Hospitality | Multi-Location Restaurant Group
From hundreds of legacy campaigns to a focused set of winners.
Seven-figure
Reported Value*
Roughly 9 to 10x
Return on Ad Spend
Hundreds
Legacy Campaigns Consolidated
Double-digit
Catering Growth, Booked Orders†
*Seven-figure reported value is platform-reported conversion value across Google, Meta and LinkedIn over the engagement, against a six-figure managed budget. The roughly 9 to 10x counts purchase conversions only and is the figure we stand behind. †Catering growth on a trailing 30-day basis near the end of the engagement, measured in the client's booked orders rather than platform attribution. The two windows sit on slightly different store bases; the like-for-like same-store comparison ran higher and we quote the lower unmatched figure. An inflated early catering return figure was retired after an audit of our own server tags found general orders labelled as catering.
The Situation
A paid account no one could read
A multi-location restaurant brand had cycled through several agencies. What they handed us was the result. It included hundreds of paused legacy campaigns, a loose scatter of live campaigns, and competing naming conventions in a single account. There was no clear priority, no incrementality testing, and no honest read on what was actually working. Money was going out every day. One earlier stretch under a prior operator had burned a meaningful share of budget on fragmented traffic campaigns at close to zero return. The winning pattern was buried in the noise, and nobody could see it.
The Approach
Find the pattern, archive the noise, scale what works
We did not start by spending more. We started by reading the full account history to find the pattern, then rebuilt the account around it.
Diagnose the winning pattern
A full pull of the multi-year Google and Meta history showed the same result every time. Catering and value offers, optimized for purchase, geo-focused rather than spread thin, with food-forward creative, returned several times what traffic and awareness plays did. Prior teams had touched these wins but never replicated them consistently.
Canonicalize the account
Archived the legacy campaigns in place, stood up a focused set of active campaigns, and applied one client-readable naming system using offering, market, channel, builder, month. The whole team can now scan the account by what it sells and where, not decode it.
Build the high-intent foundation
Stood up a non-brand catering search foundation aimed at high-intent demand like corporate catering and office lunch. Standardized seasonal creative into every catering campaign across markets.
Wire attribution to reality
Rebuilt conversion tracking so reported value matches real sales, separated modeled in-store visits from online purchases, and put an offline-order value feed in motion. The goal was a number leadership can trust, not a flattering one.
Test for true lift
Designed a geo-holdout incrementality test so the group can estimate how much of the return is genuinely caused by the ads, not just credited to them. The honest question, asked on purpose.
The Results
A focused account that pays its way
A six-figure managed budget across Google, Meta and LinkedIn reported seven-figure platform value over the engagement
Roughly 9 to 10x return on ad spend on the strictest basis, purchase conversions only, with modeled in-store value excluded
Catering campaigns first reported an outsized return on the platform. An audit of our own server tags found general orders labelled as catering, so we retired that figure and rebuilt the view. Measured in booked orders rather than platform attribution, catering sales grew double digits on a trailing 30-day basis near the end of the engagement (the like-for-like same-store comparison over the same window was higher; we quote the lower figure)
A new-location launch play, built one market at a time, proved the hyper-local structure and became the template for every launch after it
Hundreds of legacy campaigns consolidated into a focused set of consistently named active campaigns
An account leadership can read by offering and market, with weekly performance reporting
CRM rebuilt alongside paid, with a large-scale contact cleanup and lifecycle automation now feeding the funnel
A note on honesty. Reported return on ad spend in restaurant accounts is inflated by modeled in-store visits and platform attribution. We report the conservative online-sales number here. Our own audit found server tags labelling general orders as catering, which had inflated the catering campaigns' reported return; we retired that figure and rebuilt the view on booked orders. The headline result is the restructure, the measurement discipline, and the willingness to correct our own number, not a single flattering multiple.
Engagement Included
Full scope of work
Multi-year Google and Meta account audit
Account restructure and canonical naming system
Non-brand catering search build
Performance Max and Meta management
Creative standardization across markets
Conversion tracking and attribution rebuild
Geo-holdout incrementality testing
CRM cleanup and lifecycle automation
Weekly performance reporting to leadership
Engagement Context
Industry
Multi-location restaurant group
Footprint
Multi-location, multi-market
Inherited State
Hundreds of legacy campaigns, fragmented structure
Primary Challenge
Fragmented paid media with no trustworthy read on performance
Channels
Google Ads (Search + PMax), Meta, LinkedIn
Engagement Type
Fractional CMO + paid media management
Status
Completed
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