Creating Campaign Success with An Alcohol Beverage Brand

Brands operating in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space are faced with a unique challenge: They usually sell their products to a retailer, not a consumer. This makes it difficult to understand the preferences of their customers.

Thus, CPG brands must seek out technology partners with data integrations that provide much-needed transparency about their target buyers. Enter Viant.

To explore how we recently helped an alcohol brand discover insights about their consumers thanks to our Circana sales reporting integration — and optimize their campaign in-flight — we sat down with Director of Sales Matt Mehrkens.

Q: Matt, let’s start from the top — what goals did the Alcohol Brand aim to achieve when they started working with us? Can you also discuss some of the challenges brands face in the CPG space?

The alcohol brand’s primary goal was maximizing return on ad spend (ROAS), with a specific emphasis on incremental ROAS. With a portion of their budget running through a key retailer’s retail media network (RMN), they were challenged with the need to drive and measure sales outside of that specific retailer.

To overcome that challenge, they sought actionable insights from sales data, which would allow them to simply optimize campaigns in-flight. Viant’s in-platform sales measurement allowed them to analyze performance at various levels of the campaign hierarchy. And equally important, they could see performance by day, identifying trends quickly and optimizing spend on the fly.

Many brands struggle with disjointed reporting and the lack of granular data, making optimization difficult, which was a challenge the brand’s media AOR, Haworth Marketing + Media, was focused on addressing.

This quote from Haworth’s Director of Platform Investment Brad Dick sums up how our partnership yielded results: “As retail media continues to grow in scale and sophistication, it’s becoming increasingly important for CPG brands in particular to ensure their programs are complementary and not competing. With the scale of the Circana loyalty data and inventory available with Viant, we’ve found success in not only being able to drive attributed sales and strong ROAS at scale, but equally strong incremental sales. This tactic and solution has proven to be a top-performing sales driver and will now be an always-on tactic this coming year for our client.”

Q: What were our next steps in helping the alcohol brand achieve their goals?

In partnership with Haworth Marketing + Media, we strategically positioned Viant’s in-platform Circana sales reporting to complement the alcohol brand’s existing RMN partnership. Viant acted as the independent player, utilizing sales-based targeting data across industry-leading providers, measuring sales results across a wide range of retailers.

By highlighting our ability to measure sales performance across other retailers, we addressed gaps they had in ROAS reporting. Our focus on fast, actionable, and granular reporting gave them the tools needed for effective decision-making and campaign optimization.

Q: Can you share the impact of Viant’s Circana data partner integration on reaching success?

There were two critical elements of Viant’s Circana integration that supported the success of this campaign:

In Platform: By having this robust level of reporting in Viant’s DSP, the alcohol brand received the critical ROAS & iROAS reporting (amongst many other metrics) that matched the hierarchy of campaign setup, providing ease in analyzing then optimizing things like channels, devices, creatives, data providers, targeting tactics, day of the week, etc.

Direct Match: Viant’s integration with Circana is unique, in that both parties maintain scaled identity-based data, so there is no need for an identity resolution partner to sit in the middle (negatively impacting match rates and speed of reporting). Amongst the many benefits, alcohol-focused, as well as other CPG brands, can capture credit for more sales when measured through Viant’s Circana integration because of this identity-based direct match. Simply put: Viant is matching at a higher rate than you would via a pixel-based integration with a non-identity owning activation partner, therefore capturing more accurate sales measurement.

Q: Lastly, how do you see the CPG space evolving in 2025, and in what ways can other brands in the CPG space use Viant to find success?

In 2025, CPG planning teams will continue to be challenged by the fragmentation created by RMNs. While DSPs are beginning to develop stronger ties with RMNs, there remains a need for an independent media activation and measurement partner in the media mix, that offers access to a range of data for targeting and sales measurement (not siloed to a specific retailer). With Viant’s identity-based data infrastructure and in-platform measurement suite, Viant is well-suited to play this role for CPG brands in 2025.