Hair Care Case Study Overview

  • Who: An award-winning UK hair salon group with 16 branches across London, Hertfordshire and Essex.
  • What: Scale profitable bookings and phone calls on a tight media budget, while building a repeatable blueprint for all locations.
  • Where: Hyper-local catchments (3–5 km radii) around each branch.
  • When: 5 June → 11 August 2025 (initial 9–10-week sprint, now ongoing).
  • Why: Capture “hairdresser near me” demand, protect market share from aggregators, and improve branch-level ROI.
  • How: Agentic AI marketing orchestrated by Jam7, with a senior strategist in the loop; persona-led messaging; call tracking and after-hours routing; landing-page alignment; and always-on test-and-learn.

Situation (The Starting Point)

The client operates in one of the UK’s most competitive local service categories. Branches are well-reviewed but face stiff competition on Google, Apple Maps and Instagram. Tracking was fragmented: bookings, phone calls, direction clicks and retail purchases were not being seen together, making true ROI hard to prove. The brief: grow revenue fast at a disciplined cost per acquisition and show branch-level ROAS the board could trust.

Task (What Success Looks Like)

  • Drive more paid bookings and calls from the right personas in each postcode cluster.
  • Win the local moment (“near me”, “open today”, “balayage”, “colour refresh”, “precision cut”).
  • Prove ROI with a unified lens across calls, forms, bookings, directions and retail.
  • Create a scalable template for rolling out to all 16 branches without retraining from scratch.

Actions (What We Did)

1) Agentic AI + Human-in-the-Loop

  • Jam7’s Agentic AI continuously re-balances budget by branch × service × hour, prioritising high-intent windows (11:00–18:00) and mobile (tap-to-call).
  • The human loop (senior strategist + analysts) audits moves daily, strengthens creatives and landing pages, and enforces brand standards.

2) Persona-Led Campaign Architecture

  • Every branch = its own campaign with its own budgets, ~250 keywords, negatives, price extensions and sitelinks.
  • Service clusters: Hair Colour (balayage, highlights, gloss), Haircut (precision cut + finish), Bridal/Styling, Treatments.
  • Ad copy mirrors searcher intent and local vernacular; price points and offers are surfaced in ad extensions without over-discounting.

3) Phone Call Intelligence & After-Hours Capture

  • Dedicated tracking numbers per branch; shorter IVR greeting to cut hang-ups; after-hours routing + email alerts for next-day call-backs.
  • We credit income-generating actions—calls, booking starts, direction clicks that result in walk-ins, and retail purchases—so the full value chain is visible.

4) Geo & Schedule Design

  • 3–5 km radii per salon to keep media efficient and relevant.
  • Bid emphasis on 11:00–18:00; pause Sundays where data shows lower readiness; extend to 20:00 on tested days to catch commuters.
  • Weather & seasonality hooks: frizz-control on humid days; balayage/colour refresh after sunny spells; Back-to-School cuts late August.

5) Landing-Page Alignment & AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)

  • “Near me” and service pages that echo the ad promise: clear prices, local reviews, stylist expertise, tap-to-call and Book Now above the fold.
  • Schema, FAQs and concise H-structures to support both SEO and emerging AI overviews.

6) Demand Gen to Feed Search

  • Short-form video (“Glass Hair”) at penny-click CPCs to build retargeting pools; priority remains Search for conversion.

Results (Measured, Repeatable, Profitable)

  • ROAS: ~16× overall; 10–23× by branch on Search.
  • Conversion Rates: 30–47% on core campaigns (vs. typical salon benchmarks ~2–4%).
  • CPC & CPA: CPCs £0.92–£1.47; CPAs around £2–£4 while holding top-of-page share.
  • Mobile dominance: ~84% of conversions originate on mobile; phone-led journeys are fully captured.
  • Colour wins: Colour ad groups lead both calls and bookings in every active branch.
  • Halo effect: Non-advertised salons recorded sharp lifts in calls, direction requests and site visits—proving paid’s impact on organic and direct.

Performance by Example Branch (Illustrative, Same Period)

  • Mill Hill — ~46.8% conversion rate, lowest CPA ~£1.96, ROAS ≈ 23×. Colour-first and “near me” wording dominated.
  • Northwood — ~36.5% conversion rate, ROAS ≈ 18×; strong call volume with mobile-weighted schedules.
  • West Hampstead — ~33% conversion rate, ROAS ≈ 16×; highest absolute conversion count with colour menus and proof-points.
  • Loughton — ~31% conversion rate, ROAS ≈ 10×; “Precision Cut + Finish” bundles closed the gap from a lower base.

