As an operator who wants to grow, you know that catching the right customers’ attention at the right moment is what raises both your covers and your profit.
In food and drink, where trends keep moving, targeting specific customers effectively and cheaply matters more than it ever has. In this piece we go deep into the strategies that will help you grow without straining your budget in that competitive environment. By the end you will have picked up what matters for effective advertising, and you will know how Google Ads can work in your favor.
Google Ads is the general name Google gives to its offering for advertisers. You can run your business’s advertising through our Google Partner agency, Türk SEM.
Before we start, I should say that the most effective marketing in food and drink is word of mouth.
Tahir Dinç, SEO Manager at Türk SEM
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Is Google Ads Worth It in Your Restaurant Marketing Strategy?
Saying the restaurant industry is in constant development and change would be an understatement. Your restaurant faces the same basic problem it always has, which is reaching the people out there looking for something to eat.
Google Ads is not a “magic wand” that makes all your dreams come true. Marketing has many sides, and Google Ads is a valuable component of the marketing strategy for your restaurant.
So what is the real issue with that component? Bringing your cost per click down, of course, and for that you can work with 5 Google Ads optimization ideas:
- Target the people searching for restaurants in your own area
- Bid on profitable keywords and high intent searches
- Change when your restaurant ads are shown
- Use ad extensions to raise your visibility
- Build a remarketing campaign to raise brand awareness
Because your restaurant probably runs on thin margins, you may be nervous about putting budget behind any paid marketing strategy. Google Ads for restaurants is one of the best ways to reach potential customers and grow your presence online. Search Network ads can be targeted so they bring more local foot traffic into your restaurant.
Before we talk about how Google Ads will work for your restaurant, I think it matters to give an overview of how it can meet your restaurant’s specific needs and help you hit your goals, so we put the table below together.
| Restaurant goal | How Google Ads addresses it | Results |
|---|---|---|
| Raise local foot traffic | Geo targeting campaigns | Use Google Ads with engaging ad copy to target local customers looking for somewhere to eat. To raise foot traffic and pull in more diners, take your restaurant as the center of your location based targeting and target everyone within a 5 mile radius. |
| Run ads on specific dates and times | Ad scheduling | Scheduling and targeting in Google Ads can reach diners at the best eating hours and improve your odds of pulling them in. You can bid separately for each hour. You could lower bids by 10% between 09:00 and 12:00, for example, and raise them by 30% between 15:00 and 20:00. |
| Grow groups and events | Keyword targeting | You can use Google Ads to build targeted campaigns for private events and group bookings. Having a page about it on your site raises the effect. You could target a search like “birthday venue in [your district]”, for instance. |
| Build brand awareness | Remarketing campaigns | By targeting users who have connected to your website before, you raise your brand awareness while keeping them up to date with what is happening at your restaurant. That can show up positively in your sales. |
| Appeal to a specific demographic | Demographic targeting | Advertising to specific demographics such as age, gender or income can get you in front of your target audience. That targeting can raise your covers and pull in the people most likely to enjoy what you serve. |
How Does Google Ads Work in the Restaurant Business?
I have been working in tourism since 2005. On hotel advertising, Türk SEM is without doubt among the agencies with the deepest experience. Hotel advertising always brought restaurant and cafe marketing along with it. We know the competitive world of food closely, and we are aware that you keep looking for inventive ways to stand out. I should say honestly that Google Ads, an important component of any broad marketing strategy, is a powerful tool for targeting potential customers and engaging them.
Drawing on the power of Google Ads you can raise awareness of your restaurant, catch the interest of a wider audience and end up the place people choose in your area. Let us look in detail at what Google Ads adds to your restaurant marketing.
How Do Local Diners Find Restaurants?
In Turkey a lot of restaurant owners cancel their advertising investment for reasons to do with cost, management decisions and expectations. That looks like a large mistake, because as we said, Google restaurant ads can be the secret ingredient in the chef’s recipe your restaurant needs to bring in more traffic and hit its business goals.
Because you pay Google only when somebody clicks your restaurant ad, the format makes sure your ads reach the right people, at the right time, with the right copy and images.
We put together the best Google Ads tips to help you reach the people searching for somewhere to eat.
1. Set Your Account Up Properly
Launching a successful Google Ads campaign for your restaurant depends on a careful account setup. A well structured account is the foundation for serving targeted, relevant ads that catch people’s interest. Every advertising area has its specialist, and that holds for restaurant ads too. Working with an ad specialist experienced in restaurants gives you a serious advantage.
Choose the Right Campaign Objective
You hold full control over how you build your Google Ads campaign for your restaurant, and the first step of a successful campaign is choosing the right objective.
We explained it step by step: how to run Google Ads
As you build your campaign you will see several objective types, each focused on a particular goal. Some objectives prioritize bringing foot traffic into your restaurant, for instance, while others aim at raising online bookings or growing takeaway and delivery. By picking the objective that suits your business, you can strategically target the people most likely to engage with your restaurant.
Start by choosing among the main objectives when you build your campaigns. Each one sets out to highlight a different side of your business, so be sure you know your goals from the beginning and line the campaigns up with them:
- Sales : This objective focuses on driving transactions such as online orders, bookings or gift card purchases. By targeting customers with higher purchase intent, it helps owners raise revenue and reach new customers.
