacted both efficiency and user value, with a primary focus on iOS performance.

Snap as the media partner of choice 

LOOKFANTASTIC selected Snapchat as the ideal environment for the test. The platform had already demonstrated strong performance with auto-bidding in prior campaigns, providing a solid foundation for deeper experimentation. Snap also offered a controlled, data-rich setup that allowed the team to test bidding strategies side by side while maintaining consistent audience segments and creative execution.

Additionally, Snap’s deep integration with AppsFlyer made it a strategic choice for validating how unified iOS measurement could reveal insights into both cost efficiency and user value.

LOOKFANTASTIC ran a one-month, iOS-focused experiment in the UK, testing two app purchase–optimized install campaigns on Snapchat, comparing:

• Auto-bid strategy – Snap’s default optimization
• Target Cost Per Action (tCPA) bidding – designed for more cost-efficient acquisition
  

Unified measurement through SSOT

To measure campaign performance, LOOKFANTASTIC utilized AppsFlyer’s Single Source of Truth (SSOT), a unified, privacy-first framework designed specifically to bring clarity to iOS measurement by merging deterministic attribution,  probabilistic modeling, and SKAdNetwork (SKAN) data into a single, coherent view.

SSOT provided:

• Consistent, deduplicated reporting across networks
• Real-time insights into early value indicators such as Day 2 and Day 7 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• Actionable clarity to re-allocate spend toward higher-performing strategies

To refine analysis further, LOOKFANTASTIC created custom metrics within SSOT (e.g., SKAN ROAS) that blended SKAN and AppsFlyer-attributed data for complete transparency.

Advanced SRN Integration with Snap

Working seamlessly alongside SSOT was AppsFlyer and Snap’s Advanced SRN integration, a solution that provides more complete iOS measurement by securely capturing Snap’s attribution signals across both identifiable and non-identifiable users. This privacy-first integration ensures more accurate performance insights, enabling Snap’s optimization models to respond more effectively to campaign outcomes and drive stronger efficiency over time.

With SSOT and Advanced SRN, LOOKFANTASTIC received real-time, verified, and privacy-safe insights into iOS campaign performance. Together, these solutions gave the team the confidence to understand not just where conversions came from, but which strategies delivered users with the highest potential for retention and revenue.

“We wanted to move beyond install volume and truly understand the quality of the users we were acquiring. AppsFlyer’s SSOT framework and Snap’s advanced optimization tools gave us the clarity and confidence to measure performance accurately on iOS. Together, they helped us identify what drives the most efficient, high-value growth.”

Jaimin Bhogaita, App Acquisition Manager, LOOKFANTASTIC 

Results

The combination of Snap’s efficient bidding strategies and AppsFlyer’s unified measurement delivered tangible improvements for LOOKFANTASTIC’s app performance.

• Greater cost efficiency: The tCPA strategy achieved more effective user acquisition at optimized costs per conversion, resulting in a 29% reduction in cost per install (CPI) and decreases of 28% and 26% in day-2 and day-7 cost per acquisition (CPA), respectively.
• Improved retention: While Snap’s bidding was optimized for efficiency, AppsFlyer’s SSOT showed a dual benefit, with Day 2 and Day 7 ROAS increasing by 22% and 20%, showing clear gains in user value.
• Trusted, privacy-first measurement: SSOT and Advanced SRN together eliminated data discrepancies, providing LOOKFANTASTIC with a single, validated source of performance truth for their iOS campaigns.

“By focusing on efficiency through AppsFlyer’s measurement and Snap’s bidding strategies, we uncovered far greater impact than expected. We attracted higher-value users, improved retention, and saw LOOKFANTASTIC climb the App Store rankings as a direct reflection of those optimizations.”

Jaimin Bhogaita, App Acquisition Manager, LOOKFANTASTIC 

“Our partnership with AppsFlyer reflects our shared commitment to innovation and privacy-first measurement. Together, we’re empowering advertisers like LOOKFANTASTIC to access deeper, more reliable insights into campaign performance — driving smarter decisions and stronger business outcomes across the industry.”

Alex Morsy, Senior Client Partner, Snap 

The collaboration between LOOKFANTASTIC, Snap, and AppsFlyer proved that efficiency and value are not mutually exclusive. By optimizing for cost efficiency through Snap’s tCPA bidding and measuring results through AppsFlyer’s SSOT and Advanced SRN frameworks, the beauty retailer achieved both higher-quality users and complete confidence in its data. With a unified, privacy-first approach, their team was equipped to make decisions with clarity, trust, and precision.