Author: Rachel Street - Sr. Advertising Director, Luminary Retailers

Contributor: Lauren Houseman - Advertising Specialist, Luminary Retailers

Amazon UnBoxed 2025 brought together brand leaders, advertisers, and innovators across every major category, but for beauty specifically, the energy felt different. The conversations were sharper. The launches were more connected. And the signals were clear: Amazon is entering a new era of advertising, and beauty brands stand to gain in powerful ways.

Why does this matter? Because Amazon continues to be one of the highest-penetration retailers for prestige beauty in the U.S., with roughly one-third of premium-beauty shoppers buying on Amazon (Circana). 

At UnBoxed, Amazon unveiled advancements in AI Agents, full-funnel streaming capabilities, expanded display networks, and deeper first-party data tools that point toward a more integrated and more intelligent future. While many features echo what broader AI platforms offer, Amazon’s advantage is simple: these tools sit directly on top of the richest retail and consumer-behavior data in the industry and they’re being offered at no added cost… at least for now.

Across keynotes from Estée Lauder, Tree Hut, DivaCurl, Colgate, Cetaphil, and more, one message was consistent:

AI can accelerate the work, but human creativity, brand craft, and category nuance remain the difference-makers.

Here are the five takeaways every beauty CMO, CEO, and brand leader should be paying attention to.

1. AI Is Transforming Workflows, But Not Replacing Marketers

UnBoxed introduced Creative Agent, Ads Agent, Full-Funnel Campaigns, automatic audience building, natural-language campaign setup… and more. These tools compress hours into minutes.

But the brands on stage echoed the same sentiment:

AI speeds the doing. Humans create the magic.

The strategic advantage will come from the combination of:

• AI-accelerated production

• Human taste, storytelling, and brand identity

• Deep knowledge of consumer behavior and category nuance

Takeaway: Automation will level the playing field. Creativity will separate the winners.

2. Amazon Is Now a Full-Funnel Platform — Not Just a Point-of-Sale Engine

Many teams still treat Amazon as “bottom-of-funnel” only. UnBoxed made it clear: that view is officially outdated.

Amazon now operates as a full-funnel media ecosystem with brand-building reach, mid-funnel engagement, and lower-funnel conversion, all within one platform.

Streaming + Display Touchpoints

Amazon’s advertising footprint spans the largest content network it has ever offered:

• Prime Video (with ads)

• FAST channels

• Thursday Night Football

• NBA / WNBA games

• Twitch

• Fire TV

• Partner apps like Discovery+, Paramount+, Peacock, and more

And the performance behind these channels is meaningful. Amazon reported that its display products deliver:

• 94% higher e-commerce ROI than standard digital display

• 74% higher total sales effectiveness even beyond Amazon

Why this matters for beauty:
For the first time, you can build demand and capture demand inside one connected system without channel fragmentation or measurement gaps.

Brand Full-Funnel Showcase at UnBoxed: Estée Lauder’s “Game Day Your Way” Campaign

Estée Lauder showed what a modern Amazon-driven full-funnel launch truly looks like: premium creative, cultural relevance, omnichannel alignment, and measurable lift from top to bottom.

Campaign Strategy & Approach

• Audience Focus: Female sports fans, a fast-growing segment with high beauty relevance.

• Full-Funnel Architecture: Used Amazon DSP, Sponsored Ads, AMC insights, and AI-powered tools from awareness through conversion.

• Where It Ran:

  • Thursday Night Football on Prime Video (upper-funnel reach)

  • In-game placements + on-site amplification

  • Evergreen DSP + Sponsored Ads to maintain momentum

• Timing: Ran across five TNF games from mid-Nov to mid-Dec 2024.

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Brand, media, creative, and Amazon teams operated as one unit, breaking the typical channel/agency silos.

  
  

Key Tactics

• 360 Omnichannel Activation: Social, streaming, influencers, DSP, Sponsored Ads, and live moments all worked in sequence.

• Crescendo Moment: A high-impact 12/12 TNF takeover that brought the campaign narrative to life in real time.

  
  

Results

• +51% incremental reach

• 73% of attributed sales tied to TNF as the first touch

• 24-point lift in female viewers considering Double Wear as “for me”

• 27% increase in Double Wear conversions

• 120% surge in branded search on Amazon

  
  

Learnings & Insights

• Audience-Centricity Works: Aligning beauty with sports culture unlocked new, high-intent consumers.

• Full-Funnel Synergy Matters: Streaming, search, influencer content, and onsite ads reinforced each other.

