A premium approach to retention and acquisition

A global premium fashion brand aimed to drive growth by selectively reaching new and lapsed customers with a strong affinity towards high-quality, clean-cut clothing, using insight from its most valuable shoppers to target more affluent audiences.

Together, John Lewis and Epsilon's approach helped the brand achieve:

17:1

Brand ROAS

£9.62

Cost per acquisition

58%

New customer orders

A man in a blue plaid suit, white shirt, and brown pocket square holds a newspaper while standing on a city street.

SOLUTION

Target audiences were shaped by real purchase behaviour, enabling John Lewis Partnership to engage only its most discerning, style-led shoppers.
Creative aimed to inspire, not just drive clicks, aligning the campaign with the premium fashion expectations of higher‑income audience segments.
Existing customers were recognised and excluded where appropriate, prioritising relevance and efficiency over broad reach.
A more disciplined customer approach supported strong recruitment alongside an average order value of £148, maintaining efficiency while protecting brand perception.

A man in a blue checkered suit and white shirt holds a newspaper.

RESULTS

The campaign delivered a 17:1 brand ROAS, directly validating the acquisition-focused targeting model that seeded from best buyers and used lookalike modelling to find new and lapsed prospects with genuine purchase propensity.
58% of all brand orders came from entirely new customers with no previous purchase history, and the remaining 42% were reactivated lapsed buyers who hadn't purchased in over 12 months, meaning every single converted customer represented incremental value for the brand.
37% engagement rate came in above benchmark, indicating that the audience modelling reached people who were not just broadly relevant but actively receptive to the brand's Q4 fashion proposition through John Lewis.

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