Meet Our Heroes
Reemi Coffee isn’t your average coffee roaster. Sure, they offer fresh beans roasted every Monday and shipped in airtight bags to preserve peak flavor. But what really sets them apart is something no other coffee brand in the UK was doing: fully personalized coffee labels.
Customers can upload their own photos, add custom greetings, and create messages that turn a simple bag of coffee into a meaningful gift or keepsake. Whether it’s a birthday surprise, a wedding favor, or a heartfelt Eid present, Reemi Coffee makes it easy with an intuitive design interface or a simple form where the team handles the personalization for you.
Founded by Shehbaz Afzal, Reemi Coffee was born out of a simple insight: coffee lovers don’t just want great beans. They want experiences. They want to surprise someone. They want to celebrate. And in a world drowning in generic gifts, a bag of freshly roasted coffee with a personalized label hits differently.
Despite offering free UK shipping and half-price international delivery, and despite having a genuinely unique product, Reemi Coffee was stuck. They had a handful of Etsy orders from the US and a tiny trickle of website sales in the UK. Total customer count? Sixteen. Facebook Business Manager? Hacked and abandoned. Google Ads? Tried and failed with zero conversions. Instagram? A couple of sales during Eid, but nothing sustainable.
Reemi Coffee had the product. They had the passion. What they didn’t have was a paid advertising strategy that actually worked.
Their Goals
Shehbaz came to Digital Time Savers with a clear and honest goal: generate around £5,000 per month in sales using a modest £800 monthly ad budget. He wasn’t asking for miracles. He just wanted his product to reach the right people, people who would appreciate the thoughtfulness of a personalized coffee gift and wouldn’t blink at spending £20 or more on something special.
His ideal customer? Ages 25 to 45, socially active, coffee drinkers themselves, and comfortable with occasional luxury purchases. They’re the type of people who understand that the best gifts aren’t flashy, they’re personal. They’re buying for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, holidays, or just because.
Geographically, Shehbaz was targeting the UK and North America, where he’d already seen organic interest through Etsy. But the challenge was clear: how do you scale a business with zero paid ad momentum, a hacked Facebook account, failed Google campaigns, and a customer list of just 16 people?
That’s where we came in.
The Challenge
Reemi Coffee’s situation was tricky, but not uncommon for early-stage eCommerce brands with a niche offering. Here’s what we were working with:
Zero paid advertising success. Shehbaz had tried Instagram ads with minimal results (a few conversions during Eid with hyper-specific targeting) and Google Ads with literally zero conversions. His confidence in paid ads was understandably low.
A compromised Facebook presence. His original Facebook Business Manager had been hijacked after his personal account was hacked in May 2022. He’d set up a new account with a fresh pixel (Reemi Coffee Pixel 3), but there was no historical data, no audience insights, and no warm traffic to retarget. We were starting from absolute scratch.
A tiny customer base. With only 16 total customers from the website, we couldn’t rely on lookalike audiences or customer data to inform targeting. We had to build everything from the ground up.
A niche product with broad appeal but unclear messaging. Personalized coffee is a brilliant concept, but how do you explain it quickly? Is it a gift? A keepsake? A novelty? A premium coffee experience? The messaging hadn’t been dialed in, and potential customers didn’t immediately understand why they needed it.
A modest budget. £800 per month is enough to test and learn, but not enough to waste on guesswork. Every pound had to count.
The core challenge was this: Reemi Coffee needed a full-funnel strategy that could introduce the brand to cold audiences, educate them on the product’s unique value, and convert them into buyers, all while building a foundation for long-term growth. And we had to do it without leaning on Facebook’s algorithm or Google’s conversion history, because there was none.
Our Process
Phase One: Audience Research and Creative Strategy
Before spending a single penny on ads, we needed to understand who we were talking to and what would make them stop scrolling.
We started by analyzing the existing customer base. Sixteen customers isn’t much, but it’s something. We looked at purchase patterns, geography, and the occasions they were buying for. Most purchases were gifts. Birthdays, weddings, thank-yous, and cultural celebrations like Eid. We also noticed that US customers were coming through Etsy, suggesting strong demand in North America for unique, personalized gifts.
Next, we interviewed Shehbaz about his best-performing content and past campaigns. The Eid campaign had worked because it was hyper-targeted and emotionally resonant. It wasn’t just selling coffee, it was selling a way to celebrate and connect. That insight became foundational.
We developed three core audience segments to test on Instagram and Facebook:
- Gift Buyers: People actively searching for personalized gifts, custom products, or unique presents. Interests included Etsy, Not on the High Street, personalized jewelry, and gift hampers.
- Coffee Enthusiasts: Specialty coffee drinkers who follow brands like Blue Bottle, Pact Coffee, or local roasters. These are people who care about quality and freshness.
- Occasion-Based Shoppers: People browsing for wedding favors, corporate gifts, or milestone celebrations (birthdays, anniversaries, graduations).
For creative, we knew static images wouldn’t cut it. Reemi Coffee’s value proposition is visual and interactive. You need to see the personalization in action. We worked with Shehbaz to produce short video ads showing the customization process, close-ups of the personalized labels, and the unboxing experience. We also created carousel ads featuring different use cases: a birthday gift, a wedding favor, a corporate thank-you, and a self-care treat.
