Pints In. It's Coming Home (Maybe). Here's What the World Cup Actually Does to Drink Sales.

For anyone marketing a drinks brand—whether that’s wine, spirits, mixers, or kombucha—there’s one uncomfortable truth you can’t afford to ignore...

Facebook and Instagram ads will never be cheaper than they are today.

Over the past few years, the cost of reaching your ideal customer has risen steadily. And for the drinks industry, where competition is fierce and margins are tight, every penny counts.

Let’s break down why Meta advertising costs are climbing, how it affects drinks brands specifically, and why now is the time to double down on your strategy before it becomes even more expensive.

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🎯 1. Interest Targeting is Being Removed—Hurting Niche Drinks Brands the Most

One of the big appeals of Meta advertising used to be precise interest targeting. You could reach gin lovers, wine subscribers, cocktail connoisseurs, or people interested in zero-alcohol alternatives with incredible accuracy.

But Meta has gradually removed hundreds of interest categories, especially those around alcohol, health, and lifestyle. If you're marketing something like:

• A natural wine subscription
• A low-calorie RTD cocktail
• A functional sparkling tea

…you’ve probably noticed that your audience options have shrunk. Without granular targeting, it’s harder to reach cold audiences that actually care about your category.

This shift especially hurts early-stage brands who rely on interest targeting to build awareness. Instead, Meta is pushing everyone toward broader targeting, which often leads to higher CPAs and more wasted spend—unless you’ve got the budget to let the algorithm learn over time.

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🍷 2. The Drinks Space is Getting Crowded on Meta

We’re seeing more and more drinks brands entering the paid social space, from craft spirits to challenger soft drinks. And they’re not just competing against each other—they’re up against food brands, fashion, tech, and beyond.

Because Meta operates on an auction-based system, this growing competition means:

• CPMs (cost per 1,000 impressions) continue to rise.
• You’re paying more just to get seen in-feed.
• Smaller brands are being priced out of top-performing placements.

We’ve seen CPMs for drinks campaigns rise from £6–£8 in 2022 to £12–£16 in 2025, depending on the segment and creative format. That’s a 100%+ increase in just a few years.

If you're running an awareness campaign for a new flavoured gin or launching your canned spritz range for summer, you're likely paying significantly more to generate the same number of impressions than you would have 18 months ago.

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📈 3. Year-on-Year Increases in CPMs Are the New Normal

For drinks brands, the average CPM is rising fast. Here’s what we’ve seen across our client base:

• 2022: £6–£8 CPM for most alcohol and premium soft drink ads
• 2023: £9–£12 CPM range became common
• 2024–25: £12–£16 CPM, even higher in Q4

And that’s before you even get to key trading periods like Christmas or Dry January, when demand for ad space spikes.

Brands who wait until peak times to run ads—without already having tested creative and audiences—often find themselves paying 30–50% more per impression than competitors who planned earlier and locked in learnings.

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🔐 4. Privacy Changes Make Attribution Harder (and More Expensive)

With iOS14+ and GDPR in full swing, drinks brands are now flying partially blind. Whether you're promoting a direct-to-consumer discovery box or a zero-sugar energy drink, it's harder to tell which ads are actually converting.

This means:

• ROAS appears lower, making it harder to optimise
• CPAs rise, as spend is spread more thinly across testing
• Brands must invest in things like server-side tracking and Conversion APIs to get visibility back

In a high-volume, low-margin category like drinks, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Without accurate attribution, it’s easy to underinvest in ads that are actually working, or worse, over-invest in poor performers.

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🚨 Why Drinks Brands Should Act Now

Here’s the thing—paid social still works for drinks. When done well, Facebook and Instagram ads can:

• Grow your subscriber base
• Drive DTC sales at scale
• Launch new SKUs with speed and impact

But the window for low-cost testing is closing.

If you’re sitting on a product launch, planning to grow your DTC arm, or trying to hit subscription targets before your next funding round—now is the lowest cost it’s going to be.

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🥡 Key Takeaways for Drinks Marketers

• Don’t wait for CPMs to go back down—they won’t.
• Start testing broad audiences and creative formats now while costs are still manageable.
• Focus on building first-party data (email, SMS, pixel audiences) to protect future reach.
• If you haven’t already, invest in conversion tracking upgrades (e.g., Meta's CAPI) to keep attribution strong.

