Challenge

Manicures represent approximately 13% of the weekly spending budget for the average Australian. With rising cost-of-living pressures, consumers are reassessing small luxuries and turning to DIY solutions, seeking inspiration and guidance online.

Essie needed to dethrone market leaders OPI and Sally Hansen, establishing a strong presence within Australia’s search engine results pages (SERPs) by:

• Share of voice - Achieving 41 keywords ranking in positions #1-3
• Consideration – Target of 30,000 organic clicks
• Purchase intent - Boosting click-to-buy rates by 30%

Strategy

“If a colour doesn’t exist, we create it.” – Essie

The colours we choose speak volumes about who we are to ourselves and to others – and a key priority for essie's target audience, DIY Self-Expressers.

Wildly, a competitive review showed us that colour was a clear gap in the SEO market. Despite the importance of colour for consumer choice, essie’s competitor category pages weren’t optimised for the audience desired colour keywords - only brand. 

Data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Google Trends helped identify patterns and generated a hit list of high-interest keywords. While short, imprecise queries usually drive volume, long-tail keywords became our unconventional focus. Long-tail keywords like “red wine nail polish” or “baby blue pastel nail polish” indicated that discerning DIY Self-Expressers knew exactly what they were searching for, allowing Essie to guide them through a shorter purchase funnel.

Our direction was clear. We would use organic performance media to engage active DIY consumers looking for inspiration though colour, keeping essie top of mind among searchers, allowing essie to intercept online behaviour of the most valuable in-market DIY Self-Expressers audience.

Solution

• Best Practice SEO - New page URLs were created, page heading tags were edited, and metadata and product descriptions were overhauled to include these long-tail colour keywords. These changes, in addition to enhancing page quality, would increase keyword relevancy among the search DIY Self-Expressers. 
• Content Calendar – We developed a content plan for the year based on Australian nail and fashion search trends, maintaining a focus on best practices and healthcare to strengthen content credibility.
• Trends & Inspiration Hub – Content would be housed on essie’s website, including articles like:
  • Must Try: Nude Nail Colours for All Skin Tones
  • Four Colour Trends to Inspire Your Next Manicure
  • Three Summer Nail Colours to Try ASAP
  • Strong Nails How-Tos (Winter Edition)
• Content optimisation – we ensured that all content created was aligned with Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) criteria to optimise it’s results on SERPs
• Click to buy - Displayed nail polish swatches prominently within articles and supported featured polishes with click-to-buy functionality, driving visitors to e-tailers like Amazon, Chemist Warehouse, or Priceline.
• Implementation Excellence: iProspect’s access to the Essie CMS allowed for quick and efficient content uploads and changes, essential for staying ahead in keyword optimisation. Campaign performance was regularly monitored using Accuranker, enabling seamless optimisation and copy tweaks to maintain relevance to search trends.

Results

This colourful performance strategy paid off, with Essie growing its online presence and establishing itself as Australia’s new authority in colour on SERPs.

Share of Voice - essie increased their share of voice by +345%, achieved 99 keywords ranking in position #1-3 (+70% vs target)

Consideration - Direct engagement with DIY Self-Expressers and high ranking SERP results drove audiences to essie’s website, achieving 32,632 organic clicks (+32% vs. target) 

Purchase Intent - Content maximised engagement, and ecommerce functionality drove consumers through the funnel: boosting click-to-buy rates by 183% (vs goal of 30%)

However, the impact of this campaign was far beyond campaign metrics.

Brand impact
Performance media had a positive impact on essie’s brand saliency with positive changes to essie’s brand health and change in Australian search habits:  

• Branded searches grew +40% (from 3,810 to 5,320 average monthly searches)

Commercial impact
This purely organic campaign delivered $19,887 in savings vs paid search for the same top performing keywords.

Had the website had been a direct-to-consumer platform, this campaign could have potentially generated $30,013 in organic revenue (based on 25% purchase rate, average order size of $45).