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For anyone marketing a drinks brand—whether that’s wine, spirits, mixers, or kombucha—there’s one uncomfortable truth you can’t afford to ignore...

Facebook and Instagram ads will never be cheaper than they are today.

Over the past few years, the cost of reaching your ideal customer has risen steadily. And for the drinks industry, where competition is fierce and margins are tight, every penny counts.

Let’s break down why Meta advertising costs are climbing, how it affects drinks brands specifically, and why now is the time to double down on your strategy before it becomes even more expensive.

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🎯 1. Interest Targeting is Being Removed—Hurting Niche Drinks Brands the Most

One of the big appeals of Meta advertising used to be precise interest targeting. You could reach gin lovers, wine subscribers, cocktail connoisseurs, or people interested in zero-alcohol alternatives with incredible accuracy.

But Meta has gradually removed hundreds of interest categories, especially those around alcohol, health, and lifestyle. If you're marketing something like:

• A natural wine subscription
• A low-calorie RTD cocktail
• A functional sparkling tea

…you’ve probably noticed that your audience options have shrunk. Without granular targeting, it’s harder to reach cold audiences that actually care about your category.

This shift especially hurts early-stage brands who rely on interest targeting to build awareness. Instead, Meta is pushing everyone toward broader targeting, which often leads to higher CPAs and more wasted spend—unless you’ve got the budget to let the algorithm learn over time.

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🍷 2. The Drinks Space is Getting Crowded on Meta

We’re seeing more and more drinks brands entering the paid social space, from craft spirits to challenger soft drinks. And they’re not just competing against each other—they’re up against food brands, fashion, tech, and beyond.

Because Meta operates on an auction-based system, this growing competition means:

• CPMs (cost per 1,000 impressions) continue to rise.
• You’re paying more just to get seen in-feed.
• Smaller brands are being priced out of top-performing placements.

We’ve seen CPMs for drinks campaigns rise from £6–£8 in 2022 to £12–£16 in 2025, depending on the segment and creative format. That’s a 100%+ increase in just a few years.

If you're running an awareness campaign for a new flavoured gin or launching your canned spritz range for summer, you're likely paying significantly more to generate the same number of impressions than you would have 18 months ago.

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📈 3. Year-on-Year Increases in CPMs Are the New Normal

For drinks brands, the average CPM is rising fast. Here’s what we’ve seen across our client base:

• 2022: £6–£8 CPM for most alcohol and premium soft drink ads
• 2023: £9–£12 CPM range became common
• 2024–25: £12–£16 CPM, even higher in Q4

And that’s before you even get to key trading periods like Christmas or Dry January, when demand for ad space spikes.

Brands who wait until peak times to run ads—without already having tested creative and audiences—often find themselves paying 30–50% more per impression than competitors who planned earlier and locked in learnings.

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🔐 4. Privacy Changes Make Attribution Harder (and More Expensive)

With iOS14+ and GDPR in full swing, drinks brands are now flying partially blind. Whether you're promoting a direct-to-consumer discovery box or a zero-sugar energy drink, it's harder to tell which ads are actually converting.

This means:

• ROAS appears lower, making it harder to optimise
• CPAs rise, as spend is spread more thinly across testing
• Brands must invest in things like server-side tracking and Conversion APIs to get visibility back

In a high-volume, low-margin category like drinks, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Without accurate attribution, it’s easy to underinvest in ads that are actually working, or worse, over-invest in poor performers.

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🚨 Why Drinks Brands Should Act Now

Here’s the thing—paid social still works for drinks. When done well, Facebook and Instagram ads can:

• Grow your subscriber base
• Drive DTC sales at scale
• Launch new SKUs with speed and impact

But the window for low-cost testing is closing.

If you’re sitting on a product launch, planning to grow your DTC arm, or trying to hit subscription targets before your next funding round—now is the lowest cost it’s going to be.

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🥡 Key Takeaways for Drinks Marketers

• Don’t wait for CPMs to go back down—they won’t.
• Start testing broad audiences and creative formats now while costs are still manageable.
• Focus on building first-party data (email, SMS, pixel audiences) to protect future reach.
• If you haven’t already, invest in conversion tracking upgrades (e.g., Meta's CAPI) to keep attribution strong.

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Final Thought

As a drinks brand in the  digital world, you’re not just marketing a product—you’re battling against rising costs, limited targeting, and a crowded marketplace. But those who act now—who test, learn, and build an ad infrastructure while CPMs are still (relatively) low—will be the ones with the edge this time next year.

Because whether you’re pushing premium rum or functional soda, one thing’s for sure:

Facebook and Instagram ads will never be this low cost again.