How SEEN grew new customers 37% by making streaming TV one of its main awareness channels

The challenge

SEEN makes hair care that is safe for sensitive scalp and skin. Many shampoos and conditioners contain ingredients that can clog pores and irritate the scalp and skin, which means a carefully built skincare routine can be undermined in the shower. Much of SEEN's early demand came from shoppers who were already searching for answers, such as eczema-safe or fragrance-free shampoo, and from referrals from dermatologists, aestheticians, and other professionals who provide product samples to their patients.

As VP of Growth, Erin Chambers was charged with the brand's full acquisition flywheel, driving new demand into all sales channels, including Amazon, Ulta, Walmart.com, and direct to consumer. Historically, professional referrals were SEEN's most reliable source of new customers, and the brand wanted to expand their awareness engine with a mix of digital and IRL referral sources. Erin built a testing roadmap to reach a broader audience with the message that haircare is skincare (because hair product residue transfers to the skin), and streaming TV rose to the top of the list.

“We needed to cost-effectively broaden our awareness channels and tap into new audiences at a higher scale. We built a testing roadmap and TV was a top candidate.”

SEEN's growth team is lean and has no in-house media buyer, so Erin wanted a platform she could run herself, starting with a small test budget and scaling it as results came in.

The approach

After a discovery call with Vibe's account team, Erin felt confident she could launch and manage campaigns herself, and SEEN went live in January 2026 with a small test budget.

Broad audiences, with existing customers excluded. SEEN deliberately targeted a broad beauty and wellness audience so that results would show who the message actually reached, without being shaped by the team's own assumptions. To keep spend focused on new customers, Erin synced SEEN's warm audiences and existing customers from Klaviyo and excluded them from every campaign. A small retargeting campaign runs alongside awareness to re-engage site visitors who have not yet purchased.

“The problem-solution appeal of haircare that’s safe for sensitive skin – delivered through real customer testimonials and trust grounded by the authority of Dr. Iris Rubin, a Harvard-trained dermatologist – has so far been the creative unlock for us.”

A measurement model built for a multichannel business. SEEN sells across Amazon and Walmart marketplaces, Ulta, and its own DTC site, so Erin built an internal model that reflects the whole business. She uses the direct-to-consumer return Vibe reports as a conservative baseline and reads it alongside Triple Whale and branded search on Google and Amazon. Vibe’s holdout test and SEEN’s customer exclusions keep the read focused on incremental results, and the team reviews performance on a 30-day window.

Testing creative directly in Vibe. SEEN runs a structured champion and challenger program, giving each creative winner a full month on Vibe to build repetition and recall before a new challenger goes up against it. Its January spot paired real customers of different ages and backgrounds with SEEN’s dermatologist founder as the trust anchor. When the team tested it against a more polished, formal spot and compared conversions and CPM in Vibe’s reporting, the January spot drove more than twice the revenue, with more conversions and a higher average order value. Erin’s read is that viewers could see themselves in the real customers, and relate better. The team now changes one variable at a time, such as the hook, and is comparing 15-second and 30-second cuts.

“We let each spot run for at least 30 days because we want that repetition and frequency. When someone is ready to swap out their shampoo for one that will deliver better results for their hair and skin, we want SEEN to be the name they remember and reach for, wherever they prefer to shop.”

The results

Vibe measures SEEN’s Awareness campaign with a holdout test that randomly withholds ads from about 10% of the qualifying audience, so the difference between the two groups shows the lift Vibe caused. In the most recent period, households that saw the ads showed these lifts over the control group:

The brand lift has continued to compound over time, with monthly average brand searches up ~60% since January, when SEEN first launched with Vibe. New customer share also continues to grow, with new customers up 37% year to date compared with the previous year, measured across Amazon and the brand’s DTC site.

Why Vibe

Platform Control & Agility. Erin chose Vibe because a lean team could launch a TV test at a budget that any brand can absorb, and then run both the strategy and execution in-house as the program grew. Her team reads creative tests directly in Vibe's reporting, comparing conversions and CPM between champion and challenger spots. Network-level reporting shows exactly which streaming channels run SEEN's ads and how each one performs.

“Vibe’s UX is far simpler than Meta’s or Google’s. Anyone who understands their business can set it up, and I really think a CEO could.”

Identity Intelligence for Commerce. SEEN syncs its Klaviyo audiences to exclude existing customers and warm leads from every campaign, so prospecting spend goes toward net-new buyers while retargeting re-engages recent site visitors. SEEN also sells on Walmart.com and recently started testing Walmart Audiences on Vibe to reach shoppers based on intent signals and what they buy.

Performance Measurement. Vibe's holdout test on SEEN's Awareness campaign withholds ads from a random 10% of the qualifying audience, giving the team a statistically significant read on incremental lift. Vibe's direct-to-consumer attribution gives SEEN a conservative baseline that it carries into its own blended model with Triple Whale, so the team can make budget decisions across Amazon, Ulta and its own site.

How Erin describes Vibe to other growth leaders

“Using the Vibe platform is like using Meta, but way simpler and more transparent. It's easier to get a read on results, confidently exclude or include relevant audiences, and get real new customer results at scale, all on far less creative output.”