- Leads : Designed to generate inquiries, this campaign type aims at capturing prospect information such as email addresses for newsletter sign-ups or catering inquiries. Owners can use it to build relationships with those prospects and turn them into loyal customers. (We covered how much this matters in email marketing.)
- Website traffic : This type aims at raising the number of visitors to your restaurant’s website, where they can explore your menu, make a booking or find your locations. Raising website traffic gets people to know your brand better and has a direct effect on bookings and on overall brand visibility.
- Product and brand consideration : Focused on catching the interest of prospects in the middle of deciding, this objective lets you put your restaurant’s offerings in front of customers, things like special dishes or unusual dining experiences. It helps owners stand out from competitors and position their brand as the best option among prospects.
- Brand awareness and reach : Designed to raise visibility and recognition, this objective puts your restaurant in front of a wider audience by targeting users who are not actively searching for somewhere to eat. Almost anybody in your area is a potential customer, and this objective is how you reach them.
- App promotion : This objective encourages users to download your restaurant’s app and engage with it, which lets you offer features such as easy booking, online ordering or loyalty rewards. By encouraging app adoption, owners can smooth out the customer experience and build long term loyalty.
- Local store visits and promotions : This objective targets potential customers inside a specific geographic area and encourages them to visit by highlighting promotions or local events. It can help owners raise foot traffic, encourage repeat business (a New Year event, say) and build a strong presence in their community.
When you build a new Google Ads account for your restaurant, we would recommend making “sales” or “local store visits” your priority. If something is bothering you, do not hesitate to get in touch with our team. We would be glad to share what we know and make a difference to your restaurant marketing.
Organize Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads and Keywords
Now that you have picked your campaign type and your objective, you need to start building your campaigns, your ad groups, your keywords and your ads.
Building the ads is one of the hardest parts of a Google Ads campaign for a restaurant, because if you get this part wrong the campaign will struggle to reach its goals.
If your ad groups, keywords and ads are not structured properly you can end up with a significantly higher CPC and lower conversions. You should build separate ad groups for various initiatives, each with its own keywords and ads, along these lines:
- best [restaurant type] in [your city]
- best kebab in [your city]
- birthday venue in [your city]
- breakfast places in [your city]
- catering services in [your city]
2. Target Diners in Your Own Area
Targeting the geographic area your ads show in helps get the people searching for a restaurant to your door.
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make when setting up a restaurant campaign is failing to find the right audience in Google Ads. Pulling traffic from the local diners in your own area is genuinely useful for your business.
We generally target the audience within 5 to 10 miles, which is a radius of 8 to 16 km.
3. Bidding on Profitable Keywords
Google restaurant ads are an excellent way of generating highly targeted traffic, and you can run them purely to catch the attention of particular kinds of diners.
Most restaurant owners are put off by the cost of Google restaurant ads because they think they have to bid on expensive keywords like [city] restaurants.
What you should focus on instead are the keywords people use when they are looking for the specific things your restaurant does. Here are some basic ideas you can use while building your keyword lists:
- “restaurants near me”
- “order food”
- “takeaway”
- “best restaurants in [your city]”
- “lunch places”
- “family friendly restaurants”
- and so on.
4. Change Your Ad Schedule
Google Ads offers a powerful feature called ad scheduling that gets you in front of your audience at the best possible time. With it you can strategically show your ads at particular hours or on particular days, so that they appear when people are most likely to eat out or order in.
If you run a late night spot, for instance, you could target the hours between 22:00 and 03:00.
5. Use Ad Extensions on Your Restaurant Ads
Ad extensions on Google Ads campaigns are powerful tools that help your restaurant reach more customers, raise the number of calls and earn hungry customers’ trust. By extending your ads with extra information, extensions let you make them more engaging and more results focused.
How Much Each Digital Marketing Channel Matters for Restaurants
| Digital marketing type | How much it matters (1-5) | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social media marketing | 4 | • Reaches a wide audience • Room for engagement • Low cost | • Needs constant content • Negative comments spread fast |
| Email marketing | 2 | • Room for personalization • High conversion rate • Measurable results | • Risk of being seen as spam • Building the list is hard |
| Content marketing | 3 | • Contributes to SEO • Raises brand awareness • Builds customer trust | • Time consuming • Requires a long term strategy |
| Google Ads | 5 | • Fast results • Reaches the target audience • Budget control | • Can be costly • Heavy competition |
| Influencer marketing | 5 | • Raises credibility • Direct access to the target audience • Creative content | • High cost • Risk of picking the wrong influencer |
What Does Running Google Ads Cost a Restaurant?
As an owner or a manager thinking about Google Ads, we know it matters that you understand the potential costs involved and the factors that can affect your budget.
Because you set the daily budget in Google Ads, budget control sits entirely with you. My professional advice is to look at last season’s monthly financials. I would recommend putting your ad budget up in the months when business is at its lowest.
Google Ads matters a great deal. For organic growth alongside it, look through our piece on how to do local SEO and improve where your business sits in the natural results.
