Adult beverage retailers have always been at the center of brand growth. They shape discovery, influence purchase decisions and help secure long-term loyalty. Those relationships are well established and continue to drive meaningful results.
What's changing isn't the role retailers play, but the tools available to support that role.
Across retail, first-party data has become a cornerstone of modern marketing. In grocery, for example, brands increasingly plan media around verified shopper behavior, like a customer’s preferred coffee bean or choice of dessert, using retailer insights to reach the right buyers and measure impact more accurately.
Adult beverage retail is now seeing its own version of that evolution, built specifically for the realities of the category and designed to complement, not replace, existing supplier relationships.
At the center of this shift is a national, retailer-agnostic adult beverage data network, one that allows retailers to make their shopper data available through a licensing model while enabling brands to activate audiences and measure media with greater confidence.
Retailers have always had a deep understanding of their shoppers. They know what people buy, how often they return, which brands drive loyalty and how purchasing behavior changes depending on the occasion. In most retail categories, that insight has become the foundation for retail media and data-driven brand partnerships.
In alcohol, it hasn’t. Historically, adult beverage retailers and their supplier brands have relied on in-store displays and general brand marketing to drive demand. These approaches still matter, but they operate largely outside the modern digital ecosystem where personalized targeting and closed-loop measurement now define how advertisers plan and measure media.
Alcohol suppliers have long been deprived of first-party data by design. They don’t sell directly to consumers, and they’ve never had consistent access to purchase-level data tied to real shoppers. As a result, brands have leaned heavily on third-party data and broad demographic targeting to reach audiences that might be in-market, without a clear way to connect media exposure to verified sales.
That gap has limited targeting and attribution at exactly the moment when brand marketers are being asked to justify every ad dollar.
Retailers are already familiar with the fundamentals of retail media:
What makes adult beverage different isn’t the goal; it’s the structure required to support it responsibly.
Adult beverage retail has unique guardrails, which is why the data network model looks different from what exists in other categories. But the outcome is familiar: supplier brands gain access to verified shopper audiences and connect verified purchases to media investments, while both brands and retailers benefit from growth in consumer spending.
Epsilon’s adult beverage data network is built as a syndicated ecosystem, bringing together first-party shopper data from multiple retailers, creating national scale for suppliers using first-party data and closed-loop measurement. That scale matters, both for brands planning media and for retailers looking to participate without changing how they operate today.
The result is a model that feels recognizable, practical and aligned with broader retail media trends, while remaining purpose-built for adult beverage.
For adult beverage retailers, participation in a licensed data network opens the door to new value without changing how supplier relationships work today. One of the primary advantages is a new revenue stream, offering retailers a stable form of compensation for participating in the network, independent of traditional advertising models or campaign-based performance.
Moreover, retailers can strengthen their relationships with suppliers as they actively seek better ways to reach verified alcohol purchasers and measure retail impact. By enabling these capabilities through a trusted network, retailers enable brands to plan more targeted, consumer-relevant campaigns, and deliver improved sales performance for both constituents.
For alcohol suppliers, the shift is significant.
The adult beverage data network allows brands to reach real alcohol purchasers, not modeled or implied audiences, across the channels where consumers spend their time. Media can be activated both onsite and offsite across the open web, with consistent identity supporting targeting and measurement.
Most importantly, brands can finally connect media exposure to actual sales, at the shopper and SKU level, across online and in-store environments. That kind of closed-loop visibility has historically been rare in adult beverage marketing. Now it’s becoming possible on a national scale.
At the center of the network is identity resolution.
Epsilon’s core strength has always been the ability to understand individual consumers responsibly and connect that understanding across the media ecosystem. When that identity foundation is paired with licensed first-party data from adult beverage retailers, it creates a consistent view of the shopper that third-party data alone can’t provide.
This consistency matters in a category where purchase journeys span online and in-store and where measurement has traditionally been fragmented. Identity is what allows brands to move beyond proxy signals and retailers to maintain confidence that outcomes are grounded in real behavior.
Retailers in the network have seen measurable lifts in sales since joining. When brands can reach the right shoppers with relevant messaging—and validate impact—media dollars work harder, benefiting everyone involved.
Across a broad mix of brands and categories, campaigns have exceeded projected sales, driven meaningful household penetration and delivered a high share of new buyers, often bucking broader category trends.
In one recent case study across 18 supplier campaigns spanning Epsilon’s adult beverage data network, outcomes consistently delivered an average of 3x the initially forecasted sales projections.
The story isn’t about a single metric or channel. It’s about what happens when brands finally gain access to data that affects how people actually shop.
