Restaurant Google Ads
Fill Every Table, Maximize Every Order
Restaurant marketing on Google is about capturing hungry customers in real time — the person searching 'Thai food near me' right now, the office manager ordering catering for tomorrow, or the couple booking a Saturday night reservation. We build campaigns that convert immediate intent into covers, orders, and bookings.
- Avg. cost per reservation
- $4.80 Avg. cost per reservation
- ROI on delivery campaigns
- 312% ROI on delivery campaigns
- Of clicks from mobile
- 83% Of clicks from mobile
The challenge
Where Restaurant Ad Spend Gets Wasted
Third-Party Platforms Eating Your Margins
DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub charge 15-30% commissions on every order. Meanwhile, these platforms bid on your restaurant's name in Google Ads, intercepting customers who would have ordered directly. You're paying a commission on orders that started as a search for your own brand name — and the platforms profit from your marketing.
Generic 'Restaurant' Keywords Attract Browsers, Not Diners
Bidding on 'restaurants near me' sounds logical but attracts people still deciding what cuisine they want. These broad searches have low conversion rates and high CPCs because every restaurant in the area competes for them. You need cuisine-specific, occasion-specific, and action-specific keywords that match a diner's current intent.
No Tracking for Online Orders or Phone Reservations
Restaurants that can't connect ad clicks to actual orders or reservation bookings are flying blind. Without conversion tracking on your online ordering system and call tracking for phone reservations, Google's algorithm can't learn which keywords and ads generate real business. You're guessing instead of optimizing.
Daypart and Day-of-Week Blind Spots
Running the same ads at 10 AM on a Tuesday and 6 PM on a Friday wastes budget. Restaurant search volume and conversion rates vary dramatically by time of day and day of week. A lunch campaign targeting office workers needs different messaging, bids, and budgets than a weekend dinner campaign targeting couples and families.
Our approach
Our Restaurant Ads Playbook
Real-time, location-first campaigns designed around dining occasions, daypart dynamics, and direct ordering funnels that bypass third-party commissions.
01
Brand Defense Against Third-Party Platforms
We run branded search campaigns that ensure your restaurant appears above DoorDash and Grubhub ads when customers search your name. The ads link directly to your own ordering platform, recapturing orders that would otherwise cost you a 25% commission. This single campaign often pays for the entire ad budget.
02
Daypart-Optimized Campaign Scheduling
Separate campaigns for lunch, dinner, late-night, and weekend brunch — each with time-specific ad scheduling, bid adjustments, and messaging. Lunch ads promote quick-serve options and delivery for office orders starting at 10:30 AM. Dinner campaigns highlight ambiance and reservations starting at 3 PM. Late-night ads run after 9 PM with reduced budgets.
03
Cuisine & Occasion Keyword Architecture
Beyond generic 'restaurant' terms, we target cuisine-specific searches ('best ramen near me'), occasion searches ('birthday dinner reservation'), dietary searches ('gluten-free restaurant'), and event searches ('restaurants with private dining'). Each cluster gets tailored ad copy and links to relevant menu sections or booking pages.
04
Google Maps & Local Inventory Integration
We optimize your Google Business Profile for ad visibility, set up location extensions that show distance and hours, and use local campaign formats that appear in Google Maps results. For restaurants with retail products (sauces, merchandise), local inventory ads showcase in-store items to nearby shoppers.
Results
Restaurant Campaign Performance
- ROI on delivery campaigns
- 312% ROI on delivery campaigns
- Average cost per reservation
- 4.8$ Average cost per reservation
- Orders recaptured from platforms
- 35% Orders recaptured from platforms
- Increase in weeknight covers
- 28% Increase in weeknight covers
More Reservations, More Orders, Better Margins
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Google Ads for Restaurants — common questions
You can't stop them from bidding, but you can outbid them on your own branded terms. Since you have perfect quality score on your own brand name, your CPCs will be a fraction of what the delivery platforms pay. We set up brand defense campaigns that cost $200-400/month but save thousands in commission fees by directing customers to order directly.
Most single-location restaurants see strong results with $800-1,500/month. Focus budget on branded defense, cuisine-specific keywords, and direct ordering campaigns. You don't need to outspend chains — you need to target the right searches at the right times. A well-timed lunch campaign spending $20/day can generate 15-20 additional orders per week.
Both, but in separate campaigns with separate budgets. Delivery and dine-in keywords have different competition levels, daypart patterns, and conversion values. We typically allocate more budget to whichever channel has the higher average order value for your restaurant, then scale the second channel once the first is profitable.
For dine-in, we track online reservation completions, click-to-call actions, and direction request clicks as primary conversions. Google's store visit data (available for businesses with enough foot traffic) provides modeled walk-in estimates. For ordering, we integrate conversion tracking directly with your POS or online ordering system.
Absolutely — that's one of the highest-impact use cases. We create weeknight-specific campaigns with promotional messaging (prix fixe menus, happy hour specials, industry night offers) that only run Tuesday through Thursday. These campaigns target nearby searchers during the 3-6 PM planning window when people are deciding where to eat tonight.