Some brands rarely test new marketing channels when things are going well. They wait until something breaks. When costs rise, conversions drop, or revenue slows, then they're open to diversifying.

Smart brands treat media diversification like R&D. Some budget goes toward 'business as usual' channels that are working, and the rest goes toward finding the next growth lever, building the next growth lane before they desperately need it. Right now, one of the strongest untapped opportunities is YouTube. It's a genuine white space to reach new audiences, while competition remains relatively limited and attention is still priced accessibly.

There’s no single formula that works for every brand. Allocations depend on business model, team structure, lifecycle stage, and strategic priorities. As a general rule, marketing budgets average around 10–20% of revenue across industries, with beauty, wellness, and personal care brands typically spending toward the higher end of that range.

As you plan for the year ahead, here are a few guiding principles to help shape a budget that reflects both best practice and your brand’s unique growth goals.

Community is no longer a “nice to have” for brands, it's becoming a growth engine. In a market where product features can be copied and ads get more expensive every quarter, what can’t be replicated overnight is a thriving, loyal community. More brands are moving beyond transaction into relationship, turning buyers into advocates and advocates into evangelists.

The business case for brand community is undeniable, McKinsey shows brands with strong communities hitting 4%+ conversion rates while their social engagement rates often exceed 2% when retail brands average around 0.63% engagement on Instagram. Just like nurturing any meaningful relationship, successful brand communities require multiple ways of showing care and creating connection. This is where Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages framework becomes surprisingly relevant for community strategy.

Let's be real, 2025 has been a wild ride for beauty and fashion brands. Inflation's still biting, ad costs are up, and consumers are more selective with spending. The landscape looks different now. We're hearing from brands that average units per transaction are dipping. Customers are still buying, but they're being more strategic about it, and also spacing out purchases to make their budgets stretch further.

So what exactly are brands doing to move the needle right now? Here's what we've been seeing across the market

While every other brand is knee-deep in TikTok, some forward-thinking brands are diversifying their focus and taking a different path. For the brands we work with, YouTube is taking center stage in 2025.

We’ve always believed in getting brand foundations right first—focusing on brand-building strategies and engaging content, to build vibrant brand communities. Great results on YouTube stem from strong brand foundations and the ability to connect with audiences meaningfully.

But surprisingly, very few indie brands are taking advantage of YouTube ads—a platform with untapped potential and the ability to deliver a more cost-efficient CPC compared to Google or Meta ads, right now. For indie brands looking to scale effectively, it’s a powerful yet underutilized channel for driving more impact and efficiency

The Creator Economy’s worth $250 billion. But brands still get stuck with content they can’t use. And I’ve heard some wild stories from the UGC trenches.

Pet cameos, that were clearly off-brand. Skincare routines filmed on the floor. Bad lighting, odd angles and the list goes on. Over time brands continue to evolve their briefing processes, but in 2025, creators from your own customer community just might be your saving grace.

At this year’s Naturally Good Expo, we hosted a panel with two powerhouse founders Laura Wright of Tuttofare and Ere Perez of Ere Perez Natural Cosmetics – to unpack what it really takes to build modern, meaningful brands.

From Tuttofare's early traction in just a few years to Ere Perez's 20 years of staying power, their lessons apply to all brand leaders navigating growth, differentiation, and market relevance, and here were the standout insights:

Always-on content cycles demand more assets, more posts, and more everything. Every other week, brands are in dire need of more social assets. And in the rush to keep up the risk is that brand content can turn reactive, and let’s be honest, it’s not always your brand’s best work that’s put on show. But over the long-term content that exists just to fill the airtime won’t contribute to building brand equity, because it makes your brand blend in. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. But instead of producing more content, this is your cue to pause.

We've seen this with so many beauty and fashion brands we work with. When we hit pause to realign, the shift in clarity, content quality, and team focus is immediate.

There’s nothing like the momentum that comes with a rebrand. It re-energizes the internal team and signals change to your audience. It often creates a step change, that can unlock new conversations with stockists, investors, and collaborators who now see the brand in a new light. When done right, the experience can become a growth catalyst.

But some brands emerge from a rebrand looking sharp, yet still sounding like their old selves online. They’ve invested in new packaging, a refreshed logo, modern typefaces. But their story and message are still rooted in the past, with the same talking points, narratives that no longer reflect where the brand is headed.

IL Makiage is a $500M D2C beauty brand, and they scaled by leaning into a channel most brands overlook: YouTube ads. While many beauty and fashion brands continue to default to Meta alone, or bury video inside Google Performance Max campaigns, IL Makiage did something different. They treated YouTube like a core growth engine. They bet early, built a dedicated strategy around it, and continue to run the exact same winning ads years later the last time we checked.