2024 Paid Media Planning with Gawronski Food & Beverage

With “Back-to-School” season ending, and Q4 holiday strategies wrapping up, it’s officially that time of year again, where marketing teams plan their budgets for 2024. Within planning marketing budgets comes the inevitable prioritization of paid media. Paid media for food & beverage brands has become essential to driving prospective online and in-store sales.

Unlike years past, paid media in 2023 was far less confusing, almost entirely due to steadier consumer behaviors with COVID-19 winding down.

During COVID, Gawronski F&B experienced retail behaviors fluctuating based on re-openings, and new variants emerging. From 2020-2021 we were evaluating strategy almost on a week by week basis. Then in 2022 the IOS updates heavily disrupted direct-to-consumer attribution, causing brands to reevaluate their scalability online. It was a 2-3 year stretch of uncertainty and navigating numerous obstacles.

At this point in 2023, Gawronski Food & Beverage has experienced some massive shifts within the paid media ecosystem. Most especially with the heavy push towards retail media, and a slight pull-back from direct to consumer. Another larger trend our flexibility allowed them to successfully adapt with.

The majority of their brands are adjusting their marketing strategies to lean heavily towards Instacart, Criteo, Citrus, etc. while direct website & Amazon sales are still very active, it’s evident brands view retail as the quickest path to scale, at this moment.

Regarding paid media, 2024 should be the most straightforward year in recent memory for food & beverage brands. Each platform has a defined role in their brands ecosystem, proven over the past few tumultuous years.

Going into 2024, retail media platforms such as Instacart continue to roll out new innovative features, retailers such as Kroger retooling their advertising capabilities, Criteo and Citrus onboarding new retailers monthly, and so on. In 2024, retailers focus is to provide brands with cost effective tools to help fuel in-store velocities. It’s crucial brands take advantage of this.

Amazon has carved out it’s spot in the DTC world as the “get it now” platform. Despite the sometimes confusing fees, its dominance doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Direct website sales have become most important for loyal customers to subscribe and repeat, and generate trial for untapped consumers.

While these platforms have established their clear position in our paid media universe, what’s even more clear for food & beverage brands, is the need to partner with an agency with a deep knowledge of their industry. One that can navigate trends, have the flexibility to adjust strategies, and pull real-time learnings from their client list within the industry to help scale performance for their brands.

Now 6 years in, Gawronski Food & Beverage, an in person team in Madison, Wisconsin, has established themselves as a reliable, impactful partner for brands looking to profitably scale their online sales. They provide price efficient services, focusing only on the platforms, and objectives that are important for your brand. No wasted ad spend or cookie cutter strategies. Constant optimizations, testing and scaling their results.

If you want to start your paid media planning for 2024 with Gawronski Food & Beverage, please visit gawronskifb.com or email info@gawronskimedia.com