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5 min read

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.

‍

The Sun Sells Drinks: What the Data Actually Says About Weather and Beverage Sales

Written by
Rob Tutty
Published on
May 15, 2026
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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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Meta's Andromeda Update: A Simple Guide for Drinks Brands

If your Meta Ads performance has felt unpredictable lately, you're not imagining it. Meta quietly rolled out its biggest advertising system change in years, a new AI-powered engine called Andromeda, and it fundamentally changes how your ads reach people. This guide breaks it down in plain English.
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If your Meta Ads performance has felt unpredictable lately, you're not imagining it. Meta quietly rolled out its biggest advertising system change in years, a new AI-powered engine called Andromeda, and it fundamentally changes how your ads reach people.

This guide breaks it down in plain English, with practical advice specifically for drinks and spirits brands.

What Actually Changed?

Previously, you (the advertiser) told Meta who should see your ads. You'd pick audiences based on interests, demographics, and lookalikes, then let the system optimise from there.

Andromeda flips that on its head. Now, Meta decides who sees your ads based on the creative itself. The algorithm reads your images, video, copy and design, and matches each individual ad to the user most likely to engage with it, in real time.

In short: your targeting settings matter far less. Your creative matters far more.

Why This Hits Drinks Brands Hard

Most drinks brands have historically leaned on a fairly narrow creative approach. Beautiful bottle shots, lifestyle imagery, maybe a cocktail serve or two. That's not enough anymore.

Under Andromeda, if your ads all look and feel similar, Meta sees them as repetitive. The system will actually penalise your account with higher CPMs (the cost to reach people) because it interprets a lack of creative diversity as content fatigue.

That means a feed full of the same bottle on different backgrounds won't cut it. You need genuinely different creative angles.

Campaign Structure: Keep It Simple

Andromeda works best with simplified campaign structures. The old approach of splitting everything into dozens of ad sets with different audiences actually hurts performance now.

The recommended setup is:

  • One campaign per objective (e.g., one for purchases, one for awareness)
  • Two ad sets per campaign: one for cold prospecting and one for retargeting
  • Broad targeting on prospecting, with no interest or lookalike layering, just exclude existing customers
  • Advantage+ Creative turned on so Meta can optimise placements and formats
  • CBO (Campaign Budget Optimisation) to let the algorithm allocate spend

What you want to avoid is the old approach of splitting prospecting into loads of ad sets by interest or lookalike ("gin lovers", "health-conscious 25 to 34", "competitor followers" and so on). Andromeda handles that matching itself now through the creative, so fragmenting your budget across lots of narrow ad sets just starves each one of data and slows the learning.

The exception would be if you have genuinely different conversion goals or products. For example, if you're running both DTC and retail-driving campaigns, those should be separate campaigns because the objective and measurement are fundamentally different. But within each, keep the ad set count low and let the creative do the segmentation work.

Cold Audience Creative: 8 to 12 Concepts

Your prospecting ad set is where creative diversity matters most. These people don't know you yet, so you're trying to give Andromeda a range of hooks to match different people with different motivations. Aim for 8 to 12 genuinely distinct concepts:

1. The Founder / Brand Story
Why does this product exist? What's the mission? A short clip of the founder talking about the brand, or a behind-the-scenes look at the team. This works especially well for challenger brands trying to stand out against bigger players.

2. The Product Story
Your liquid, your process, your ingredients. What makes the drink itself special? Think close-up pours, ingredient sourcing, production craft. Let the product do the talking.

3. Education / Myth-Busting
"What actually is a non-alc spirit?" or "Why does single malt cost more?" Content that teaches while selling. Bold claims work well here too: "You won't believe this isn't gin" or "Zero sugar, full flavour."

4. The Occasion
When and where does someone reach for your product? A Friday night in, a summer BBQ, a dinner party, a quiet midweek moment. Each occasion is a separate creative angle, so don't bundle them all into one ad.

5. The Serve
How do you drink it? Simple serves, cocktail recipes, food pairings. Each one is its own creative concept. A G&T serve is a completely different angle to an espresso martini twist.

6. Lifestyle
Who drinks this? Aspirational but authentic lifestyle content that reflects your target drinker's world, without necessarily showing the product front and centre.

7. Social Proof
Press coverage, awards, customer reviews, influencer mentions. Let someone else do the talking. Instant credibility for someone who has never heard of you.

8. UGC-Style Content
User-generated or influencer content that feels less like an ad and more like a recommendation. This format consistently outperforms polished brand content in cold audiences.

9. Dynamic Product Ads (Catalogue Ads)
If you have a product catalogue set up (which most Shopify brands will), Meta can now serve dynamic product ads to cold audiences too, not just retargeting. The algorithm picks which product from your catalogue to show each person based on their behaviour and interests. This works best when you have a decent range of SKUs (different flavours, formats, gift sets). You're not designing this creative from scratch, but you can still influence how it looks with frames, overlays, and copy templates. Make sure your product imagery is strong, your titles are clean, and your pricing is accurate, because that is the creative quality for catalogue ads.

