Benchmark scenario · Restaurants
Business Pattern
- Business type
- Two outlets, dine-in plus delivery apps, regional menu
- Location
- Residential and IT-corridor neighbourhoods of a metro city
- Ticket size
- Average bill ₹650 per table
- Sales cycle
- Same day — decisions made within hours
- Monthly ad budget
- ₹40,000 (Meta + Google)
The Challenge
"Weekends are full, weekdays are empty, and delivery apps take a big cut of every order." Social media was a feed of dish photos with no offer, no tracking and no way to bring customers back. Google Maps listings had old photos and wrong weekday hours.
Objectives
- Fill weekday lunch and dinner slots with trackable first visits
- Turn first-time diners into regulars without relying on discounts
- Move a share of delivery orders from aggregators to direct ordering
What We Did
- In-house food shoot. One shoot day produced 12 Reels: dishes being made, the kitchen team, weekday combos. Real food and real people, no stock images.
- Radius-targeted Meta ads. Reels shown to people within 4 km of each outlet, with a weekday-only first-visit offer redeemed by showing a WhatsApp message at the counter.
- Google Maps clean-up. Correct hours for each outlet, full menu, weekly photo uploads and a reply to every review.
- WhatsApp loyalty loop. Diners who redeemed the offer were opted in to a WhatsApp list: a birthday treat, new-dish alerts, and a direct-order link with no aggregator commission.
- Weekly read-out. Redemptions counted by outlet and day, so budget moved to the outlet and slot with the lowest cost per visit.
Results (90 Days)
| Metric | Before | After 90 days |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly ad spend | ₹40,000 (boosted posts) | ₹40,000 |
| Google Maps direction requests / month | 180 | 420 |
| Tracked first visits from ads / month | Not tracked | 520 |
| Cost per tracked first visit | — | ₹77 |
| Revenue from tracked visits / month | — | ₹3.38 lakh |
| Repeat-customer rate (90-day) | 18% | 27% |
| Return on ad spend | — | 8.5x |
What Made the Difference
Tracking. Once every first visit was counted through a WhatsApp redemption, the restaurant could see which outlet, day and creative paid back — and stop paying for the rest. The WhatsApp list also turned one-off diners into a channel the restaurant owns.
FAQs
Run short Reels ads to people within a few kilometres, with a weekday-only offer that is easy to redeem and track. Keep Google Maps hours, menu and photos current so nearby searchers pick you.