Cali Dumpling: Digital Performing ‘Pretty Well’

Trying to navigate advertising on social media—cost benefit, retention, conversion—can sometimes seem like a never-ending battle with customer acquisition costs rising and algorithms changing. Irvine-based startup Cali Dumpling Delivery relied on word-of-mouth to jumpstart its efforts before turning to digital.
 
“The first three months [of the business] we weren’t doing any marketing at all,” co-founder Allan Tea said. “Between our network of friends and fellow restaurant owners that were helping share our story, the sales just generated itself. We saw a lot of community support.”
 
That worked in the beginning because Cali Dumpling (featured in last week’s print edition of the Business Journal) largely started as a way for Tea to employ restaurant workers during the height of the pandemic. Things have changed with the company seeing fast sales growth and, now, a bigger bid to grow the wholesale revenue stream.

Sales are expected to approach $2 million this year, with the company at 40 workers in just a little over a year since its inception.
 
“Now that we’re a for-profit business, we do have to put quite a bit of dollars into marketing,” Tea said.
 
The company is spending about $3,000 a month on digital ads alone, including Facebook advertising, but it “definitely does help and we’ve seen it perform pretty well,” Tea said.
 
Facebook still commands the attention of most advertisers, about 94% globally last year, according to research from Statista Inc. Instagram was next at 76% followed by LinkedIn at 59%.