Background
Over the past 10 years, Breakside Brewery has grown from a small, neighborhood brewpub into a nationally recognized brewery known for its broad portfolio of award-winning, innovative beers. Starting with a single brewpub in Portland, Oregon in 2010, the employee-owned business has blossomed into a brewery powered by a fully integrated production facility, complete with 2 separate ancillary breweries and 6 taprooms total throughout the Portland metro area. Being located in a region where all the ingredients to make world-class beer are grown within 60 miles, Breakside knew the value of local partnerships to get the job done. So when they needed help navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, they trusted their friends at Logical Position (LP) to brew up a winning solution.
Key Metrics
1.3 Million
Impressions in 8 Months
34%
Increase in Website Traffic
3,000
Beer Orders From Their Website
Why’d They Come to LP?
The partnership was initially born out of mutual admiration; in 2019 the team at LP worked with Breakside on some website optimization and SEO consulting. Not long after, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the market completely shifted—so Breakside turned to the professionals to handle the heavy lifting. With national lockdowns sweeping the country, Breakside’s draft-heavy business model was in jeopardy, so they were forced to convert more of their offering into beer that could be sold at grocery stores.
What Strategy Was Used?
Our paid social team met with Breakside to set goals, in order to better understand where we could move the needle to make the biggest impact for them. This helped define three primary drivers for our campaigns to target: First, we set up hyper-local campaigns in partnership with premium grocers like Whole Foods, Zupan’s Market and New Seasons, to introduce new seasonal SKUs to Breakside’s audience. To accelerate the Facebook algorithm’s learning curve, we uploaded Breakside’s current email list to Facebook and Instagram, in order to better understand the similar interests their most devoted fans had in common. This allowed us to make “look-alike” audiences and broaden our campaign’s reach to drive more sales at participating stores.
Next, we focused our ad copy on driving foot traffic back to the Breakside brewpubs. Since the pandemic was such a tenuous time, we understood that messaging in our ads played an extra important role to get people in the door. With limited capacity and outdoor-only dining restrictions in Oregon, making sure that local patrons were aware that Breakside was open for business was of the utmost importance. To verify the efficacy of our efforts, we bundled free appetizers with the mention of an online ad with the purchase of a beverage. Needless to say, it worked so well, we only ran that particular ad for a limited time.
Finally, after learning more about Breakside’s distribution network, we cast a wide brand-building campaign to amplify engagement. With a brand like Breakside that has a strong social media following, with fans littered throughout the country, we had to specifically target regions with reliable access to the product, or risk wasting money on advertising to people who couldn’t buy the beers in stores. We used location targeting to show our ads throughout Oregon and Washington to beer fans with a high likelihood of converting. Getting granular with our targeting allowed us to keep our costs down, and drive only the most relevant traffic to our ads.
What Were the Results?
The proof is in the brewing! During a tumultuous year for beer makers of all shapes and sizes, Breakside was able to capture new market share and grow their business, increasing total output to 34,000 beer barrels annually—a considerable lift from their lowest point of 26,000 barrels during the initial onset of the pandemic.
In the 8 months we’ve been running paid social ads for Breakside, we’ve generated over 1.3 million impressions across Facebook and Instagram, averaging just $0.43 per click and $9 for every cost-per-acquisition.
Our partnership has allowed Breakside to dramatically shift their product offering to be more accessible to a broader customer base. In doing so, they’ve accelerated their growth trajectory and opened up 2 new brick and mortar taprooms in Lake Oswego and Beaverton, which are adjacent markets to the greater Portland metropolitan area. At the end of the day, Breakside has been able to thrive through adversity, which is a delight to beer lovers near and far.