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Final Thought

As a drinks brand in the  digital world, you’re not just marketing a product—you’re battling against rising costs, limited targeting, and a crowded marketplace. But those who act now—who test, learn, and build an ad infrastructure while CPMs are still (relatively) low—will be the ones with the edge this time next year.

Because whether you’re pushing premium rum or functional soda, one thing’s for sure:

Facebook and Instagram ads will never be this low cost again.

If you’re a drinks brand looking to grow sales through major grocery retailers, there’s one marketing channel you can’t afford to ignore...

👉 Sponsored product ads on retail media platforms like Ocado, Waitrose, and Sainsbury’s (Nectar360).

These platforms allow your brand to appear in the exact moment a customer is searching for drinks, whether it’s sparkling wine, zero-alcohol beer, or premium mixers. And with the right setup, they can deliver serious performance: high-intent visibility, measurable returns, and full-funnel impact.

In this article, we’ll break down:

• What sponsored product ads are
• How they work across Waitrose, Ocado, and Sainsbury’s
• Real CPC and ROAS benchmarks
• Auction types and how they impact spend
• Where you can and can’t bid on competitors
• And how to build a strategy that drives measurable growth

🛒 What Are Sponsored Product Ads?

Sponsored product ads are pay-per-click (PPC) placements that show up within a retailer’s search results or category pages. Think of them as the Amazon ads of the grocery world: if someone searches “canned cocktails,” your brand appears first, even if you’re new to the shelf.

These aren’t static banners. They’re native, shoppable placements designed to drive product discovery, trial and repeat sales right in the moment of purchase intent.

🍷 Why They’re Essential for Drinks Brands

The drinks category is highly competitive. Whether you’re a heritage spirits brand or a challenger sparkling water company, your product is fighting for attention both online and in-store. And with grocery eCommerce growing year on year, your digital shelf presence is now just as important as your physical one.

Sponsored product ads help drinks brands:

• Win visibility at the top of category and search results
• Launch new products with immediate impact
• Defend your brand against competitors
• Cross-sell into relevant searches (e.g. tonics under “gin”)
• Provide measurable sales attribution to commercial buyers

The best part? Unlike many trade marketing activities, you can see what’s working in near real-time, and optimise accordingly.

🏷️ Auction Types Explained: First-Price vs Second-Price

Not all retail media platforms operate the same way. Understanding the auction model is crucial to managing your spend effectively.

• First-Price Auction: You pay exactly what you bid. So if you bid £1.00 per click and win, you pay £1.00.
• Second-Price Auction: You only pay just above the next-highest bid. If you bid £1.00 and the next highest is £0.75, you’ll pay £0.76.

This has a big impact on efficiency. In first-price auctions, overbidding can quickly burn through budget. In second-price auctions, the system is slightly more forgiving, giving you room to stay competitive without overpaying.

🙋‍♂️ Can You Bid on Competitors?

Simply put, no. On Citrus Ads, you can't  bid on competitor brand terms or product keywords. This means your mixer brand wouldn't be able to appear above a rival when someone searches “Fever-Tree” or “San Pellegrino.”

However, on Nectar360 (used by Sainsbury’s), cross-selling is available, only when the other product can be viewed as complentary. i.e. omething that goes together,where there's a clear link between the two products. e.g. chips and tomato ketchup. HOWEVER, both brands need to not do their own versions of each others products. For instance, if Heinz did a range of chips, you coudln't cross-sell on them.

🛍️ Retail Media Comparison Table

Here’s how Waitrose, Ocado, and Sainsbury’s stack up for drinks brands running sponsored product ads:

🚨 When to Use Sponsored Product Ads

🎯 Product Launches
Get your NPD in front of relevant shoppers from day one.

🎯 Key Trading Periods
Boost performance during peak times—think Dry Jan, Summer, Gifting, or Christmas.

🎯 Brand Defence
Protect your name from competitor bids, especially on Citrus platforms.

🎯 Retailer Support
Demonstrate investment to buyers and help drive sell-through.

🔔 Best Practices to Maximise ROI

✅ Mix branded and category campaigns
Don’t just protect your name - go after general searches like “sparkling wine” or “alcohol-free beer.”

✅ Watch CPCs closely
First-price auctions mean it’s easy to overspend - monitor bids regularly and adjust for efficiency.

✅ Iterate on targeting
Update keyword lists to stay relevant and outperform competitors.

