Connecting the Dots for Food and Beverage Brands: Turning Multi-Channel Insights into Revenue Growth

As food and beverage brands aim to scale, leveraging unified data across all sales channels is becoming a key differentiator. By analyzing data from retail, e-commerce, and digital marketing efforts, brands gain deeper visibility into performance, enabling smarter decisions and fueling sustainable growth.

Why Unified Data Matters for Food and Beverage Brands

Food and beverage brands often sell through multiple channels—retail stores, third-party marketplaces, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) websites. However, many fail to connect the dots between these sales channels, which limits their ability to scale.

CPG brands often fixate on growing their revenue from their own branded website because it offers stronger margins and valuable first-party data – but those benefits serve the brand, not the shopper.

According to the data we’ve seen at Power Digital, less than 2% of shoppers prefer to buy food and beverage products directly from brand websites. The vast majority still choose in-store, which is also evident within food and beverage brand’s revenue share. Rather than pushing against consumer preference, the bigger opportunity lies in doubling down on retail – investing in strategies that amplify what’s already working and capturing more share where purchase intent and demand is strongest.

Using Data to Optimize Budget Allocation

Power Digital takes a business-first approach when advising brands on budget distribution.

For example, if a brand is at risk of losing shelf space due to increased competition, allocating more budget to trade and in-store promotions may be necessary. Conversely, if a brand is expanding its DTC presence, investing in performance marketing and retargeting strategies becomes more critical to drive growth.

Key Data-Driven Strategies for Scaling

Cross-Channel Measurement: Cross-channel analysis helps brands measure the effectiveness of digital campaigns, including the halo effect of online ads on in-store sales. Power Digital leverages data modeling to quantify the retail lift from digital efforts, guiding future spend allocation.

Optimized Audience Targeting: By analyzing data across retail, D2C, and digital channels, food and beverage brands can refine their audience segmentation and better understand shopper intent. For example, brands can identify high-intent shoppers through retail media networks and enable brands to retarget them with tailored DTC offers, maximizing both online engagement and offline conversions.

Scaling Through Omnichannel Strategies

At Power Digital, we stress the importance of an omnichannel mindset when scaling: If you’re selling across multiple pillars—retail, Amazon, DTC—you have to think holistically. It’s not about splitting the budget evenly; it’s about weighting it toward the channels driving the most impact.

For omnichannel brands, Power Digital recommends:

• 60% of spend on prospecting (to expand the customer base)
• 25% on intent-based strategies (to convert high-intent shoppers)
• 10% on awareness
• 5% on retention

Beware of Unrealistic Timelines and Isolated Metrics

As food and beverage brands invest more in digital advertising, a critical shift in mindset is needed, one that moves away from short-term expectations and siloed measurement approaches. In a recent article, “Why Unrealistic Online Sales Expectations Are Holding Food Brands Back” we dive into why brands that focus on longer-term performance evaluation and omnichannel impact will be better positioned for success.

Many brands are accustomed to seeing real-time data from their DTC platforms, and are eager to quickly see the impact of digital marketing on in-store sales. The reality is, measuring the impact of marketing efforts typically requires at least 12 weeks just to establish a benchmark and baseline. To make informed decisions, brands need to allow campaigns to run their full course, analyze patterns over time, and resist the urge to draw conclusions too soon. 

Next Steps

Scaling food and beverage brands requires more than just increasing spend—it demands an omnichannel strategy. By analyzing data from all points of sale, brands can optimize their budget allocation, target the right audiences, and drive sustainable growth across both retail and digital channels. Ready to elevate your digital marketing strategy? Power Digital can help!