discovery call

Kissa Hitotsu 喫茶ひとつ

One of Tokyo’s best pour-overs, on a second floor nobody looked up at.

location
Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Tokyo
service
Paid Ads
result
2.3× weekday visits

Mori-san spent 12 years as a roaster before opening Hitotsu: 14 seats on a second floor in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, single-origin hand drip, and a seasonal fruit sando that sells out every weekend. Weekends filled up through word of mouth. Weekdays didn’t:

  • The location: up a narrow staircase with a small sign. People walked past without knowing it was there.
  • The district: known for specialty coffee, and the big names took the tourist traffic.
  • Ads: an occasional boosted Instagram post in Japanese only, shown to followers who already knew it.
  • Google Maps: no ads at all. Searches for “coffee near me” surfaced three larger cafés first.
  • Tracking: no way to tell whether any ad had brought anyone up the stairs.
“We walked right past it twice.”

Hitotsu didn’t have a coffee problem. It had a findability problem. The ads had one job: make the staircase the destination.

Tuesday, 10:20am

Two travellers from Taipei were standing on the corner looking at Google Maps for coffee. A sponsored listing appeared: “pour-over coffee on the second floor”, 80 metres away. They walked up the stairs, showed the code and got the sando. That afternoon one of them posted it to 30,000 followers and tagged the café. By Friday, people were climbing the stairs holding up her post.

The system

Meta: localsJapanese Reels: Mori-san’s 4-minute pour, the sando being cut, “a quiet cup, upstairs”. Shown to people within 3 km, weekday mornings and afternoons.Make Hitotsu the weekday ritual
Meta: visitorsThe same footage in English, Traditional Chinese and Korean: “Look up. The best pour-over in Kiyosumi is on the second floor.”Catch visitors already nearby
Google Maps & SearchLocal search ads for “specialty coffee Kiyosumi”, “pour over Tokyo” and “coffee near me”, with directions in one tap.Win the moment someone’s looking
InstagramEvery Japanese ad ends in “follow us on Instagram”, which gives a seasonal sweet with your first drip coffee.Turn a tap into a visit we can count
MeasurementInstagram coupons redeemed, screen codes shown at the counter, and Google Maps direction requests, each tied to the ad that brought them.Spend where visits happen

Mori-san’s time: one filming morning a month before opening, and a 20-minute review call every two weeks. We make the ads in four languages, run the campaigns and set up Instagram.

The team it replaced

Performance marketer for Meta and GoogleAtlas: campaigns, budgets, location targeting
Ad creative and multi-language copywriterAtlas: Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean ads every month
Tracking and analyticsAtlas: coupon and code tracking, visit reporting
2.3×
weekday visits
¥310
per tracked visit
4,800
new Instagram followers

90 days later

  • Weekday visits rose 2.3×. Mornings went from four tables to waiting for a seat.
  • Cost per tracked visit settled at ¥310, measured through Instagram coupons and counter codes.
  • 4,800 new Instagram followers, who now hear about each new seasonal menu for free.
  • 31% of tracked visits came from visitors. The other 69% were locals, and Mori-san wanted the locals most.
  • Direction requests on Google Maps rose 3.8×.
“People used to walk past us. Now they come looking for the staircase.”

Mori-san

Discovery call WhatsApp