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Brēz: This 1-Year-Old Brand Just Hit $28M in Sales (Here's How)

Meta Ads & Post-Purchase Strategy

In partnership with

Hi team,

Welcome back 🙏

Today’s case study is about Brēz, an innovative hemp-based brand who have created a cannabis-infused beverage and executed an aggressive scale strategy while being compliant with ad platforms.

I’ve followed Drink Brēz since they started, mainly through their co-founders who I follow on Twitter.

They are incredible operators and media buyers with an insane track record. I'm not surprised to see how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time.

By the end of 2024, Brēz exceeded their initial forecast, achieving an impressive $28m, representing an 18x increase vs 2023. This can be attributed largely to how they maintained an aggressive ad spend even during traditionally slow periods, achieving a 53% month-over-month growth from December 2023 to January 2024

(Keep in mind: these guys only launched in April 2023 😅🤯)

Here's what makes them standout and scale:

  • Branded Brēz as a "social tonic," appealing to the growing trend of functional beverages

  • An innovative approach to cannabis-infused beverage.

  • Highlighted benefits of cannabis and Lion's Mane mushroom infusion, low-calorie count, vegan, non-GMO, and gluten-free.

  • Appeals to health-conscious consumers and younger demographics seeking alcohol alternatives, with 80% of customers being non-cannabis users.

  • Production of 8 million cans in 2024

  • Generating 650 million impressions

  • Expanding to over 2,000 retail locations

Today, I’ll focus on:

  1. Aggressive scale and compliance Meta strategy helped them achieve a 53% MoM growth from 2023-2024.

  2. Post-purchase upsell strategy that makes $800k incremental sales annually

Let’s dive in 🚀 

SPONSORED BY:
Osqa.

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  • Expert strategies prioritize scaling profitably – driven over $110m in sales.

  • Omni-channel approach

  • Specialists in full-funnel growth marketing for e-commerce and technology brands.

  • Flat and transparent fees

  • Experts with 10+ years of experience

  • Constant, proactive communication

SPONSORED BY:
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PERFORMANCE MARKETING
Making Waves While Being Compliant on Meta

In a landscape where many brands struggle to navigate Meta's strict advertising policies, Breeze has arguably cracked the code.

Their groundbreaking approach is redefining what’s possible in marketing cannabis-related products.

Mastering compliance

Breeze's genius lies in its ability to transform restrictions into opportunities. Rather than seeing Meta's policies as limitations, they’ve innovated by focusing on:

  • Their content strategy prioritizes building authority through valuable insights and establishing trust before product discussion. They use a two-click strategy, where the first click leads to educational content, and only the second click directs users to product information

  • Crafting "hemp-focused" messaging that resonates with their audience while staying within platform guidelines. Brez positions its product as a "hemp beverage" or "full-spectrum hemp Delta-9" drink, avoiding direct mentions of THC or CBD in ads.

  • Creating a sophisticated multi-step funnel where product specifics are strategically revealed rather than fitting everything into their advertising. Product specifics are revealed gradually, with the initial focus on hemp-infused beverages and their potential benefits using this flow:
    information → more information → landing page

Smart ad account structure

The real steady scale comes from their account and campaign structure. This is the approach they take:

  • Broad targeting (21+ audiences) outperforms narrow segments, letting Meta's AI work its magic

  • Utiling Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns to drive efficiency at scale

  • A constant rotation of creative variations keeps their content engaging while maintaining strict adherence to platform rules

Dialled in numbers

What truly sets Breeze apart isn't just their innovative approach – it's their laser focus on profitability:

  • Strategic shipping fees ($10-15) create healthy contribution margins

  • Targeted Average Order Value (AOV) range ($60-120) enables sustainable scaling

  • A minimum ROAS threshold of 2.5x enforces disciplined growth parameters

Game-changing impact

By prioritizing unit economics and maintaining strict performance standards, they've created a blueprint that other brands can follow. This isn't just about selling products – it's about revolutionizing how compliance-sensitive industries can thrive in the digital age.

Your takeaway:  

→ Treat compliance as a strategic advantage, not a limitation.

→ Build a funnel that prioritizes value delivery and customer education before revealing the product.

→ Ensure disciplined financial metrics (e.g., 2.5x ROAS minimum, $60-$120 AOV) to maintain profitability.

POST-PURCHASE UPSELL
How Brēz maximises the value of each customer visit

Brēz's approach revolves around extending the customer's lifetime value (obviously) since they’re a subscription-based beverage company.

They understand that customers are most receptive to complementary offers immediately after committing to their first purchase, creating a prime window to expand value. Here are some of the key elements of their framework:

Post-purchase mechanic

Using AfterSell, a post-purchase third-party app, they offer additional products to customers after their initial purchase.

It’s been highly effective, with 1 out of every 5 to 10 customers adding additional products after they buy.

First-time customers were willing to increase their order value to $80-$85, doubling their base variant's price!

Using discounts

Implemented a strategic down-sell approach by offering customers the opportunity to add their Lion's Mane variant at a discounted rate.

The impact was nothing short of remarkable - their sales volume skyrocketed from 1.5 million to 8.5 million cans vs their first year of implementing this strategy.

You can’t underestimate the power of smart pricing psychology. Especially in DTC.

Product Variety

Offering different variants based on behaviour increases their chances of increasing that average order value.

Most brands can’t achieve this because they only have a few products and Brēz was in a similar position.

They initially launched with one product variant and later expanded to include Double and Lion’s Mane only variants based on their customer feedback. This immediately helped them deliver what customers were asking for, and increase their AOV.

Your Takeaway:

→ If you’re on Shopify, using AfterSell to present additional offers after the intiial offer can add more products significantly increase your AOV.

→ Offer discounts on additional units.

→If you can, you should leverage multiple product variants for upsell/downselling.

→A/B test various combinations. Find the winners based on revenue driven, go deeper on promoting those bundles.

→ Use behavioural logic & conditional rules to present highly relevant offers to your customers.

BRINGING IT HOME
WRAP-UP

I’m excited to see what’s next for Brēz. Might have to do a part ii on this brand to unpack more tactics and strategies as they continue their aggressive growth strategy.

Hope this case study helped you find some nuggets that you can apply to your brand and campaigns. Let me know how you get on, would love to hear from you.

Talk Soon - Dev 🤙

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