What our best-performing food & drink brands are doing differently this Q4

Q4 is here. And while some food and drink brands are hoping for a Christmas sales spike, others are already making the decisions that could define their biggest trading period of the year.

At KW Marketing, we’re right in the thick of it. From managing Meta and Google Ads to building email campaigns, reviewing Shopify performance and planning Christmas gifting strategies, we’re helping brands decide where to invest, what to prioritise and, importantly, when to change course.

And there’s one thing that keeps coming up in our conversations: the brands making the smartest moves aren’t necessarily the ones spending the most. They’re the ones making better commercial decisions.

It’s still early in Q4 2026, so the final results aren’t in. But drawing on previous peak trading periods and what we’re already seeing across live campaigns, there are some valuable lessons emerging.

Here are six things we’re doing differently with ambitious food and drink brands this Q4, and what you can take from them.

1. We’re putting more budget behind products that actually sell

It sounds obvious, but marketing budgets are often spread across product ranges because a brand wants to promote everything. We understand why. Founders invest enormous amounts of time and energy developing their products, and naturally want each one to succeed.

But your bestselling product and your newest product don’t necessarily deserve the same advertising budget.

One of the clearest patterns we’re seeing in our current Q4 Meta campaigns is the difference in performance between established hero products and newer or less familiar ranges.

In one live campaign, an established bestseller was generating approximately 3.8x return on ad spend in an early October snapshot, while other product groups were generating lower returns.

Rather than increasing investment across the board, our recommendation was to prioritise the proven sales driver while continuing to monitor and test the other products.

That doesn’t mean abandoning new products. If your objective is to introduce a range, build awareness or attract a different customer, accepting a lower immediate return might be entirely reasonable. But that’s a different commercial objective from maximising short-term revenue.

It’s why our approach to paid social advertising goes beyond managing campaigns. We’re looking at product-level performance, contribution margins and stock availability before deciding where to put the next pound of advertising spend.

2. We’re looking beyond ROAS to understand profitable growth

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is an important metric. We use it every day. But one of the biggest misconceptions we see is that a higher ROAS automatically means a more successful campaign.

Imagine spending £1,000 on advertising and generating £6,000 in attributed revenue. That’s a 6x ROAS. Now imagine spending £3,000 and generating £9,000 in attributed revenue. Your ROAS has dropped to 3x, but you’ve generated an additional £3,000 in sales.

Which scenario is better?

The answer depends on your margins, fulfilment costs, customer acquisition costs and the value of those customers over time.

For example, at a 60% contribution margin before advertising, the first scenario leaves £2,600 after advertising spend, while the second leaves £2,400. At a higher margin, the outcome could be different.

It’s a useful reminder that neither revenue nor ROAS tells the whole story.

This is why we’re building different spending scenarios for clients rather than presenting one forecast as though it’s guaranteed. We look at previous performance, establish a sensible base investment and identify the conditions under which we’d recommend scaling or pulling back.

For some brands, there’s a genuine opportunity to increase investment during their strongest buying periods. For others, the smarter decision is to protect profitability and focus on improving conversion before spending more.

We’re also looking beyond the advertising account itself. If customer acquisition costs are increasing, can email marketing improve repeat purchase rates? Could a stronger bundle increase average order value? Is there an opportunity to improve the landing page before putting more money behind the advert?

These are the conversations that make a difference to the bottom line.

3. We’re treating creative as a performance lever, not a finishing touch

Meta advertising has changed, and creative variety is playing an increasingly important role in how we plan and optimise campaigns.

But that doesn’t mean producing endless content for the sake of it. It means understanding why somebody would buy your product and giving them different reasons to act.

Take a food gifting brand. One customer might be looking for an impressive Christmas present. Another wants something to share at a family gathering. Someone else might be buying a little treat for themselves.

It’s the same product, but three very different buying motivations.

That’s why we’re testing different creative approaches, from close-up product photography and videos that demonstrate size or contents, to customer reviews, gifting messages and seasonal content.

We’re also looking closely at what happens after somebody clicks.

If an advert promotes a beautifully presented gift box, the landing page needs to make that box easy to find and buy. If the creative features a bundle, customers shouldn’t have to search through an entire collection to locate it.

And if a product’s size, quality or presentation is part of its appeal, the imagery needs to communicate that immediately.

We’ve seen the impact of strong creative in previous Q4 campaigns, including our work with Popcorn Kitchen, where creative, paid media and a joined-up ecommerce strategy contributed to strong seasonal performance.

The lesson? Great creative isn’t just about stopping somebody scrolling. It’s about making your product easier to understand, trust and buy.

4. We’re building bigger baskets, not just chasing more orders

When brands talk about growing revenue, the conversation often turns straight to acquiring more customers. And while acquisition matters, there’s another opportunity sitting much closer to home.

What happens if you acquire exactly the same number of customers but increase what each one spends?

Let’s say your average order value is £35 and you generate 500 orders. That’s £17,500 in revenue. Increase average order value to £42, without changing the number of orders, and revenue rises to £21,000.

That’s an additional £3,500 in revenue from the same number of customers.

Of course, the extra revenue needs to deliver worthwhile margin. But it shows why average order value (AOV) deserves just as much attention as traffic and conversion rate.

Across our Q4 planning, we’re looking at opportunities to introduce relevant bundles, improve product recommendations and make it easier for customers to discover complementary products.

For a gifting brand, that might mean creating a selection box around a particular occasion. For a repeat-purchase brand, it could mean offering a sensible multi-buy option. For others, the opportunity might be as simple as making bestsellers more prominent on collection pages.

