Ulta Beauty Transforms CTV with WunderKIND Ads’ Award-Winning Pause Ad Campaign

Ulta Beauty’s objective was to leverage addressable media and activate its rich first-party data to boost in-store traffic, site visits, and eCommerce conversions during the peak holiday season. Traditional CTV executions often relied on direct IO buys, limiting scale and flexibility. Ulta needed a fresh, programmatic solution that could deliver efficiency, precision targeting, and measurable outcomes across their most valuable customer segments.

With WunderKIND Ads, Ulta Beauty became one of the first retailers to launch a programmatic CTV Pause Ad campaign. This execution combined brand-safe private marketplace inventory with CRM targeting layered with lookalikes and affinities. Frequency caps and real-time optimization ensured efficient media spend, while the creative “Find Joy in the Present” theme featured a QR code that linked viewers directly to gifting product pages, seamlessly merging brand storytelling with shoppable moments.

The campaign proved that first-party data can scale in new CTV formats, with 57% of impressions reaching Ulta Beauty’s existing CRM members and performance surpassing industry benchmarks across the board. Ulta Beauty achieved a 79% lower cost per store visit, a 54% higher conversion rate, and QR code scans 50% above benchmark, turning passive viewers into active shoppers. This success earned recognition as the winner of AdExchanger’s Programmatic Impact Awards – Trailblazing TV Campaign, setting a new standard for programmatic CTV and demonstrating that targeted reach and measurable ROI can thrive in premium video environments.