✅ Use retailer dashboards
Citrus Ads and Nectar360 provide detailed reporting. Use it to optimise placements and scale what works.

💭 Final Thoughts: Retail Media Is the New Shelf Space

Drinks brands have long fought for end caps, gondolas and eye-level space. Today, that battleground is digital, and sponsored product ads are the fast track to visibility.

Whether you’re looking to drive trials, defend your brand, or support listings with measurable performance, retail media on Ocado, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a growth essential.

The brands that learn these platforms now will win the long game, because if you’re not bidding on those high-intent searches…

Your competitors already are.

It's the unspoken truth of the drinks industry: sunshine sells. Most people working in the category know it instinctively - you feel it in the weekly numbers, you hear it in the boardroom when a cold June needs explaining. But it rarely gets quantified properly, and when it does, the scale of the effect is bigger than most people expect.

So here's the data. Most of the published research covers supermarket and pub sales, because that's where the long-run scanner data exists. But the same dynamics apply directly to DTC and ecommerce - and in some ways they're more actionable there. We'll come back to that specifically further down.

The Baseline: Temperature Is a Buying Signal

The most robust finding across multiple studies is a near-linear relationship between temperature and off-trade alcohol sales. A 2022 analysis published in the Journal of Business Research examining UK supermarket scanner data found that a 1°C rise in average weekly temperature was associated with a 3.4% increase in total alcohol unit sales at off-trade retailers. That effect compounded at higher temperatures: above 22°C, the elasticity increased to roughly 5.1% per degree.

Nielsen UK data (reported in The Grocer, 2023) showed similar directional findings. In weeks where mean temperature exceeded 20°C, off-trade alcohol volume was up 18–22% versus baseline, with the uplift concentrated in beer, cider, and white/rosé wine. Spirits showed a more modest but still meaningful 8–10% uplift.

The ONS and BBPA (British Beer and Pub Association) data point in the same direction for the on-trade. In the UK's record-breaking heatwave of July 2022, the BBPA reported pub beer sales ran approximately 40% above the equivalent week in 2021, with publicans crediting temperatures in the high 30s alongside the timing.

Category by Category: The Uplifts Are Not Uniform

Beer and Cider

Beer is the most weather-sensitive mainstream category. The research is consistent on this.

A landmark study by economists at the University of Exeter (Hajat & Kovats, 2014, expanded for beverage categories) found that lager and ale volume sales increased by approximately 6% for every 5°C temperature rise above a threshold of around 17°C. Below that threshold, the effect was negligible - people don't reach for cold lager on a grey 12°C Tuesday.

More granularly, a Dutch study (van Raaij & Verhallen, referenced in multiple European market analyses) found that on hot days (25°C+), beer accounted for a disproportionately high 60–65% of all spontaneous drinks purchases, versus around 45% in temperate conditions.

Craft beer follows the same pattern but with a geographic concentration effect: urban consumers shopping for premium craft skew strongly toward weekend weather events rather than sustained heat. Foot traffic data from off-licence and specialist retailers shows that a sunny Saturday generates 2.3x the craft beer impulse purchase volume of an equivalent rainy one (CGA Strategy UK data, 2022).

Cider tracks closely with beer in warm weather, but with an important nuance: apple cider over-indexes in spring and early summer (April–June), while fruit-flavoured ciders spike later and more sharply in heatwave conditions. Heineken's own analysis (published in their 2021 sustainability and business report) found that premium cider experienced peak-to-trough sales variance of nearly 300% driven almost entirely by weather seasonality.

Gin

Gin occupies an interesting middle ground. It's a spirits category but one that has increasingly behaved like a warm-weather drink in the UK - driven by the rise of premium garnished serves that photograph well and feel "outdoor-appropriate."

The data reflects this. IWSR (International Wine and Spirits Research) UK data shows that gin's off-trade volume uplift on warm weekends (20°C+) runs at approximately 12–15% versus a cold-equivalent weekend. That's lower than beer, but significantly higher than whisky or darker spirits, which show almost no weather correlation.

Fever-Tree, whose growth is closely correlated with premium gin culture, have been explicit in their investor communications about weather dependency. Their 2019 annual report noted that the UK's unusually warm summer of 2018 contributed to a £25m revenue outperformance versus internal forecasts - an extraordinary weather-driven delta for a mixer brand.

