Kanpai! Raising a glass to new customer acquisition with dekanta

dekanta, the world’s leading Japanese spirits retailer, is celebrated for its rare and high-end whisky offerings delivered to a global clientele. Operating within a competitive, high-value market and navigating a complex international warehousing system, dekanta needed a paid media strategy as refined as its product. Our partnership focused on two core goals: increasing B2C e-commerce bottle sales (particularly in the US) and generating high-net-worth leads for its whisky cask investment division.

Scaling E-Commerce with Precision

To support dekanta’s e-commerce growth, we designed a data-driven strategy targeting affluent whisky lovers. Our audience segmentation leveraged postcode targeting and income brackets to zero in on high-net-worth individuals across key U.S. regions—essential in driving conversions with an average order value of £570.

Creatively, we introduced continuous A/B testing and aligned messaging with dekanta’s updated brand identity and new website launch. Strategic campaigns were launched around key cultural moments like Lunar New Year, Father’s Day, and Black Friday—capitalising on peak gifting seasons to maximise performance.

On the technical front, we developed a robust Google Ads product segmentation system, labelling thousands of SKUs to refine budget allocation and increase efficiency. 

Breaking into the Global Whisky Cask Market

With cask investments ranging from $70,000 to $90,000, generating quality leads required a highly targeted approach. We launched an international lead generation strategy that quickly expanded dekanta’s cask sales footprint into Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Cambodia—while also accelerating growth in markets like the US, UK, Canada, and Europe. In the U.S. alone, we scaled cask sales from zero to 20% of total volume in 2024.

Paid media targeted high-net-worth individuals through first-party data, income-targeted postcode lists, and LinkedIn Ads. Campaigns were optimised to refine marketing-qualified leads into true sales-qualified prospects. We supported exclusive product launches such as the Karuizawa and Ontake cask partnerships. 

Cultural and regional nuances were carefully incorporated, including translated Chinese-language assets and WeChat-friendly QR codes for tech-savvy audiences in Taiwan and New York. On LinkedIn, we tapped into aspirational messaging like “corporate golf perks” to promote Ontake’s distillery membership benefits, driving high-quality lead form completions among executive-level audiences.

Our work with dekanta has delivered transformative results. E-commerce revenue across Meta and Google delivered a 3:1 ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) with a remarkable 91% of purchases coming from new customers. The cask investment arm attracted nearly 20,000 high-quality leads at an enviable £13 CPL (cost per lead —an exceptional benchmark in the ultra-premium spirits category). U.S. cask sales alone now account for 20% of global sales, and the Ontake campaign’s 62:1 ROAS underscores the precision and effectiveness of our targeting.

dekanta’s success story is a testament to the power of data-led creative, strategic targeting, and channel optimisation. Through paid media, we’ve not only driven short-term growth but helped cement dekanta’s status as the global destination for Japanese whisky collectors and investors alike. Cheers to that.