• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 19, 2022

Super Coffee, a Shark Tank success story, shared its story at the MediaPost Search & Performance Summit last week on how the company navigated the rocky times during the past 12 months.

Jimmy DeCicco, co-founder and CEO of Super Coffee, a ready to drink coffee company, wanted to turn the company into a $100 million ecommerce business. “In January, we would spend to fill the funnel,” he said, referring to the company's annual advertising budget.

But it didn’t work, at first. “We spent so much [of the budget] at the top of the funnel that we were losing customers after their first purchase,” he said. “It was almost a bottomless pit. … With the spend, we started to learn about customers. We learned it was truly an omnichannel business.”

At first, about 85% of its business occurs in retail stores, about 70,000 like gas stations and grocery. The remainder sold online.

DeCicco said that in 2020, the company through a variety of platforms served 31 million impressions. The average consumer saw Super Coffee ad impressions about six times each.

That led to 165,000 new buyers online and more than 1 million at retail. The company was spending about $600,000 monthly on marketing in the direct-to-consumer channel.

In a post-purchase survey, the company learned 53% of those who bought the product in stores, saw the product online first.

“When these consumers stopped buying online, 75% continued to buy in stores,” he said.

All its customers are omnichannel, so Super Coffee’s focus is on how performance marketing affects in store and online. Until this year it was a split between its website and Amazon.

The company then took the DTC model to retail to support an omnichannel approach. It takes data from its customers and Catalina -- looking at shoppers’ baskets.

Super Coffee now runs omnichannel campaigns across connected television (CTV), in-store and digital through Catalina. 

The two big consumer groups that made sense to target included consumers avoiding sugar and those seeking protein. The campaign consisted of CTV and display ads and in-store coupons.

The company spent about $700,000 across digital, CTV and retail. About 22 million impressions drove some $4 million in sales. The company also acquired about 195,000 new customers.

Optimizing campaigns across retail and ecommerce came next, focusing on loyal customers and moving away from one-time purchases.

In August 2021, the company spent $600,000 on Meta advertising to generate $1.3 million in sales. In August 2022, the company spent $97,000 to drive $1.25 million in sales on its website and Amazon.

DeCicco said the company’s focus in 2023 is to support the buyers who will stick with the company through many purchases.

The company now shifted its D2C business exclusively to Amazon. "We don't need to pay people to show up to our website," he said. "They are already there, so we can target them a lot more focused."

Ad spend on Amazon went from $100,000 per month in July 2022, dropping to $40,000 in August, with return on ad spend nearly doubling.  

The company was founded the college dorm room of the youngest of three brothers about seven years ago. They didn’t want to drink a Starbucks Frappuccino with many calories, so they began to brew their own coffee, adding protein, MCT oil and other things. It worked so well they started selling it their football teammates, coaches and classmates.