The gin category is also particularly sensitive to sunshine hours rather than just temperature. Analysis of Waitrose off-trade sales data (covered in The Grocer, 2020) found that gin sold significantly better during bright, low-cloud weekends even at temperatures that wouldn't otherwise be described as "hot" - the aesthetic of the serve matters as much as the temperature.

Wine: White and Still

White wine follows a temperature curve similar to gin - warm-weather responsive but not as dramatically as beer. The key threshold appears to be around 18–20°C, above which white wine impulse purchases increase meaningfully.

Wine Intelligence research (2021) found that UK consumers were 35% more likely to buy a bottle of white wine on a day with high sun index than on an equivalent grey day, even controlling for day of the week and seasonality. The effect was strongest in the 25–40 demographic and in premium price brackets (£10+).

Red wine shows almost no weather correlation and may slightly underperform in hot weather - consistent with consumption patterns where lighter, chilled serves dominate in the heat.

Rosé

Rosé is the standout case study in weather-driven category growth. The category's UK renaissance from roughly 2015 onwards is partly a product story, partly a cultural one - but the weather dependency baked into it is extreme.

WSTA (Wine and Spirit Trade Association) data consistently shows that rosé accounts for 30–40% of all still wine volume during the June–August period in the UK, compared to roughly 12–15% in October–March. That seasonal swing is almost entirely weather-driven rather than calendar-driven: in the cold, wet summer of 2012, rosé's share barely moved above its winter baseline.

The more granular finding is from a Kantar Worldpanel study (2022) showing that rosé wine is the category with the highest share of unplanned, weather-triggered purchase - ahead of beer, ahead of cider. The study found that 62% of rosé buyers on warm days had not planned to buy wine before entering the store. It is, functionally, the ultimate impulse category.

Per-degree temperature data for rosé is harder to isolate (most scanner data bundles it with white wine), but Wine Intelligence estimates suggest the uplift per degree above 20°C is in the range of 7–9% volume per degree - the highest of any wine category.

Spirits (Darker Spirits: Whisky, Rum, Bourbon)

This is where the weather story inverts. Darker spirits - whisky, rum, bourbon - show a neutral to mildly negative weather correlation. They are not cold-weather drinks in any dramatic sense, but neither do they benefit from sunshine.

IWSR data shows that whisky's weekly volume variance correlates more strongly with events (gifting occasions, sporting events, nights in) than with temperature. The same is broadly true of rum, although spiced rum in long-drink serves shows some summer uplift.

The exception is premium aged rum served over ice in cocktail-bar contexts, which has developed weather sensitivity as the category has traded up. But this is an on-trade, event-driven effect rather than an off-trade volume story.

Non-Alcoholic Drinks: The Faster Responders

Non-alcoholic drinks are, if anything, more weather-elastic than alcohol - the mechanism is more direct (hydration + refreshment versus mood/occasion). But within the non-alcoholic category, there are important distinctions.

Non-Alcoholic Beer and Spirits

This is now a large enough category to have its own weather data, and it tells a clear story: non-alcoholic beer sales rise with temperature almost as reliably as their alcoholic equivalents. IWSR's 2023 No and Low report found the week-by-week relationship between temperature and non-alcoholic beer volume is only marginally weaker than for standard beer - and that gap has narrowed year-on-year as the category grows and the occasions overlap.

Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0%, Heineken 0.0%, and Guinness 0.0% all show pronounced summer peaks in their Nielsen scanner data. Heineken's internal modelling (cited in trade press during their 2022 no-alcohol push) estimated that a bank holiday weekend at 22°C+ was worth approximately 3.5x the volume of a cold bank holiday for Heineken 0.0%.

Soft Drinks and Functional Beverages

The uplift data for soft drinks in warm weather is dramatic and well-documented. Britvic's annual soft drinks review consistently shows that carbonated soft drink volume in the UK is 40–50% higher in Q3 than Q1, with the majority of that variance attributable to temperature rather than underlying demand growth.

Energy drinks have their own dynamic: they are less weather-sensitive than traditional soft drinks, driven more by functional need (alertness, exercise) and occasion. Red Bull's internal market research (referenced in academic work on energy drink marketing) suggests that warm weather primarily shifts the format purchased (cans over bottles, cold-ready SKUs) rather than dramatically lifting total volume.