The key is that each one of these should feel like a completely different ad, not a variation on a theme. Different visuals, different hooks, different tone. That's what Andromeda needs to work with.

Retargeting Creative: 4 to 6 Concepts

Your retargeting ad set speaks to people who already know you (website visitors, add-to-carts, past purchasers). The job here is different. You're overcoming the last bit of hesitation and nudging them to buy. The creative pool can be smaller, but more focused:

1. Social Proof
Customer reviews, star ratings, "over 10,000 sold." Reassurance for someone who's on the fence.

2. Offers and Bundles
Free delivery, multipack savings, gift sets. Give them a reason to act now rather than later.

3. The Reminder
A simple, clean product shot with a direct CTA like "Still thinking about it?" or "Your basket is waiting." Straightforward and effective.

4. Food Pairing or Recipe Content
Give them a reason to buy now. "Perfect with Sunday roast" or "Three cocktails you can make in under a minute."

5. The Gifting Angle
"Not sure what to get them?" Works well if you have gift-ready packaging, especially around key gifting periods like Christmas, Father's Day, or Valentine's Day.

6. Dynamic Product Ads (Catalogue Ads)
This is arguably your strongest retargeting format. If you have a product catalogue connected, dynamic ads will show people the exact products they've already viewed or added to basket. They work alongside your manually created retargeting creative, not instead of it. The DPA handles the "here's what you looked at" job, while your other retargeting concepts handle the broader persuasion. As with prospecting, make sure your feed is in good shape: strong imagery, accurate pricing, and clean product titles all make a difference.

The retargeting creative should feel warmer and more familiar. They've already seen the brand, so you don't need to introduce yourself again. It's about reassurance and a gentle push.

The mistake most brands make is running the same creative across both audiences. If someone saw your founder story in prospecting and then gets served the exact same ad in retargeting, that's a wasted touchpoint.

How Many Personas Should You Target?

Under Andromeda, you're not manually targeting personas the way you used to. Instead, your creative acts as the targeting. Each distinct creative angle effectively speaks to a different persona, and Meta's AI matches it to the right person.

For most drinks brands, 3 to 5 core personas is the sweet spot. More than that and you'll struggle to produce enough quality creative to serve each one. Fewer than that and you're not giving the algorithm enough diversity to work with.

Here's an example for a premium non-alcoholic spirits brand:

Persona Who They Are Creative Angle That Speaks to Them
The Sober-Curious Explorer 25 to 35, health-conscious, wants to cut back but not miss out Occasion-based content: "Your Friday night, upgraded"
The Designated Driver Social drinker who wants something better than lime and soda Serve-focused: sophisticated cocktail recipes
The Gifter Buying for someone else, doesn't know the category well Social proof + product story: awards, press, "what's in the box"
The Wellness-Led Buyer Actively avoids alcohol for health reasons, reads ingredients Education + founder story: what's in it, why it exists
The Foodie / Entertainer Loves hosting, always looking for something interesting to serve Food pairings, dinner party content, premium lifestyle

How to Research Your Personas

You don't need expensive research tools. Here's a practical approach:

Mine your existing data. Look at your Shopify or website analytics. Who's actually buying? What pages do they visit before purchasing? What search terms bring them in? If you're running Meta Ads already, check Audience Insights for demographic and interest data on your converters.

Read your reviews. Customer reviews (on your site, Amazon, or Trustpilot) are a goldmine. Look for patterns in why people bought, who they bought for, and what they say they love. These are your creative angles spelled out for you.

Stalk the comments. Go through the comments on your own social posts and your competitors'. What questions do people ask? What objections come up? What language do they use? This gives you both persona insight and ad copy ideas.

Use Reddit and forums. Search for your category on Reddit (r/nonalcoholic, r/cocktails, r/whisky). Real, unfiltered opinions from real drinkers. Look for recurring themes, frustrations, and desires.

Talk to your retail partners. If you're in Waitrose, Ocado, or Sainsbury's, your buyer or account manager can tell you about shopper behaviour in the category. Who's buying, when, and what else goes in the basket.

Survey your existing customers. Even a simple post-purchase email asking "What made you try us?" and "Who else would love this?" gives you persona data straight from the source.

Refreshing Your Creative

Under Andromeda, ad fatigue happens faster. Even your best performers will start to decline after 2 to 4 weeks. Plan for a fortnightly or monthly creative refresh cycle.

This doesn't mean starting from scratch every two weeks. It means having a rolling pipeline where you're always introducing a couple of new concepts while retiring the ones that have fatigued. Keep an eye on these signals:

  • Rising CPMs mean your creative is getting stale
  • High Creative Similarity score (a new Meta metric) means you need more diversity
  • Declining CTR means people have seen it too many times

The Bottom Line

Andromeda rewards brands that think like content creators, not just advertisers. For drinks brands, this means moving beyond the bottle shot and building a diverse creative library that speaks to different people, different occasions, and different motivations.

The brands that adapt early will see lower costs and better returns. The ones that keep running the same three ads will wonder why their CPMs keep climbing.

Start with your personas, build your creative angles, keep the pipeline fresh, and let Meta's AI do the matching. That's the game now.

