Target + Ulta Beauty Partnership

Digital Experience Strategy • Loyalty Integration

Goal

Deliver increased value to Target guests through a new, premium assortment and an enhanced rewards program to increase customer loyalty and repeat purchase behavior.

Challenges

  • Launch the digital experience on an 8-month timeline

  • Establish Target’s first loyalty program integration that we could scale for future partnerships

  • Resolve two conflicting loyalty programs by integrating with Ulta Beauty’s tech stack

  • Navigate the gap in company cultures

My Approach

  • Understand customer mindset and expectations to drive stakeholder alignment and decision-making

  • Regular design reviews, early validation testing and frequent stakeholder touch points

Before: Ulta.com and Target.com

Customer Mindset + Expectations

We set out to learn what customers would expect from such a partnership leveraging qualitative and quantitative research methods to set expectations and provide a framework for decision-making and prioritization.

We had four key research questions:


  1. What will influence customers to shop at Target instead of Ulta Beauty?


  2. What are customer expectations for shopping Ulta Beauty at Target?


  3. What are customer perceptions of shopping premium products at Target?


  4. What are customer expectations for linking their loyalty accounts?

Research Findings

Brand Shopping Experience

To build a seamless brand integration of the Ulta Beauty assortment into the Target digital experience, I leaned heavily on data and insights to lead without authority to influence the teams that built the branded shopping experiences leveraging content management tools built by teams within my design portfolio.

Shopping Experience Principles

  1. 
Help me know I’m shopping Ulta Beauty at Target


  2. Help me shop and browse the partnership in a seamless way


  3. Help me take advantage of the strengths both brands bring to the partnership


  4. Help me feel like I’m shopping something special

At Launch: Target.com home page

At Launch: Shopping Ulta Beauty on Target.com and iOS app

Loyalty Linking Experience

We iterated on wireframes and prototypes to validate designs with users before launch, resulting in a highly usable experience.

Loyalty Linking Experience Principles


  1. Help me quickly understand the rewards programs and specifics, including exceptions


  2. Help me set up and sync my rewards one time


  3. Help me easily redeem my rewards at checkout with one click

At Launch: account linking in Target iOS app

Outcomes

Within the first six months of launch, the digital experience delivered these results: 


  • Seamless, shop-in-a-shop experiences where both brands succeed


  • Drove $13M in sales 


  • 1.1M linked loyalty accounts (goal 800K)