MARKETING BEST PRACTICES

Maximize your
restaurant’s paid
marketing
Optimize spend to
drive bookings
 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

The majority of restaurants invest in paid

marketing—69% of OpenTable customers use
it to promote their restaurant.1 This checklist
will help you make the most of your paid
digital marketing.

First up, be sure to understand—

• The importance of booking intent
• Success metrics that matter
• Key features about each platform

1Based on a survey of OpenTable customers in 2018

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 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

The importance of booking intent

There is a difference between a broad group of people discovering your
restaurant in the course of their day and reaching people who are actively
looking to find a table. Both Facebook and Google speak to the breadth
and size of their network, but that audience may or may not have booking
intent. Facebook and Instagram are the most popular channels for paid digital
marketing,2 but they have limitations. Guests on Facebook are commonly
scrolling through their newsfeed, inundated with other ads. And on Instagram,
the amount of food photography can make it hard to stand out.

To grow brand presence, consider using organic social, with no spend behind
the posts instead. If your goal is to fill your seats, you’ll want to reach guests
who are already in the mindset of making a reservation and have a high intent
to book.

2Based on a survey of OpenTable customers in 2018

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 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

Success metrics that matter

If your goal is to fill your seats, you’ll want to be careful about measuring your
success using vanity metrics, such as impressions or clicks. These metrics give you
a good idea of what content your audience sees and interacts with, but they don’t
tell the whole story of how this drives seated reservations. OpenTable's marketing
tracking feature lets you track reservations and seated covers to your digital and
social channels.

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 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

Key features about each platform

All paid digital marketing channels have strengths and weaknesses. Our tip:
consider your priorities. Whether you’re seeking brand awareness, leads, or
seated diners, choose the platform best suited to those goals. Get started with
this overview of the top channels for restaurants:

OpenTable Digital Marketing

• Booking intent. For users making any kind of search on OpenTable, the top 10 restaurants in
search results account for 83% of the reservations made by those users.3

• Flexible campaign tools. Fill seats during slow times, jump closer to the top to be seen more
frequently, or incentivize diners to book.

• Clear ROI. When you integrate your POS system, you connect your diner’s average spend to
your cost per cover for a full understanding of your true ROI.

• Turn diners into regulars. Once you bring in diners through the door, deliver great hospitality
to keep diners coming back with guest relations tools.

Facebook & Instagram4

• Huge audience. With about three billion monthly users combined, they are all about reach and
brand awareness.

• Pay for views and clicks. You’re paying for the opportunity to get your restaurant in front of
the immense number of people who use these platforms, not seated reservations.

• Eyeballs over ROI. It's tricky to ever know how many reservations each ad drives in.

• Key question: Do you need this ad to drive reservations, or are those diners going to book
anyway?

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 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

Google5

• Huge audience. With over three billion searches per day, this platform is all about reaching
people who intend to book.

• Pay for clicks. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, you pay only when diners find you through
Google.

• Targeted ads. You pick a goal and location, define your product and service, and finally create
your ad and set your budget.

• Detailed analytics. Google’s Ad Manager shows metrics for click-throughs to your website,
impressions, and cost per click, including your total spend.

• It’s all about keywords. It’s crucial to include the right keywords. Research keywords or talk to
an expert before getting started.

• It’s not about pictures. Google Ads are text-only, so those great food photos won’t be of much
use. Make sure your copy conveys your message effectively—make every word count.

• Clicks, not ROI. Google Ads is a pay-per-click service. That means you may spend a significant
amount of money and see little to no ROI. Don’t forget, you ultimately want diners to book a
reservation, not just land on your website.

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 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

Yelp6

• You pay for eyeballs and leads. Create an ad, set your budget and target-audience location,
and Yelp Ads provides metrics for impressions, clicks, cost per click, and total spend against
campaign results.

• Yelp for Business dashboard. See user views and customer leads, including clicks to your
website, user-uploaded photos, CTA links, directions and map views, and mobile check-ins.

• “Leads” are loose. Yelp has a loose definition of a lead, so the majority of interactions with a
Yelp profile may be counted as one.

• Audience targeting is limited. Yelp doesn’t allow you to choose how or whom you target. Yelp
controls radius coverage and keywords. Specifics about Yelp’s targeting algorithm are hard to
come by. It’s likely you’ll get clicks from irrelevant prospects.

• ROI is challenging. Businesses pay for clicks, but there’s no way to measure whether a click
resulted in a seated diner. Plus, Yelp doesn’t allow for any third-party tracking tools.

3Based on OpenTable impression and conversion data from July 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019
4Based on Facebook for business
5Based on Google Ads
6Based on Yelp for business owners and Yelp support 7
 MAXIMIZE YOUR RESTAURANT’S PAID MARKETING

Checklist for maximizing your restaurant’s paid

digital marketing
Define your end-goal and expectations. Know what you want—build brand awareness,
drive weeknight bookings, create more regulars—so you can use the channel best fit for
that goal.

Assess expertise and resources required. Advertising on any channel takes time
and requires research and strategic direction. The channel’s ad manager may make
suggestions for copy and placement, but make sure any recommendations are in line with
your business and your goals.

Get ready for the competition. Getting noticed above the ad clutter is harder than ever.
A solution might be creative ad sets, which can come at additional cost.

Be flexible. What works for one restaurant may not work for another. If you don’t see the
results you want, be prepared to try something else.

Keep an eye on your spending. Businesses of all sizes (and budgets) are vying for
attention, especially via Google Ads. When businesses target the same keywords, you
may end up paying more to advertise. It’s easy to spend more than you planned. Constant
monitoring is key.

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Want to learn more about OpenTable’s
digital marketing solutions?

Email campaigns@opentable.com