South Ave launched in late 2021 with a simple idea: create better-for-you zero-sugar, full-flavour seltzers and vodkas that actually taste good! What began as a small project quickly took off. Within weeks of launching online, South Ave was selling through bottle shops and venues, and the business began expanding rapidly.
But with that growth came a new challenge.
The team knew sales were increasing, but they didn’t have the data to clearly understand where that growth was coming from, who their most valuable customers were or how the brand was performing across different channels and markets.
As Founder and Managing Director Reno Marrasso explains: “We really didn’t have a good hold of who our best customers were or what was doing what. It was really just guesswork.”
To continue scaling effectively, South Ave needed to move beyond instinct and build a clearer picture of what was happening with their product in the market.
That’s where OnTap Data came in.
The Challenge
In South Ave’s early days, speed mattered more than systems.
With only three people in the business, everyone wore multiple hats, and there wasn’t the time to analyse sales data in any meaningful detail. The team were tracking the overall business’s growth but lacked visibility into the performance underneath it.
To maximise their growth South Ave needed to understand:
- Who their best customers were
- Which venues and retailers were ordering
- How different territories were performing
- The balance between on-premise and off-premise sales
- Where distribution opportunities and gaps existed
- Which customers had stopped ordering or changed their usual purchasing behaviour
As the business grew and South Ave expanded its field sales team, this information became increasingly important.
“We were getting to that point where, for us to continue to scale, we needed to really get across our numbers and our actual growth,” Reno says.
Without it, the team was effectively operating blind.
The Solution
OnTap Data gave South Ave access to the detailed sales information it had been missing.
Rather than simply seeing topline growth, the business could understand what was happening at an individual customer, territory and channel level. South Ave has since taken this a step further, using OnTap’s API connectivity to feed sales data into its own internal dashboard.
Today, its BDMs can see performance within their individual territories, identify their highest-value customers and identify accounts that may be moving outside their usual ordering patterns.
For Reno, the ability to access and integrate the underlying OnTap data has become a critical part of the company’s sales infrastructure.
“The data for them is so invaluable that if you don’t have it, you’re really just flying blind.”
From Data to Action
And the value goes well beyond reporting. South Ave now uses its OnTap data to help its field team decide where to focus their time.
The business cross-references sales information with licensed venue data to understand which accounts have purchased South Ave, which haven’t, and where opportunities exist for its BDMs.
It also helps uncover customers the team may never have known about otherwise.
In one instance, OnTap revealed that South Ave’s number-one venue was a regional customer Reno had never heard of and that nobody from the team had met.
Another unexpected discovery came when Reno walked into a local butcher and found South Ave products prominently displayed for sale. Those discoveries can now become commercial opportunities.
“We can go on OnTap and go, ‘Cool, how many butchers do we have?’ Then do we do something with that? Make something fun and something different.”
Instead of simply reporting what has already happened, the data gives South Ave another way to identify patterns, strengthen customer relationships and find opportunities for future growth.
How The Team Uses It Now
For South Ave’s BDMs, OnTap data is now part of the weekly rhythm rather than something checked occasionally.
Each BDM starts from their own territory – they can see who is ordering, how much, and how that compares with previous periods. They can also see which accounts are driving the most value.
The dashboard flags accounts that have moved outside their usual ordering pattern. A venue that normally reorders every fortnight but has gone quiet shows up early, giving the BDM a reason to call or visit before the account drifts away.
Prospecting has changed too. BDMs cross-reference sales data with licensed venue data to see which venues in their area stock South Ave and which don’t. Their new-business calls go to venues where there’s a real gap to fill, rather than doors picked at random.
Territory changes are smoother as well. When a BDM moves territory or someone new joins, the customer history stays in the data, so the next person doesn’t start from scratch.
How The Team Uses It Now
South Ave has grown from its original three-person team to around 25 people staff, including 14 BDMs. With that scale, having accurate sales information is no longer simply useful. It provides the visibility required to manage a growing national field team effectively.
BDMs can understand their territories and prioritise customers more intelligently. Management has greater visibility over where products are selling. And when people move between territories, customer knowledge doesn’t have to disappear with them.
For Reno, however, the biggest impact is difficult to put into a single number. “It’s almost unquantifiable, for the simple fact that the value proposition from having no data to having the data is so important. You’re just flying blind in terms of customers without it.”
Looking back at South Ave’s rapid early growth, there is one thing he would change. “I wish we had known about it earlier so I could have the data from back then.”
His advice to other emerging drinks brands is even clearer: “It would be a non-negotiable for me going forward. I would recommend anyone who’s starting a brand make it one of the first things you put in.”
For South Ave, OnTap Data has helped turn rapid growth into something the business can see, understand and act on, giving its team the commercial intelligence to support the next stage of growth.
Ready to stop flying blind and start getting more from your sales data? Talk to the OnTap Data team today.
