India’s coffee market is expanding rapidly, but its marketing playbook is changing even faster. Valued at around $553 million in 2023 and projected to nearly double to over $1.22 billion by 2032, the category’s growth is being driven by speciality, ready-to-drink and premium formats. Yet the most significant shift is not just in what Indians are drinking, it is in how coffee brands are choosing to be discovered.
Once anchored in cafés, in-store visibility, outdoor advertising and physical sampling, coffee brands’ marketing strategies are being fundamentally rewritten. Today, brands are reallocating a disproportionate share of their budgets towards digital channels such as performance media, creators, marketplaces and owned communities, reflecting the reality that discovery and trial have largely moved online. In the process, marketing budgets are being decisively redirected towards digital, often at the expense of traditional media.
Industry experts told exchange4media that 60–75% of coffee brands’ media spends are now digital, with D2C and premium players operating at the higher end of that range. This is well ahead of mass FMCG, where digital typically accounts for 45–50% of budgets, positioning coffee closer to lifestyle categories such as beauty. In some cases, the tilt is even sharper. Nescafé, for instance, reportedly allocates nearly 88% of its marketing spend to digital, and QSR brand First Coffee allocates 70 to 75% of its total marketing budget to digital. This clearly underscores how central online discovery has become to the category.
According to Chetan Asher, Founder and CEO of Tonic Worldwide, most scaled coffee brands in India are now clearly digital-first. “For D2C and premium packaged coffee brands, 65% or more of media budgets now sit in digital. That’s higher than mass FMCG and even slightly above QSR. Coffee today behaves more like beauty, discovery is lifestyle-led, and it’s happening on screens, not in stores,” says Asher.
This has raised several questions. Why coffee brands are deprioritising traditional media, what digital is actually delivering for them today, and whether this digital-heavy model can sustain brand growth in a category built on routine, ritual and repeat consumption.
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From Billboards To Feeds
India’s next generation of coffee drinkers is no longer discovering brands through hoardings outside malls or samples at store entrances. Discovery is increasingly happening on phones, through short-form video, creator-led storytelling, search, marketplaces and quick commerce apps, where purchase is often just a swipe away. In a category where shelf dominance is difficult and physical sampling is expensive, digital has emerged as the most controllable and scalable path to trial.
Across agencies and advisors, there is broad consensus that digital is delivering stronger measured ROI than traditional media, particularly for performance-driven objectives such as repeat purchase, subscriptions and marketplace sales.
According to Sini Magon, COO and Global Partner at Grapes Worldwide, digital’s edge lies not only in outcomes but in responsiveness. “From what we see across client portfolios, digital is delivering stronger short-term ROI, especially on performance and repeat purchase. Digital offers faster signals on campaign response, allowing teams to make timely tweaks,” she said. While traditional media continues to play a role in building awareness and mental availability, Magon noted that brands are increasingly relying on digital to sharpen targeting and improve efficiency.
Magon added that coffee brands are currently over-indexing on short-form social video, largely because the category lends itself naturally to everyday routines and lifestyle content. Coffee is a product consumers are comfortable seeing in casual, relatable settings, making creator collaborations and simple usage moments particularly effective.
This shift is reflected in how budgets are being deployed. In many digital-first coffee brands, creator and content investments now account for 40–50% of the total digital budget, a sharp increase from a few years ago, Magon shared. Paid media still commands the larger share for scale and conversion, but content is no longer treated as a supporting layer. Instead, it has become the primary driver of relevance, engagement and education, with creators playing a central role in shaping brand narratives rather than merely amplifying campaigns.
“Across campaigns, we see digital delivering roughly 1.3 to 1.8 times the return versus TV or outdoor, especially when it is linked to quick commerce and marketplaces,” said Asher. The ability to see impact within days, and sometimes hours, has made digital far more compelling for CMOs compared to traditional formats that rely on delayed, modelled measurement.
At the same time, Asher flagged a structural bias creeping into media decision-making. “Digital shows attribution clearly, while traditional still depends on modelled lift. That makes CMOs more confident shifting money online. The risk is that brands start optimising only for what shows up immediately, even though coffee is a habit category where long-term memory still matters,” he said.
Vejay Anand, Senior Advisor at Prequate and Marketing Strategist, pointed out that digital’s advantage is most pronounced at the lower end of the funnel. “Coffee brands are seeing higher measured ROI from digital, especially performance, creators and subscriptions, with conversion rates often two to three times higher than traditional sampling.” Anand added, "On average, coffee brands now allocate 60–75% of media budgets to digital; Indian specialty players typically sit at 55–65%, with digital-native brands touching 80%. This is higher than FMCG staples (40–55%), aligned with beauty (65–80%), and slightly below QSR leaders (70–85%), accelerated by D2C and subscriptions."
