Beauty customers are paying closer attention to what makes a product worth buying, and product quality has become the top consideration behind that decision. As a result, more of those purchases are moving online, too. By 2030, online channels are expected to account for nearly one-third of global beauty sales.
That shift puts more pressure on paid creative to do the convincing. For established beauty brands increasing Meta spend, creative has to keep giving colder audiences new reasons to choose the product.
For example, a serum might sell on a specific skin concern or formulation, while hair care often needs a demonstration to make the benefit clear. Cosmetics open up different angles around application, shade, or a specific occasion.
That’s why Surround Sound consistently tests those angles to see which ones actually drive acquisition. That performance data then informs what creative gets developed and tested next.
For a beauty brand, scaling comes down to knowing which ads are actually worth increasing budget for. Surround Sound answers that through high-volume testing across every account it runs.
Beauty is one of the most saturated categories on Meta. Customers scroll past dozens of competing ads in the same session. A winning concept only has so long before it starts underperforming.
Most beauty brands already know their ads will fatigue. What's harder to know is exactly how much creative it takes to stay ahead of that, especially in a category where the next competitor's ad is one scroll away.
Surround Sound ships 30 to 50+ new ads per client each month for exactly that reason, generating far more creative data points every week than one brand testing alone could produce. That volume consistently keeps winning ad creative in the pipeline before the last one fatigues.
The message matters, but so does who delivers it. A beauty brand can demonstrate its own product and explain its value directly. A review or comparison gives the customer an outside perspective. Meanwhile, an influencer brings a level of familiarity by showing how that same product fits into an actual routine.
Surround Sound has a defined testing environment for each of these use cases. Branded direct response ads test the product and positioning first, establishing the foundation for what comes next. Whitelisted creative opens up another perspective through third-party product opinions. As spend reaches higher tiers, Partnership Ads introduce creative that runs through an influencer's own handle. Each environment gives insight into a new way for creative to land.
For example, if a specific shade range performs well through branded creative for a foundation or lip product, that same idea can be tested through customer validation or an influencer’s demonstration. The goal is to see whether it resonates with a different buyer instead of just producing more versions of the same ad.
“Surround Sound helped us build a whitelisting program that’s become a core part of how we scale on Meta. Every funnel speaks to a different customer avatar and the testing velocity has been a step change.”
Lynn Ma
Co-founder, Filterbaby
“Surround Sound helped us scale our creative output ahead of Black Friday and the work has only expanded since. Over the past few months they’ve supported multiple product launches and we’re producing more ads each week than we ever had before.”
Kieran Matthews
CEO, Equip
"Andrew has been on both sides of the table, co-founding MoonBrew and now running Surround Sound. He brings the instincts of someone who's actually had to grow and scale a brand, not just create ads for one."
Jason Goode
CEO, Flakes
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