Hospitality | Multi-Location Restaurant Group
$1.27M
Reported Sales Value
9-10x
Return on Ad Spend*
225→15
Campaigns Focused
30-32x
Top-Campaign ROAS
*The $1.27M reflects tracked online sales plus modeled in-store visit value, a reported 12.7x. The 9 to 10x basis counts online sales only and is the figure we stand behind. All figures cover a 116-day window of managed Google Ads spend.
The Situation
A 30+ location fast-casual restaurant group across the Northeast had cycled through four prior agencies. What they handed us was the result: 225 paused legacy campaigns, roughly 14 loosely connected live campaigns, and five 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 the door every day. One earlier stretch under a prior operator had burned tens of thousands of dollars on fragmented traffic campaigns at close to zero return. The winning pattern was buried in the noise, and nobody could see it.
The Approach
We did not start by spending more. We started by reading three years of account history to find the pattern, then rebuilt the account around it.
A full pull of three years of Google and Meta history showed the same result every time: catering and value offers, optimized for purchase, in a single metro, with food-forward creative, returned three to four times what traffic and awareness plays did. Prior teams had touched these wins but never replicated them consistently.
Archived 210 legacy campaigns in place, stood up 15 focused campaigns, and applied one client-readable naming system: offering, market, channel, builder, month. The whole team can now scan the account by what it sells and where, not decode it.
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.
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.
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
$100K of managed Google Ads spend reported $1.27M in sales value over a 116-day window
9 to 10x return on ad spend on a conservative online-sales basis, with in-store visit value excluded
Top catering and value campaigns reported 30 to 32x return on ad spend
A new-store launch play reported 32x in its local market, supporting the hyper-local thesis
225 legacy campaigns consolidated into 15 focused, consistently named active campaigns
An account leadership can read by offering and market, with weekly performance reporting
CRM rebuilt alongside paid: a 96K-contact deduplication 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 and are hardening attribution further. The headline result is the restructure and the discipline behind it, not a single flattering multiple.
Engagement Included
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
Industry
Multi-location restaurant group (fast-casual)
Footprint
30+ locations, Northeast US
Inherited State
225 legacy campaigns, four prior agencies
Primary Challenge
Fragmented paid media with no trustworthy read on performance
Channels
Google Ads (Search + PMax), Meta
Engagement Type
Fractional CMO + paid media management
Status
Ongoing
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