Do local advertisements increase restaurant visibility?

As members of a chain, local restaurants benefit from the visibility offered by national campaigns. However, it can sometimes be tricky to promote your restaurants online (alignment with brand image, degree of expertise, local knowledge...). That's why Burger King Belgium wanted to try something new and bold: allowing its local restaurants to advertise on Google, in line with the brand's guidelines.

Are you curious to know the results of the campaign and why use local campaigns for your restaurants? Check out the article below 👀

Promoting local restaurants that are part of a chain can be a challenge: what are the best media for advertising, how to ensure that your local restaurants are not competing with each other in terms of bids and visibility, etc..

This can also be a plus: local restaurants benefit from the brand's global/national reputation and have access to the headquarters' expertise in terms of marketing campaigns.

In this case study, we will analyze how Burger King Belgium helped its local restaurants increase their visibility and generate more online orders.

On your marks, get set, go! 

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Context: How Burger King Belgium promoted its local restaurants with local ads

Burger King Belgium wanted to discover if it was relevant for its local restaurants to invest an advertising budget to improve their online visibility.

They chose to run the trial for a number of their restaurants, as part of a specific campaign aimed at increasing Uber Eats online orders, from their Google pages. The trial ran over a period of one week.

Results:

The trial was a success in terms of increasing visibility and customer interactions. The restaurants that were part of the campaign recorded:

• +58% increase in indirect searches compared to the average number of searches per restaurant
• +60% increase in impressions compared to the average number of impressions per restaurant
• +38% increase in activations compared to the average number of activations

The restaurants that participated in the campaign achieved significantly better results than those that did not. This demonstrates the real impact of local advertising campaigns for restaurants, in terms of visibility and activations (clicks to website, route, calls,…).

Beyond the increase in search volume, impressions and activations, it is essential to note the importance of an omnichannel approach for the actions online to offline. Indeed, in the case of restaurants, online orders can change the game in terms of revenue and should not be ignored..

However, the’online to offline can êbe quite complex à to master for restaurant managers, whose job it isn’t: visibility, conversion, online SEO, ranking within the’online ordering application (Uber Eats, Deliveroo, take Away, …), website optimization, customer journey and brand experience, … are often abstract terms.

In the case of this campaign, Burger King Belgium chose to simplify the customer ordering journey of its local restaurants by promoting à through a Google campaign their Uber Eats profiles. The cross‑linking of their Google and Uber Eats profiles allowed increased visibility for online and in‑restaurant orders.

Why?
Because of local ads, Google listings are more visible throughout the customers' search journey, thanks to the ad being displayed in Google search, Business and Maps. Indeed, the ads appear at the top of the search results. Future customers can then choose the way they wish to order: online via Uber Eats, to take away or on site.

“Our goal was to measure the impact of advertising campaigns for our local restaurants, in terms of traffic and investment. We also wanted to gain more visibility for our restaurants and complement our national campaigns.

We are satisfied to see the impact at the local level, even over a short period.

We are eager to use these campaigns across our network with Mobilosoft, especially with the upcoming end-of-year holidays! »

Laurens Marynissen, Trade Marketeer Burger King Belgium

Conclusion

Local ads for restaurants are relevant. They allow better promotion of local restaurants that are part of chains and, in this case, to facilitate online ordering. This also allows to gain a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market.

While national campaigns bring brand awareness, this type of campaign is relevant for local restaurants because it allows to increase the audience reached and to intervene at an earlier step in the customer's search intent, at the local level.

In fact, in the case of online ordering, customers often perform an initial search on their browser, then visit the brand's website or choose online ordering platforms/applications (Brand App, Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Take Away,…). Ranking well on these platforms depends on many factors, which can be quite competitive, especially for chain restaurants.

These campaigns enable restaurants to intervene earlier in the customer's search intent, during Google and Maps searches, and help local restaurants gain visibility effectively among a qualified audience in terms of proximity.

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