True Botanicals flawlessly transform digital experience to achieve $2m ROI increase in 12 months

True Botanicals’ natural-biocompatible promise strikes a chord with skincare enthusiasts

Founded in 2015 by health-conscious founder Hillary Peterson, True Botanicals is a luxurious, consciously crafted skincare brand on a mission to deliver clean and sustainable products that are clinically proven to work at the highest standards. 

True Botanicals’ unrivalled commitment to sustainable beauty has earned its esteemed reputation in the clean prestige beauty category. The company's highly coveted products are certified MADE SAFEⓇ, the most comprehensive ingredient safety certification available. True Botanicals sustainably and ethically sources clean ingredients whilst also prioritizing recyclable and reusable packaging.

True Botanicals has successfully overhauled its brand image, creative output and positioning in just two years, from targeting more mature audiences to focusing on “skintellectuals” who invest in skincare and are keenly interested in the appearance and health of their skin. utilizing Optimizely’s Web Experimentation platform has helped the team make data-informed decisions throughout their brand redesign.

The team’s success was recognized by Newsweek’s 2022 list as one of the fastest-growing shops in the U.S. in 2022, and has now been complimented by a successful Series B investment in March 2023.

The evolving landscape of the luxury skincare industry

As a nascent brand in the competitive luxury skincare market, Chief Marketing Officer, Rebecca Boston, shared that the entire team was laser focused on making True Botanicals a cult brand with differentiated, unique positioning that connected deeply with its consumers. 

VP of Marketing Tran Wu shared that the company’s vision was to turn their website into a best-in-class luxury storefront that was a conversion-driving machine on mobile. One of the team’s biggest challenges was navigating Apple’s sweeping privacy changes as it impacted ads and campaigns. This elevated the importance of transforming True Botanicals’ website into a conversion-optimized touchpoint. To achieve that, they needed A/B testing to move the business forward.

Before True Botanicals’ experimentation transformation, business decisions were largely made according to well-known industry best practices, opinions and gut instinct. However, the team was well-aware of constantly evolving customer expectations. 

Over 75% of customers access the True Botanicals website on their smartphones. Tran detailed that True Botanicals’ strategy will always be to “think mobile-first and obsess over the entire consumer journey” and stressed the importance of continuous testing to validate decisions rather than working based on standard industry practices.

With new competitors challenging the norms of the industry, the need to make data-driven decisions to maximize conversion, retain current customers and attract new customers was critical. Therefore, the True Botanicals team partnered with Optimizely and its Web Experimentation platform for its website rebrand.

Implementing A/B testing into True Botanicals’ DNA

True Botanicals identified Anatta as its Optimizely implementation partner thanks to the latter’s robust experience implementing Optimizely’s Web Experimentation platform with prominent direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.

Both teams quickly got acquainted and proceeded to work closely to rebrand True Botanicals and optimize the website to drive conversions.

When it came time to dive into experimentation, the team decided to switch from Google Optimize to Optimizely’s Web Experimentation platform. Optimizely’s platform was ultimately chosen for its ability to execute AI-powered personalization along with web A/B testing.

The team went from running singular tests to multiple tests which helped them achieve statistical significance to make data-driven decisions. Constant communication between True Botanicals and Anatta and regular ideation sessions with Optimizely helped everyone stay on top of testing priorities.

True Botanicals’ vision of turning their website into a mobile conversion-driving machine was spearheaded by a 3-pronged CRO testing philosophy.

1. Increase mobile conversion rate by 25%
2. CRO is a game of inches: it takes a series of tests to improve conversion rate over time.
3. Prioritize tests closest to conversion and use the PXL method to focus on the highest impact tests

Principle Creative Director at Anatta, Ruben Oviedo, shared that Optimizely’s industry-leading capabilities, user-friendly interface, and strong partnership made it easy for the team to test at a higher velocity and gain better insights into True Botanicals’ customers.

Ruben also shared that the ability to seamlessly test for mobile-first experiences has transformed True Botanical’s testing capabilities. The team can now test throughout the customer journey, aiding True Botanicals on its way to achieve its conversion goals.

Katie Smith (UX Designer – Anatta) commented that “the platform is really easy to use and looking for data and results is a straightforward process.” Instead of the team’s prior process of extracting information piecemeal, they can now have a holistic summary as well as extract highlights to identify test winners swiftly.

True Botanicals successfully drives conversion with data-driven decisions

True Botanicals’ 2022 CRO Program crushed expectations. The team exceeded its 4.8% CVR goal with a site-wide CVR of 4.9%.  The team also greatly exceeded their win rate goal with a 66% test win rate, accomplishing this through a combination of redesigns, qualitative studies and testing efforts. These efforts led to an estimated $2m ROI increase in the first year alone.

True Botanicals went from opinion-based decision-making to an internal culture of data-driven strategies and data-validated decision-making after leveraging Optimizely’s Web Experimentation. The team was also empowered to A/B test for granular changes, driving its website conversion.

Coupled with Anatta’s support and True Botanicals’ rebranding, Optimizely helped True Botanicals understand user behavior better by providing insights after each test in a digestible manner.

Renew Collection Variation Testing

 Clinical Trials Variation Testing

With Optimizely’s intuitive interface, teams can run A/B tests and extract results easily, saving them time and contributing to improved internal efficiency that empowered True Botanicals to focus on high-level tasks such as business planning.

Experimenting and iterating has allowed the True Botanicals team to take away several key learnings about both its own experimentation practices and its customers. 

Key Learnings:

1. 3 of 4 of top tests were related to CTA changes
2. Quantitative and qualitative insights need to be balanced for best consumer experience
3. Map out all tests a quarter in advance to drive speed and velocity

True Botanicals also discovered its user preference for both mobile and desktop despite the digital landscape’s shift to becoming mobile-first. Testing with Optimizely has allowed the team to learn about this user preference and provide a digital experience that meets customer expectations.

The next step for True Botanicals

True Botanicals’ conversion has gone from strength to strength since leveraging Optimizely’s Web Experimentation. The team will now focus on delivering more immersive beautiful mobile experiences whilst also spreading its sustainability message across the entire website.

In addition, the team plans to become more dynamic in delivering digital experiences depending on user device preferences. This brings the team to its goal of leveraging more personalization across the website to ensure that customers are shown content and product recommendations at the right time.