The messaging was simple and emotionally driven:
“The best gifts are personal. Design your own coffee label in 60 seconds.”
“Freshly roasted. Perfectly personalized. Delivered free in the UK.”
Phase Two: Instagram and Facebook Testing
We launched our first campaigns in late spring with a split focus: top-of-funnel awareness and direct conversion.
For awareness, we ran Instagram Story ads and Facebook Feed video ads targeting our three audience segments. The goal wasn’t immediate sales, it was to introduce the concept, build engagement, and collect warm traffic for retargeting. We used a soft offer (free UK shipping) and emphasized the product’s uniqueness.
For conversion, we ran catalog-style carousel ads showing different personalization options and a clear CTA: “Design Yours Now.” These went to a highly optimized landing page that showcased the customization interface and included customer testimonials (we asked Shehbaz’s 16 existing customers for reviews, and nearly all of them responded with glowing feedback).
Within the first two weeks, we started seeing traction. Click-through rates were strong (2.1% on Instagram, 1.8% on Facebook), and we were driving traffic to the site. But conversions were slow. People were landing on the site, engaging with the design tool, but not completing checkout.
We dug into the data and found two friction points:
- Customers weren’t sure how long shipping would take (critical for gift buyers).
- Some users felt overwhelmed by the customization options and abandoned the process.
We made two immediate changes. First, we added dynamic text overlays to ads stating “Delivered in 3-5 days” and “Last-minute gifts? We’ve got you.” Second, we introduced a “Done-For-You” option in the ad copy, highlighting that customers could simply submit a photo and message and let Reemi Coffee handle the design. This reduced friction and appealed to time-strapped buyers.
Conversions started flowing.
Phase Three: Retargeting and Scaling
Once we had warm traffic and early conversions, we built out a retargeting funnel.
We created custom audiences based on:
- People who viewed the product page but didn’t add to cart
- People who added to cart but didn’t purchase
- People who engaged with video ads but didn’t visit the site
For cart abandoners, we ran urgency-driven ads with messaging like “Your personalized coffee is waiting” and “Complete your design before it’s gone.” We also tested offering a small discount (10% off) to push hesitant buyers over the line.
For engagers who hadn’t visited the site, we ran educational carousel ads showing real customer examples and reviews. Social proof was huge. One of our top-performing ads featured a video testimonial from a bride who ordered personalized coffee bags as wedding favors. It felt authentic, relatable, and aspirational.
By mid-summer, we were consistently hitting 3x to 4x ROAS on retargeting campaigns.
At the same time, we scaled our top-of-funnel spend. We expanded into new audience segments, including eco-conscious shoppers (Reemi’s fresh roasting and sustainable packaging became a secondary selling point) and corporate gift buyers. We also tested interest stacks combining coffee culture with personalization trends, like targeting fans of custom stationery, monogrammed goods, and artisan food brands.
Instagram was performing particularly well, especially Stories and Reels. We leaned into that, creating more short-form content showing the design process in real-time and highlighting seasonal use cases (Father’s Day, summer weddings, back-to-school teacher gifts).
Phase Four: Google Ads (The Redemption Arc)
Shehbaz was skeptical about Google Ads. His previous campaigns had yielded zero conversions, and he was ready to write the platform off entirely. But we saw an opportunity.
The problem with his earlier Google campaigns wasn’t the platform, it was the strategy. He’d been running generic Search ads targeting broad coffee-related keywords. But Reemi Coffee isn’t competing with Starbucks or Nespresso. It’s a gift product. The intent is different.
We rebuilt the Google strategy from scratch, focusing on high-intent, gift-related keywords:
- “Personalized coffee gifts UK”
- “Custom coffee labels”
- “Unique coffee gifts for him/her”
- “Wedding favor coffee bags”
- “Corporate gift coffee”
We also ran Shopping ads showcasing the product visually with the personalization front and center. And we set up a Google Display retargeting campaign to re-engage site visitors who didn’t convert.
Within three weeks, Google started delivering. ROAS hovered around 2.5x to 3x, not as strong as Facebook, but profitable and scalable. More importantly, Google brought in a different type of customer: higher-intent, often corporate or bulk buyers, and more likely to reorder.
Results
In just under 90 days, Reemi Coffee went from a stalled operation with 16 total customers to a thriving eCommerce brand generating over £5,000 in monthly revenue.
Here’s what we achieved:
£5,200+ in monthly revenue by the end of month three, surpassing Shehbaz’s goal on a £800 monthly ad budget.
4.2x average ROAS across Instagram and Facebook, with retargeting campaigns peaking at 6x ROAS.
2.8x ROAS on Google Ads, turning a previously failed channel into a consistent revenue driver.
340+ new customers added in three months, a 2,025% increase from the original base.
28% repeat purchase rate among gift buyers, with many customers returning for additional occasions or referring friends.
1,850+ website visits per month, up from fewer than 200 before we started.
But beyond the numbers, something bigger shifted. Reemi Coffee went from being a side project with a great idea to a real brand with real momentum. Shehbaz now has a proven customer acquisition system, a library of high-performing creative, and a clear path to scaling beyond £10,000 per month.
The personalized coffee category? It’s no longer just a concept. It’s a profitable, repeatable business model. And Reemi Coffee owns it.