What Worked (and Why)

Hyper-Local, Mobile-First

People choose a salon that feels close, open and capable. Hyper-local catchments, near-me keywords, and tap-to-call actions put clients straight through to front-of-house. The data confirmed: when we reduce friction, calls and bookings jump.

Colour-First Messaging

Service demand is not equal. Balayage, highlights, gloss and tonal refresh convert at the best CPAs, especially when paired with stylist authority and authentic before/after visuals. Treatments and generic “beauty” terms underperform and were deprioritised.

Agentic AI + Guardrails

Automation alone chases the last click; humans alone can’t re-weight 24/7. Together, we:

  • Lean into 11:00–18:00 intent,
  • Nudge bids on humid days for smoothing demand,
  • Protect brand tone while AI scales what’s winning.
  • The loop kept CPCs low while lifting visibility and conversion.

Measurement That Reflects Reality

Hair is phone-heavy. We include calls, booking starts, direction requests and retail in conversion accounting. That means ads that start a journey still get credit—even if the final step is a call-back or a walk-in after a “Directions” click.

Halo Effect Across Non-Advertised Branches

Even without paid budgets, several locations showed large lifts in calls and directions after the paid launch. Examples included:

  • Stanmore (+c. 40% calls), Rickmansworth (+c. 400% calls from a low base), Ruislip (+c. 90% calls), Bushey Heath (+c. 16% calls).
  • Direction requests and website visits rose at Epping, Whetstone and others.
    Impressions roughly doubled in several areas, indicating higher top-of-mind awareness.
  • This proves paid Search + persona-aligned landing pages lift the brand system-wide, not only where media runs.

Method — Agentic AI Marketing for Hair Care (What Makes It Different)

The Agentic AI Layer

  • Sense: Monitor by branch × service × device × hour; pick up trend shifts (e.g., humidity → frizz demand).
  • Decide: Adjust bids and budgets to the highest-value cells; defend top-of-page on near-me queries.
  • Act: Reallocate in minutes, not weeks; queue new ad variants for the human loop to approve.
  • Learn: Fold results into the next cycle; de-emphasise weak intents (e.g., generic treatments) and scale colour.

The Human in the Loop to add Marketing Expertise

  • Strategy & creative: Write ad lines that feel like salon front-of-house, not generic PPC.
  • UX & CRO: Ensure ad claims, prices and CTAs are mirrored above the fold on landing pages.
  • Phone flow: Script <5-second IVR intros; route after-hours; email missed-call alerts; track answer rates.
  • Brand protection: Guard tone, service priority and local nuances.

SEO & AEO Considerations (Built In)

  • H-structure & schema: Informational H1/H2s that answer “who/what/how much/when/how to book,” plus LocalBusiness schema and FAQs (“How long does a balayage take?”, “What’s included in a precision cut + finish?”).
  • Query matching: Titles and meta drive “hair colour near me”, “balayage London today”, “precision cut Temple Fortune”.
  • Content freshness: Seasonal swaps—Summer Gloss, Back-to-School Cuts, Autumn Balayage—keep both SEO and ads relevant.

Why Jam 7: The Art & Science of Agentic AI Marketing for Hair Care

  • Agentic AI, tuned for local services: It senses demand shifts, decides where to place the next pound, and acts in minutes—while human strategists ensure brand-true creative, pricing clarity and high-converting UX.
  • Persona-led growth: We combine data-driven personas with frontline hair-salon language—so ads sound like a trusted front-of-house, not a generic feed.
  • Phone-first measurement: Because salon bookings live on the phone, we attribute calls, directions and bookings to the media that sparked them—finally giving owners the real ROAS story.
  • Repeatable by design: Each branch remains its own campaign (budget, keywords, ads, destinations), so wins can be scaled without diluting performance.

Key 60-Day Outcomes at a Glance

  • ROAS: ~16× overall; 10–23× by branch on Search.
  • Conversion rates: 30–47% on core campaigns.
  • Costs: £0.92–£1.47 CPC and £2–£4 CPA while maintaining premium visibility.
  • Mobile: ~84% of conversions; phone-led journeys fully measured.
  • Halo effect: Significant call and direction lifts at non-advertised branches, proving brand-wide impact.
  • Scalability: A blueprint ready to roll out to all 16 salons—with the confidence of measured ROI.

Ready to Bring Agentic AI to Your Multi-Location Salon?

If you’re a hair brand looking for profitable local growth—without bloated budgets—Jam7’s Agentic AI + human-in-the-loop model is built for you. We’ll help you own “near me”, turn mobile moments into bookings, and prove ROAS at branch level—week after week.

Contact us