How Content Focus Led to +101% Revenue at PATTERN Beauty

PATTERN Beauty is a premium US haircare and styling brand founded by Emmy Award-winning actress Tracee Ellis Ross. Designed specifically for textured hair types, PATTERN offers a curated range of products, including haircare essentials and professional-grade hot tools, celebrating the beauty and versatility of curls, coils, and tight textures.

Wellblūm is PATTERN Beauty’s affiliate agency. Its mission is to help eCommerce brands bloom in the affiliate, influencer, and partnership marketing space.

The challenge

At the start of 2025, PATTERN Beauty's affiliate program faced a critical inflection point.

It was generating substantial order volume. However, that contribution was driven primarily by bottom-funnel tactics. Coupon sites, cashback platforms, and browser extensions formed a partner mix that was at odds with PATTERN's brand values of education, empowerment, and premium quality.

Meanwhile, deeper analysis revealed even more concerning events. Left to their own devices, some partners were intercepting sales that would have occurred anyway, and promotional codes were leaking beyond approved channels.

The discount-heavy approach was delivering quantity over quality and a non-incremental channel. PATTERN had to pivot and focus on the long term by placing a renewed focus on sustainable revenue growth and raising average order values (AOV).

The solution

Tasked with educating customers and elevating the PATTERN brand, Wellblūm launched a turnaround strategy that tapped into Awin’s rich pool of content partners for a deeper dive into the products and the purpose behind them.

Building foundations

The launch of PATTERN's “hot tools” collection provided the perfect opportunity to activate a different side of the affiliate channel. Content partners were encouraged to create detailed reviews, tutorials, and problem-solving pieces demonstrating the value of tools like PATTERN’s blow dryer, curling iron, and steamer for textured hair.

Rather than building a network of individual creators, Wellblūm scaled quickly by leaning on relationships with premium content aggregators like Skimlinks.

PATTERN soon landed strategic placements in trusted publications where its audience actively sought hair care advice.

Cosmopolitan included PATTERN in its "8 Best Blow Dryers for 4C Hair", while Good Housekeeping's guide to hair steaming leaned on expert advice from PATTERN as well as sharing one of its solutions.

These placements reached consumers at high-intent moments and ended up driving consistent revenue over several months.

Campaign spotlight: Impact Media

Orchestrated by Wellblūm, PATTERN’s collaboration with Impact Media exemplified the power of values-aligned, brand-first content partnerships.

The campaign celebrated the legacy of black hair, positioning PATTERN at the intersection of beauty, culture, and identity.

The array of campaign deliverables included an Instagram in-feed post, Story set, newsletter inclusion, and broadcast channel blast.

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The results showed the extent to which each partner delivered for PATTERN:

• 883,000+ views
• 35,000+ interactions
• 26,900+ likes
• 5,100+ link clicks
• 9% engagement rate (exceeding beauty benchmarks by 12.5%)

Operational excellence and compliance

Concurrent with building quality partnerships, Wellblūm also conducted a thorough partner audit.

It swiftly removed a small group of partners engaging in brand bidding and ad hijacking, protecting PATTERN's paid search channel and freeing up commission dollars for new content investments.

The results

PATTERN’s pivot to content had the immediate, transformative impact Wellblūm knew it could deliver.

Revenue

From -10% YoY in January to +101% YoY by July, Wellblūm oversaw a massive turnaround that demonstrated the power of prioritizing partner quality over volume.

AOV 

Rather than simply dropping a discount code, content partners had the space and creative license to fully educate their audiences on PATTERN. The high-value orders soon followed. AOV saw sustained double-digit growth throughout 2025 (+17.4% in January, +14.3% in July), with hot tools content driving AOV lifts of up to 35.4% during peak promotional periods.

Sales 

After an initial -55% YoY dip in January (as low-quality partners were filtered out), orders rebounded to +76.2% YoY by July, proving the right partners deliver both quality and scale.

By Q4 2025, PATTERN had successfully repositioned its affiliate program. Once a non-incremental source of revenue, it became a premium brand asset built on editorial partnerships that fully showcased product features, told relevant stories, and met audiences at crucial moments.