When Discovery Becomes The Point Of Sale
As digital discovery becomes the primary entry point into coffee, the line between marketing and commerce is rapidly collapsing. Platforms such as marketplaces, quick commerce apps and retail media networks are no longer just channels for visibility; they are increasingly functioning as the point of sale itself.
Marketers told exchange4media that channels closest to purchase, search, marketplace advertising and quick commerce placements, are delivering the most consistent returns because they capture consumers already in buying mode. This is particularly effective in coffee, where replenishment cycles are frequent and brand switching tends to reduce once habits set in. As Asher has noted, retail media has emerged as one of the most stable levers for coffee brands, especially when integrated with quick commerce and marketplaces, because it allows brands to convert existing intent rather than create it from scratch.
This shift is forcing brands to rethink the traditional marketing funnel. Instead of treating awareness, consideration and conversion as sequential stages, discovery is increasingly being designed to happen at or near checkout. Visibility on platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto, Amazon and Swiggy Instamart now plays a role similar to shelf presence in physical retail, only with clearer attribution, faster feedback and tighter links to sales.
However, this model has its limits.
According to Abhinav Mathur, CEO and MD, Something’s Brewing, Kaapi Machines and Budan India, digital customer acquisition costs in coffee have been steadily rising, driven by saturation on Google and Meta, increasing creator costs, and heavier dependence on marketplaces and quick commerce placements. “As competition intensifies, digital CACs will inevitably go up,” Mathur said, adding that Google and Meta together currently account for nearly 80% of the brand’s marketing budget, making pure performance-led growth harder to sustain amid bidding pressure.
This has important implications for a category built on habit and repeat consumption. While coffee benefits from strong retention once preferences are formed, acquiring new consumers digitally is becoming more expensive. As a result, marketers are increasingly focussed on lowering blended CAC rather than optimising digital CAC in isolation. At Something’s Brewing, this has prompted a shift towards offline expansion and omnichannel synergies, including experiential stores, live brew bars and shop-in-shop formats, aimed at converting high-intent digital demand into higher-value purchases more efficiently.
How Brands Are Rebalancing Growth
While coffee brands are decisively shifting budgets toward digital, many are careful to distinguish between being digital-first and being digital-only.
At Something’s Brewing, nearly 80% of the total marketing budget is now allocated to digital, with performance advertising accounting for the largest share. According to Mathur, performance ads play a critical role in driving last-mile conversions, supported by content-led marketing across owned channels such as blogs, YouTube, social media and SEO. “As competition increases, we have doubled down on our core mission of democratising coffee, making it accessible while ensuring availability at key customer touchpoints,” he said. Notably, despite the shift to digital, the company’s marketing spend as a percentage of revenue has remained largely unchanged, reflecting efficiency gains rather than budget expansion.
A similar recalibration is visible at café-led brands such as First Coffee, though with a different emphasis. Over the last 18–24 months, the brand has moved away from a store-led, BTL-heavy approach toward a digital-first, experience-led model. “In our early phase, hoardings and neighbourhood visibility drove footfall, but they didn’t build recall or loyalty,” said Shiv Dhawan, Co-founder of QSR brand First Coffee. “As we scaled, it became clear that discovery and consideration were happening well before customers walked into a café.”
Today, digital accounts for 70–75% of First Coffee’s marketing budget, up from 40–45% two years ago. Unlike performance-heavy models, the brand leans more heavily on creator-led content and Instagram as its primary discovery engine, supported by owned channels such as its app, loyalty programme, WhatsApp and email to build repeat behaviour. “Instagram is where First Coffee is discovered, understood and remembered. Creators help translate specialty coffee into everyday culture, making it feel accessible rather than intimidating,” Dhawan said.
According to Sarah Sarosh, founder of Impulse Coffees, “Over the last 18–24 months, our marketing mix has shifted significantly towards founder-first content and collaborations with other content creators. Early on, I was hesitant to spend on Meta and Google ads, even though we consistently saw a ROAS of 5+.” She added, “As Impulse Coffees scaled beyond my niche audience, it became clear that coffee discovery was happening online, through content, creators, and conversations, making higher digital spends essential. This shift has helped us effectively retarget first-time buyers and engaged users who discover the brand through my organic content but don’t convert immediately.”
Today, nearly 75–80% of Impulse Coffees’ marketing budget is allocated to digital channels, compared to no marketing spend two years ago.
Importantly, both these brands underlined that the shift to digital has not led to a disproportionate increase in marketing spends. Instead, digital has allowed budgets to work harder over longer periods. “The goal is not to repeatedly pay for attention, but to build habit and frequency,” Dhawan added. “By increasing lifetime value and retention, digital makes marketing spend more sustainable as the brand scales.”
Digital is driving reach, efficiency, and quick results, but coffee is still a category people experience with all their senses. Brands that combine online discovery with real-world touchpoints, like cafés, live brew bars, and experiential events, are the ones creating lasting connections. In a world where coffee is part of daily routines and rituals, it’s this mix of digital and physical experiences that builds true loyalty.