We’re also encouraging brands to look carefully at delivery thresholds. Free delivery can be a powerful incentive to increase basket size, but only when the economics work and the offer makes sense for the customer.

Strong sales don’t automatically mean every part of the customer journey is performing at its best. Sometimes the biggest opportunity isn’t more traffic. It’s making better use of the traffic you’ve already paid to acquire.

We explore this wider approach to commercial growth in our article on the future of food and drink marketing.

5. We’re making email work harder before, during and after the sale

Paid advertising can introduce your brand to somebody new. But it shouldn’t have to do all the work.

During Q4, customers are comparing gift ideas, browsing products, waiting for payday, considering delivery dates and often buying for several different people.

Not everybody purchases on their first visit. And not everybody who purchases once will automatically come back.

That’s where a properly connected email marketing strategy becomes so valuable.

Our email marketing strategies look at the entire customer journey, from the moment somebody discovers your brand through to their second, third and fourth purchase.

A strong welcome flow should do more than offer a discount. It should explain why the brand is worth buying from, introduce relevant products and build confidence.

Browse and abandoned checkout emails should help customers make a decision, without immediately training them to expect an incentive every time they leave.

And post-purchase marketing should be designed around what the customer has actually bought and when they’re likely to need something again.

For food and drink brands, that might mean introducing a complementary product, suggesting a repeat purchase at the right time or encouraging customers to explore a wider range.

It’s also why segmentation matters. A loyal customer who’s bought from you six times shouldn’t necessarily receive the same message as somebody who’s only just joined your mailing list.

We’ve seen the value of this joined-up approach through our client work, including in our Vino Zero case study, which demonstrates what can happen when acquisition and retention are working together.

And with Black Friday approaching, we’d encourage brands to review their automated flows before concentrating all their attention on promotional campaigns.

Because bringing more visitors to your website is one thing. Having the systems in place to convert and retain them is another.

6. We’re planning around when customers actually buy

Not every food and drink brand experiences Q4 in the same way. Yet it’s surprisingly common to see businesses divide their advertising budget evenly between October, November and December, regardless of how their customers actually shop.

A premium gifting brand might see demand build towards Black Friday and Christmas delivery cut-offs. A tea or coffee brand with a loyal repeat-purchase audience may experience a more gradual seasonal uplift. A non-alcoholic drinks brand might have opportunities across Christmas entertaining and the move into January.

Those businesses shouldn’t have identical media plans.

We’re using historical sales data, buying patterns, product demand and delivery deadlines to determine where investment is most likely to make a difference.

For some clients, that means testing earlier in October so we can identify the strongest creative and products before the busiest weeks. For others, it means holding back some budget for proven periods of higher demand.

And for brands working with smaller budgets, we’re being particularly careful not to spread investment across too many campaigns or audiences. Sometimes focusing on fewer, stronger opportunities gives the advertising platforms a better chance to learn and optimise.

Of course, the marketing plan also needs to work alongside the operational side of the business.

If a bestseller is generating strong demand, is there enough stock to support further investment? If Christmas delivery slots are filling up, are we communicating the deadlines clearly? If a campaign is promoting a particular bundle, is that bundle actually available and easy to purchase?

These might sound like operational details, but they have a direct impact on marketing performance.

As we head towards Black Friday on 27 November and Cyber Monday on 30 November 2026, the brands that can respond quickly to demand, performance and availability will be in a much stronger position than those relying on a fixed plan.

And don’t forget January. For brands with replenishable products or strong links to new-year routines, the opportunity doesn’t necessarily end on Christmas Eve.

What we’d be reviewing in your business right now

If you’re running an ecommerce food or drink brand, there are a few questions we’d encourage you to answer before the busiest trading weeks arrive.

Do you know which products are generating your most profitable sales? Are your advertising budgets aligned to those opportunities? Are your creatives showing customers why they should buy, and does your website make the purchase straightforward?

What about average order value? Could better bundles or merchandising increase the value of each order? Are your welcome, abandonment and post-purchase email flows doing their job?

And perhaps most importantly, do you understand what happens to your profitability when you increase marketing spend?

If you can’t confidently answer those questions, that’s where we’d start.

What the best-performing brands understand

The strongest food and drink marketing strategies aren’t built around one brilliant advert, one big discount or one viral social post.

They’re built around understanding the numbers, recognising opportunities and making the right decisions at the right time.

Sometimes that means increasing advertising spend. Sometimes it means improving an email flow, building a better bundle, changing a landing page or making sure there’s enough stock of a bestseller.

And sometimes the smartest decision is not to spend another pound until the foundations are stronger.

That’s the kind of work we’re doing with our clients every day. Because the real opportunity isn’t simply doing more marketing. It’s connecting acquisition, conversion, average order value and retention so every part of the business is working towards the same commercial goal.

More activity isn’t the goal. More profitable growth is.

Ready to find out what’s holding your growth back?

If you’re investing in Meta Ads, Google Ads, email or organic marketing but you’re not entirely sure where your next stage of growth will come from, we’d love to help.

Our Strategic Growth Workshop is a focused two-hour session where we take a closer look at your business, your marketing performance and the opportunities that could make the biggest commercial difference. From customer acquisition and website conversion to average order value, retention and your wider growth strategy, we’ll help you identify what deserves your attention next. You’ll leave with a clearer direction and practical priorities, rather than another long list of things you could be doing. Explore our Strategic Growth Workshop →

Because Q4 is too important to leave to guesswork.