CPG marketing for brands selling online, on shelves and through distributors
A snack, drink or household brand can sell in several places at once. We help you decide where ad money goes, measure what it adds in stores, and keep buyers and distributors moving.
Free, 30 minutes, and you'll leave with at least one clear next step.
What gets hard once you're on store shelves
These are common once a brand lands its first retail accounts.
Store sales show up late
Retailer and distributor reports arrive weeks later, by store or region, with no link to any ad.
Online ads get the wrong credit
Someone sees your ad and buys at the grocery store. The ad looks like a loss, and its budget gets cut.
Online deals clash with store deals
A sitewide sale on your website the same week a retailer runs your promotion is a fast way to upset a buyer.
Brokers hold the relationships
Brokers and distributors talk to the buyers. You find out a store is close to saying yes after the fact, if at all.
How do you measure ads when most sales happen in stores?
You can't track a shopper from an Instagram ad to a grocery checkout. We measure by region instead. Ads run in some areas and pause in similar ones for a few weeks. After that, we compare store sales from your retailer or distributor reports. The gap between the two groups of regions shows what the ads added.
Between tests, we watch a few signals that move faster. Store locator searches on your site tell you people are looking for you on shelves. Website orders in areas where you have stores show whether the ads are building interest. On website orders, we also ask where buyers first heard of you, with "saw it in a store" as one of the choices.
None of these is perfect alone. Read together, they tell you whether to spend more or move money to a different region.
What should your own website do for a CPG brand?
For most CPG brands, the website is where you learn. Test a new flavor with your email list before you pitch it to a buyer. Sell the bundles and variety packs that stores won't carry, and offer subscriptions on the staples people run out of. You also collect names and emails, which store sales never give you.
Keep website prices close to shelf prices. Undercutting your retailers hurts the relationship, and shipping heavy items like drinks often costs more than the margin anyway. Bundles and website-only flavors give shoppers a reason to buy direct without a price war.
Our closest published work here is with Baked Bouquet, a food gifting brand, where we matched ad plans to what the kitchen could make. We haven't published a grocery-shelf case study yet. For retail, we'd start with a regional test and walk you through the result.
What we run for consumer goods brands
Ads around the stores that carry you
Meta and Google aimed at shoppers near your retail doors, pointing them to a store locator.
Paid adsRegional tests and one report
Store sales by region next to website sales and ad spend, so you see what the ads add.
Ad tracking and reportingEmail and subscriptions for direct buyers
Reorder reminders, bundles and new-flavor launches in Klaviyo.
Email marketingBuyers, brokers and distributors in HubSpot
Every account, sample and follow-up in one place, so nothing waits on a spreadsheet.
HubSpotData driven decisions, every day
Data Driven Decisions Daily (D4) means daily updates, weekly reports and a weekly meeting. We look at the business as a system, and our team can help with operations, analytics and process beyond the ads.
Premium ecommerce brandsSelling a product shoppers had to understand first
Baked Bouquet makes cupcake bouquets, which many shoppers didn't get at first glance. Ads that showed the product step by step, plus baking planned around demand, turned online sales into a steady source of business.
What your website does and what retail does
Your website
- Higher margin on each order
- You own the customer's name and email
- A place to test flavors, sizes and bundles
- Subscriptions on the products people use up
Retail and distributors
- Reach and volume you can't buy online
- Shoppers find you while buying other things
- Sales data arrives slowly and in summary
- Promotions and placement fees eat into margin
Where we'd begin
- Day 1
A free 30-minute call
We look at where you sell today, how you track it, and where ad money goes.
- First weeks
One report and one calendar
Website, retail and ad data side by side, and every promotion on one calendar.
- Once spend allows
A regional test
Ads on in some regions and off in others, then a readout of what they added in stores.
CPG brands questions
Can online ads raise our sales in grocery stores?
They can, but you have to test it to know. We run ads in some regions and pause them in similar ones, then compare store sales from your retailer reports. The gap is what the ads added.
Should our website prices match what stores charge?
Keep them close. Undercutting retailers hurts the relationship. Give direct shoppers bundles, variety packs or website-only flavors instead of a lower price.
How do we keep track of brokers and distributors?
Set each one up as an account in HubSpot, linked to the stores they cover. Log every introduction, sample and follow-up there, so you can see which partners bring in new stores.
Is selling direct worth it for a brand that's already in stores?
Usually, yes. Even if the website stays small, it gives you customer emails, a place to test new products and subscription revenue on staples. Just keep it from competing with your retailers on price.
What's a smart way to launch a new flavor?
Test it online first. Email your list, run a small ad budget and take preorders. If it sells, you walk into the buyer meeting with early sales to show.
Do you work with non-food consumer goods?
Yes. Household and personal care brands sell the same way, online and on shelves. Personal care adds claims rules, which we cover on our beauty page.
Related
Find out what your ads do on the shelf
Bring your latest retailer or distributor report. We'll show you how we'd test what your ads add in stores.