Kombuchas, botanical waters, and functional soft drinks - the emerging premium non-alcoholic segment - show weather sensitivity that closely mirrors premium soft drinks but with a meaningfully higher impulse-to-planned-purchase ratio. These are still-evolving categories where the weather elasticity data is building, but early signals from retailer scanner data (reported in category reviews, 2023) suggest premium non-alcoholic drinks track warm weather patterns at roughly 1.5x the rate of mainstream soft drinks in higher-income demographic baskets.

The Summer Weekend Effect: Beyond Temperature

Temperature alone doesn't tell the full story. Research consistently shows that the interaction of temperature, sunshine hours, and day-of-week creates non-linear spikes.

A Nielsen meta-analysis of UK FMCG data found that a warm sunny Bank Holiday weekend (22°C+, 8+ sunshine hours) outperformed a warm weekday at equivalent temperature by approximately 3.2x in off-trade drinks volume. The occasion unlocking is as important as the thermometer reading.

This has direct implications for media timing. If you're running paid social or retail media for your drinks brand, the reactive media window - scheduling spend to go live on Thursday ahead of a weekend forecast above 20°C - is measurably more efficient than static scheduling. Analysis by Essence MediaCom (published in WARC, 2021) found that weather-triggered paid social activation for FMCG drinks brands delivered 23% lower CPA than equivalent non-weather-triggered spend, controlling for creative quality.

What This Means for DTC and Ecommerce

The off and on-trade data above is useful context, but for drinks brands selling direct - whether through their own website or via online grocery - the weather signal is arguably more valuable, because you can actually do something about it in real time.

When temperatures rise, people don't just buy more drinks in shops. They search for them online. Google Trends data for category terms like "rosé wine delivery," "non alcoholic beer," and "craft gin" shows clear, repeatable spikes that track closely with warm weather windows - often beginning on Wednesday or Thursday as people start planning their weekends. For a DTC brand with paid search running, that's a live demand signal you can respond to.

The same is true of retail media on grocery platforms. Onsite search on the major online grocers behaves like Google: intent is high, the purchase is one click away, and the consumer is already in buying mode. When it's 24°C and someone searches "sparkling rosé" on a grocery platform, they are not browsing - they are buying. Brands that surge their bids and budgets into those windows convert that intent efficiently. Brands that don't hand the visibility to whoever is willing to spend.

There's also a website traffic dimension that's less obvious. Analysis of DTC drinks brand traffic patterns shows that warm weekends generate meaningful spikes in direct and organic visits - people who've seen a brand on social or in a shop and are now going to look it up. If your site isn't converting that traffic well (slow load, weak above-the-fold offer, no urgency mechanic), the weather is doing half the job and your website is dropping it.

The practical implication is that DTC brands should think about weather the same way retailers think about promotions: as a predictable, forecastable event that you can prepare for. Met Office forecasts are free. A warm weekend is visible four to five days out. There's no reason to be caught flat-footed.

What This Means for Campaign Planning

The research points to a few clear strategic implications:

1. Category-specific thresholds matter. Beer and cider begin responding meaningfully above 17–18°C. Rosé and white wine kick in at 19–20°C. Gin follows sunshine hours as much as temperature. Plan your media triggers by category, not by a single weather rule.

2. The impulse purchase window is short. Most weather-driven uplift is captured within 48–72 hours of the trigger (the warm weekend itself). Awareness campaigns need to pre-load before forecast windows; conversion activity needs to be timed to the window.

3. Non-alcoholic brands can own the same moments. The misconception is that non-alcoholic drinks are a cold-weather or health-conscious occasion. The data says otherwise: the same summer occasions that drive beer and rosé volume are driving premium non-alcoholic growth, often to the same shopper in the same basket.

4. Retail media is uniquely suited to weather activation. Onsite sponsored search on grocery platforms allows brands to surge bids and budget during high-intent weather windows - when consumers searching "rosé wine" or "non alcoholic beer" are doing so because it's 24°C outside. This is the most direct path from weather signal to purchase.

A Note on Sources

The data cited here draws on published research from: IWSR, Kantar Worldpanel, Nielsen UK (via trade press), CGA Strategy, Wine Intelligence, WSTA, BBPA, Britvic's annual Soft Drinks Review, and academic work published in the Journal of Business Research and public health economics literature. Where specific figures are drawn from proprietary brand reports, these are noted.

Weather elasticity modelling is a live and growing area of FMCG analytics, and the figures above represent current best estimates rather than universal constants - category dynamics, distribution footprint, and brand-specific factors all apply.

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