‍

Paid Ads
5 min read

Why LTV Is the Metric That Matters for UK Drinks Brands Selling Online

Rising ad costs, tougher competition, and changing customer behaviours make it harder than ever to drive a profitable first purchase. But there’s one metric that can shift how you think about acquisition entirely: LTV — customer lifetime value.
Read more

For UK drinks brands growing DTC, performance marketing can feel like a bit of a minefield.

Rising ad costs, tougher competition, and changing customer behaviours make it harder than ever to drive a profitable first purchase.

But there’s one metric that can shift how you think about acquisition entirely: LTV — customer lifetime value.

📈 What is LTV, and why does it matter?

LTV is the total revenue you can expect from a customer over their full relationship with your brand.

For drinks brands — especially those with higher price points or solid repeat potential — LTV needs to sit at the heart of your strategy. Because while your CPA (cost per acquisition) might look high at first glance, it quickly becomes justifiable when a chunk of those customers are coming back for more.

‍

🔁 When acquisition meets retention

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Let’s say your average order value is £40, and your CPA is also £40. Looks break-even, right?

But if even 40% of those customers reorder within 60 days, you’re not breaking even — you’re building long-term value.

For example:

• A customer orders 4 times in a year

• Total revenue: £160

• CPA: £40

• That’s a 4:1 return over 12 months

That’s the kind of model drinks brands should be building toward — not just looking at ROAS on day one.

‍

🛒 The challenge: more distribution = less direct conversion

This is a common one.

As your brand grows into retail — whether that’s supermarkets, the on-trade, or Amazon — your DTC conversion rate often dips.

Why? Because your ads are now doing more than converting. They’re building awareness.

A customer might click your ad today, spot your bottle in Sainsbury’s tomorrow, and buy it on Amazon next week. The sale still happens — just not on your site.

‍

🧠 What that means for your acquisition strategy

This is where brands often pull the plug too early. They pause paid social or search because ROAS looks weak, without realising they’re also driving offline or third-party sales they’re not tracking.

A strong approach to acquisition should:

• Optimise for first purchase and lifetime value

• Use email/SMS flows to drive repeat orders

• Factor in awareness and omni-channel impact

If you’re judging performance purely on in-platform ROAS, you’re missing half the picture.

‍

🔍 How to actually measure LTV

There are plenty of tools that make this easy — Lifetimely, Triple Whale, or even basic cohort reporting in GA4 or Shopify.

Track:

• Average number of orders per customer

• Time between purchases

• Revenue by cohort

Then compare that against CPA to figure out your break-even point and ideal payback window. For most drinks brands, a 60–90 day payback is a solid benchmark.

‍

🐾 What we recommend at Hound

We work with some of the UK’s fastest-growing drinks brands, and we always say:

• Set your LTV benchmarks early — don’t wait until you’re deep into Meta or Google spend.

• Test your retention levers — things like subscription nudges, reorder flows, or bundle offers often move the needle quickly.

• Understand your halo effect — model the impact your DTC activity is having on retail and Amazon. Because it’s rarely just one channel doing all the work.

‍

🚀 Final thoughts

Paid acquisition for drinks brands has never been just about ROAS on day one. It’s about trial, awareness, loyalty — and ultimately, long-term growth.

When you put LTV at the centre of your thinking, everything gets easier. Suddenly, that high CPA doesn’t look so scary — it looks like a growth engine.

‍

Want to dig into your LTV, retention, or acquisition model?

We help premium drinks brands build strategies that drive performance across both DTC and retail.

Get in touch — we’d love to chat.

‍

Retail
5 min read

The Secret Sauce to Boosting Sales In Supermarkets

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.
Read more

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:

Ocado vs Waitrose vs Sainsbury's Table
Ocado Waitrose Sainsbury’s
Min bid £0.40 £0.50 £0.45
Auction type 1st price (you pay your max bid) 2nd price (you pay the next best bid + 1p) 2nd price (you pay the next best bid + 1p)
Competitor bidding Not allowed Not allowed Not allowed. However cross-selling enables this to an extent (see below).
Cross selling rules Not allowed Not allowed Broad complementary allowance as long as it’s not a direct competitor. Can also cross sell against Sainsbury’s own brand. Alcohol rules: can advertise against non-competing alcohol, proteins suitable for meals (fish, ham), and standard mixers (tonic, ginger ale).
Health claims Not stated Allowed only if the claim is printed on packaging or included in verified nutritional info Not stated
Attribution window 14 days 21 days 14 days
Budget options Daily or total budget Total budget Total budget
Close Exact Match Recommend specifying plurals Recommend specifying plurals Yes (Close Exact Match enabled)
Typical ROAS 200 to 400%. Anything over 100% should be kept running. 200 to 400%. Anything over 100% should be kept running. 250 to 400%. Anything over 100% should be kept running.
Placements Aisle, Search Before You Go, Category, Grocery Landing, Offers, Search, Banner X Checkout Before You Go (Web & App), Cross Sell, Offers, PDP Similar Items, Search App, Search Below Grid, Zone, Banner, Banner X

🚨 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.