How Vamp drove a 113x ROAS for Selfridges

Vamp drove a 113x ROAS for Selfridges by engineering a creator-led system, pairing 11 carefully matched influencers with precision paid distribution to return £113 for every £1 invested.

That is 46x higher than the industry benchmark. It came from a Valentine’s Day campaign for the legendary UK department store, and it came from treating influence as infrastructure, not a one-off activation.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is the metric most marketers care about most: how much revenue your investment generated, and how effective the work really was. It is measured simply, money in, money out. For Selfridges, the answer was £113 out for every £1 in.

The short version:

• Selfridges wanted awareness, traffic and sales for a Valentine’s Day Tarot edit.
• Vamp built a squad of 11 creators matched to the brand, then engineered organic content plus targeted paid distribution.
• The result: 113x ROAS (46x above benchmark), a 1.9% engagement rate (3x above benchmark) and 6,500 adds to cart.
• The lesson: alignment, content quality and precise targeting compound when they are designed as one system.

The objective: turn a Valentine’s edit into measurable sales

The legendary UK department store was launching a Tarot edit for Valentine’s Day. Selfridges needed a campaign that would drive awareness of the edit, reach their target customers, and convert that attention into traffic and sales on their e-commerce store.

Awareness alone wouldn’t cut it. The brief was performance: get the right people in front of the right product, and move them to shop.

The strategy: a creator system, not a one-off post

We didn’t run a campaign and hope. We designed a system where each part reinforced the next.

What we built:

• A managed influencer programme, end to end.
• A squad of 11 creators selected from Vamp’s vetted community.
• Targeted paid distribution layered on top of the organic content.

The squad blended proven performers, creators who had delivered strongly in previous Selfridges work, with new profiles who genuinely embodied the Valentine’s Day concept. That mix is deliberate: familiarity compounds trust, while fresh voices keep the content from feeling repeated.

Each creator produced beautiful content and shared it organically with their engaged Instagram followers. Then, rather than leaving reach to chance, we boosted the posts with paid distribution targeted directly at Selfridges’ desired customers. Organic content earns credibility; paid distribution makes sure the right audience sees it. Run together, they outperform either one alone.

The results: 113x ROAS, 46x above benchmark

Authentic content, carrying each creator’s own stories and experiences, paired with precise targeting. That combination drove the numbers Selfridges cared about:

• 113x ROAS (46x higher than the industry benchmark)
• 1.9% engagement rate (more than 3x higher than the industry benchmark)
• 6.5k adds to cart

What other brands can learn from this campaign

Why does brand alignment matter so much?

Strong brand alignment meant creators were genuinely invested, over-delivering an additional 36 pieces of content in many cases. It also meant the sponsored content felt natural and authentic, which is exactly why it earned high engagement. When the match is right, you don’t have to manufacture enthusiasm; the work does it for you.

Why prioritise content quality over volume?

Selfridges chose creators who could produce high-quality content and understood what kind of images and aesthetic would capture attention on Instagram. Those captivating assets were central to the campaign’s success. Reach gets you seen; quality gets you remembered, and bought.

Why target rather than hope?

When it came to making sure their target customer actually saw the content they’d invested in, Selfridges left nothing to chance. Layering targeted paid distribution on top of the organic creator content reached key demographics and moved them to shop. Targeting is the difference between content that performs and content that simply exists.

FAQs

What is a good ROAS for an influencer campaign?

It depends on category, margin and objective, but ROAS measures revenue generated per unit of spend. This Selfridges campaign returned 113x, £113 for every £1 invested, which was 46x above the industry benchmark at the time. The number that matters is the one that beats your own benchmark and holds up across the funnel.

How does pairing organic creator content with paid distribution improve results?

Organic creator content earns credibility and authenticity; paid distribution guarantees the right audience sees it. Run as one system rather than two separate tactics, they compound. Credibility drives response, and targeting drives that response toward the people most likely to buy.

How did Vamp pick the creators for Selfridges?

We matched creators to the brand and the brief, blending proven performers from previous Selfridges work with new profiles who embodied the Valentine’s Day concept. Fit comes first: the closer the alignment, the more authentic the content and the stronger the performance.

A 113x return isn’t luck. It’s a system.

A standout ROAS like this doesn’t come from a single great post. It comes from designing alignment, content quality and distribution as one connected system, and engineering each part to reinforce the others.

That’s the work we do. Vamp is a tech-enabled influencer marketing agency: we design creator-led growth systems and run the performance engine behind them, so influence becomes measurable growth rather than a one-off spike. Talk to us.