• Breaking Internal Silos Is a Growth Lever: Unified teams delivered a unified brand experience.

• Relevance Wins: Beauty × entertainment × sports created a fresh entry point for a legacy brand.

  
  

Takeaway: Building demand and capturing demand can now live inside one ecosystem.

3. First-Party Data Is Becoming Beauty’s Growth Engine

Amazon emphasised: the path forward is your data + Amazon signals + AI optimisation. The brands that highlighted concrete lifts used this “data trifecta”.

Brands using first-party data strategically saw outsized returns:

• Nespresso: +180% NTB

• Colgate combines CRM and DTC data to create more granular consumer profiles and segmentation strategies. They integrate with Amazon’s hashed emails and Liveramp to improve identity resolution and campaign accuracy.

For beauty leaders, this means:

• Smarter audience modeling

• LTV-based optimization

• Precision acquisition

• Clearer measurement

• Less reliance on third-party signals

Takeaway: 2026 will be the year where CRM + retail media + onsite behavior unite into one intelligence layer.

4. Full-Funnel Orchestration Is Now the Growth Unlock

Every winning brand repeated the same truth:

Those treating Amazon as “just performance” will be left behind.

The top-performing campaigns were built on multi-touch, deliberately sequenced journeys:

• Upstream storytelling to set a clear creative narrative that guides all downstream media

• Creator-led education to demonstrate texture, routines, and real-life product use

• Streaming TV for scaled reach, powered by Amazon’s retail-signal optimization

• Incorporating Amazon Upfront-style planning to secure premium streaming placements and build more intentional, brand-led campaigns across the full content slate

• Sponsored Video + Sponsored Brands to drive mid-funnel product understanding and comparison

• Signal-based retargeting built on real shopping behaviors, not broad assumptions

• Amazon Live as the digital beauty advisor for real-time texture, usage, and Q&A

• Full-funnel sequencing that aligns awareness → consideration → conversion → loyalty across one connected customer journey

Brand Highlight: Tree Hut

Tree Hut accelerated its new product launch in a new category adoption by:

• Reaching its 1,000-unit sales goal 42% faster

• Pairing creator-led Amazon Live with “new & notable” creative

• Sequencing new audience discovery + core shopper retargeting

• Using a full-funnel 90-day plan to build rankings and review velocity

Takeaway: Real-time creator education + orchestrated sequencing accelerates both discovery and conversion.

5. The Upside Is Big, But Clutter Will Rise Too

The positive impacts are clear:

• More efficient workflows

• Better cross-funnel integration

• More precise audience targeting

• More formats to express brand creativity

But UnBoxed also surfaced one risk:AI will increase content volume faster than it increases quality.

The result? More ads. More sameness. More clutter.

The brands that win will be:

• Distinctive in storytelling

• Insight-led rather than template-led

• Disciplined in audience sequencing

• Craft-driven in creative development

In an AI-heavy world, taste becomes a competitive advantage.

Conclusion

The beauty category is entering a new phase on Amazon, one where speed, reach, data, and orchestration converge. AI will help teams move faster. Amazon’s ecosystem will help brands reach and convert deeper. But the brands that win will be the ones that pair these advancements with human creativity, distinctive storytelling, and strong consumer insight.

And the growth is undeniable:
Amazon’s advertising business grew ~20–24% YoY, reaching ~$56B globally (SalesDuo, 2024).

Ad dollars are shifting and beauty is one of the categories positioned to benefit most.

For beauty CMOs and CEOs, the assignment is simple but urgent:

Adapt your team, creative, data strategy, and measurement to this new Amazon era and you’ll be playing not just to capture demand, but to create and own it. 

From the Team

“After Amazon UnBoxed, I'm most excited about how Creative Agent is reinventing full-funnel advertising. From repurposing existing assets to creating new audio and video from scratch, it lets us move faster, stay on-brand, and boost performance with smart, seasonal-ready creatives”. 

- Lauren Houseman, Advertising Specialist, Luminary Retailers

“With Amazon’s latest advances from Sponsored Product Video and Reserved Brand Share to evolving AI-native planning and optimization tools, advertisers are in a stronger position than ever to do more for the brand, not just the target and bid. We see a tremendous amount of growth ahead on Amazon, and our team is energized to guide our wonderful clients through this new era in a way that protects their brand equity while unlocking real, scalable results.”

-Rachel Street, Senior Advertising Director, Luminary Retailers