Retail beauty ad spend grew across the board this year, exhibiting a 23% YoY increase (Sept ‘25 – Sept ‘26, United States). But the more interesting story is the split in how brands spent: beauty-specific retailers behaved differently from general retailers who carry beauty products as one category among many. 

Beauty Retail Ad Spend Trends: Who’s Spending and When

Spend for the category peaked predictably in December, with its second-highest maxima falling in April. The five highest-spending brands were Sephora (35% of Beauty Retail ad spend), Ulta Beauty (18%), Target (7%), Amazon (6%), and Macy’s (6%). All five boasted healthy year-over-year growth, with top dog Sephora exhibiting the lowest increase (+23%) and Amazon the most (+61%). Interestingly, while investment followed the usual seasonal pattern for Sephora, Ulta, and Macy’s — spiking in December before falling in January — the more general retailers Target and Shop Amazon bucked this trend, and actually boosted their beauty spend going into the new year. 

Social Media vs. OTT: How Beauty Brands Split Ad Channel Spend 

But where exactly did these brands allocate their budgets? For the Retail Beauty category as a whole, the breakdown was as follows:

• Instagram (22%)

• Facebook (20%) 

• OTT (15%)

• Pinterest (10%)

• TikTok (10%)

• YouTube (6%)

• Snapchat (5%)

In yet another sign of a healthy advertising environment, spend on each of these platforms grew YoY with the exception of TikTok, which saw a negligible 1% decrease. Instagram (+57%) and OTT (+52%) saw the biggest gains. When looking at the five major players (Sephora, Ulta, Target, Amazon, and Macy’s), a split emerges. General retailers led with OTT, while the beauty-specific outlets (Sephora, Ulta), bet big on social platforms — Sephora spent 25% of its budget on Instagram; Ulta gave 20% to Facebook. Conversely, Target, Amazon and Macy’s all funneled the plurality of their investments into OTT platforms. While neither group ignored either channel, the difference in prioritization is clear. One interpretation? Beauty-specific brands are chasing engagement and discovery, while general retailers chase raw reach. 

The Divide in ChatGPT Beauty Advertising 

Another area where differences emerge is in the realm of ChatGPT-native ads. While this next-gen ad channel still represents a small portion of each brand’s overall budget, it remains apparent that Sephora and Ulta leaned into the channel far more heavily than did the other contenders. When looking at the cumulative ad dollars spent by each brand on ChatGPT ads, Sephora and Ulta account for 44% each — or 88% of these brands’ total ChatGPT ad spend. This trend is seen in the volume of unique creatives as well. Over the 12 month period studied, Ulta ran 149 separate beauty creatives on ChatGPT, Sephora ran 42, followed by Target (31),  Macy’s (5) and Shop Amazon (1). Beauty-specific brands are leaning into ChatGPT for beauty creatives, while general merchandisers may be saving the bulk of their LLM ads for other product categories entirely. 

Pinterest Ad Strategy: Higher Volume, Lower Spend

Now let’s examine creative placement for the Beauty Retail category at large. Overall, 43% of Beauty Retail ads were Feed ads, 26% were In-Stream, followed by Reels (16%) and Stories (6%). Creative type distribution showed a strong preference for video ads, which made up 72% of the ads run. Interestingly, while Pinterest doesn’t get an astronomical share of spend (10% category-wide), it received the highest share of individual creatives for each brand studied aside from Macy’s. This pattern illustrates how spend and creative volume can tell different stories: Pinterest is a volume/experimentation play, not necessarily a budget priority. 

In 2026, beauty retailers aren’t just spending more — they’re spending on different channels and testing new surfaces (ChatGPT, Pinterest as a playground) that general retailers have yet to incorporate as fundamentally into their strategies. 

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