The Sephora mobile ads are running within the Refinery29 mobile site. Sephora has a big mobile presence that integrates loyalty, in-store and commerce components.

“There is a direct action to find your look, which allows consumers to directly buy from the mobile site – it would have been more enticing to offer a special with a ‘collect consumer data’ form of sorts, in order to have consumers input what they are looking for in their search for a look,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

Ms. Troutman is not associated with Sephora. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

Sephora did not meet press deadline.

Mobile beauty
The banner ads feature copy that reads, “Sephora + Pantone Universe.” Users are encouraged to find their look with a click-through.

The ads direct consumers to the specific portion of Sephora’s mobile site that promotes the Sephora + Pantone Universe collection of beauty products.

Sephora partnered with Pantone on a line of limited-edition emerald-colored beauty products. Emerald was picked as the color of the year by Pantone.

Via Sephora’s mobile site, consumers can view the collection by two categories – makeup and tools and accessories. From there, users can further tailor search results by area of the body that the product is meant to be used with.

Users can read reviews of the products, check in-store availability or check-out from the site.

In addition to mobile, the Sephora + Pantone Universe campaign is also being promoted with in-store, email, social media and Web components.

Sephora + Pantone Universe products on the company’s mobile site

Mobile sales
Sephora is a big player in the mobile space.

In January an executive at Mobile Marketer’s Mobile FirstLook: Strategy 2013 conference said that mobile orders increased 167 percent in 2012. Additionally, mobile traffic increased by 75 percent (see story).

Sephora was also one of the first brands to leverage Apple’s Passbook feature last year as a hub for virtual loyalty cards from its Beauty Insider program. One week after the release, Sephora claimed that 82,000 Beauty Insider cards had been added to Passbook (see story).

In this case, Sephora is smart to turn to mobile advertising to promote a specific product. Consumers constantly have their mobile devices on hand, and are increasingly converting on retailer sites and applications.

To make it even better, an incentive could be tied to the mobile banner.

“Consumers would be more likely to buy from an ad like this if there was an offer associated with the ad, even stating the sale price of the items listed would encourage a click-through,” Ms. Troutman said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York