And according to our Restaurant Online Ordering Trends Report, 33% of consumers are ordering more delivery in 2024 compared to 2023. If you're interested in learning how to get new customers for your restaurant you've come to the right place. We've asked seasoned restaurateurs how they successfully used DoorDash marketing to increase their sales. Explore valuable insights, tips, and practical recommendations for better understanding how to attract potential customers using tools such as Sponsored Listings, Promotions, and brand licensing.
How restaurants used Sponsored Listings to their advantage
DoorDash marketing strategies, like Sponsored Listings (ads) can help you more cost effectively attract new customers, boost order frequency, and maximize your revenue potential.
What is a Sponsored Listing?
Sponsored Listings are ads that are featured in highly visible places on the DoorDash app, like the homepage and search results. They’ll help your store stand out from the crowd, and unlike ads on other platforms, Sponsored Listings are pay-per-order, not per click. That means you only pay for the ad when an order is placed through it — you aren’t charged for clicks or impressions.
How did The Melt use Sponsored Listings to grow?
The Melt was able to increase their revenue through using this form of advertising. Delivery sales, once a small part of their business at 5%, soon grew to up to a substantial 50% – a transformation Sean Reiter serves, the Director of Brand Revenue for The Melt, fondly refers to as “the big change.”
After only two months using DoorDash ads, The Melt’s Gaslamp location brought in over 500 new customers, over $13,000 in sales, and over 50,000 impressions in just under two months. “I think of Sponsored Listings as getting the word out and having a competitive advantage,” Sean said.
Paying only when customers placed orders, they achieved a substantial increase in sales and visibility, demonstrating the value of in-app advertising tools for restaurants seeking to expand their customer base. If you want to learn more about what ads you can use to grow your delivery sales, check out Marketing 101: How to Use Ads & Promotions.
How Promotions could help you reach new customers
Learn to provide discounts, free items, and more to increase your visibility on the DoorDash app. These promotions can help you stand out and incentivize new customers to try your restaurant.
What are Promotions?
Everyone loves getting free stuff. You can use DoorDash promotions to boost sales and attract new customers by engaging your loyal clientele and enticing newcomers with eye-catching offers. You can incentivize new, existing, or lapsed customers (or all three) to order from your store with a discount, free delivery, or free or discounted item. When you run a promotion, your business will be prominently featured to your target audience in the Offers tab of the DoorDash app.
How do Promotions help increase sales?
This was especially true to multiple-restaurant owner Derek Chang Both at The Boil Daddy and Amandine.
That’s where DoorDash comes in again: without the app, a lot of people wouldn’t discover us. Instead, I have people who order the same thing from Amandine, seven days a week! I could never get those same customers to actually come into the restaurant that often. And we make sure we send them a little treat now and then, to thank them for that loyalty.
On the other side of the globe, Sydney-based Manoosh Pizzeria found Promotions to be among the most lucrative resources offered by DoorDash. As put by Charlie Hoyek, the owner of Manoosh Pizzeria: “We promoted our Pepperoni Burst Pizzeria a few months ago, and we saw a 200% increase in sales through DoorDash. When we run big promotions, it definitely attracts more customers.” Erinn McCully, Director of Off-Premise Sales, Modern Market had a similar experience. Using promotions, Modern Market grew sales by 300%.
We weren’t on any other third-party platforms up until 2019. If you wanted delivery from Modern Market you had to go to DoorDash. That was such a great partnership for us because it grew that sales channel [on the DoorDash platform] 3X that amount for Modern Market compared to other partners.
She saw first hand the substantial impact DoorDash promotions can have on a restaurant’s financial performance, which is why she wholeheartedly recommends it to anyone considering it to give it a shot. If you want to improve your campaign performance, check out How to Get the Most Out of DoorDash Ads & Promotions.
How Online Ordering Promotions can help grow commission-free direct orders
Online Ordering Promotions drive the expansion of commission-free direct orders, enhancing your restaurant's revenue without additional costs.
What are Online Ordering Promotions?
Online Ordering Promotions are customized and user-friendly marketing tools, crafted to boost commission-free direct orders on your restaurant's website. These promotions strategically incentivize customers to place orders directly through your restaurant’s website, effectively growing your revenue without any extra fees.
How Online Ordering and Online Ordering Promotions help restaurants grow
In fact, that's how family-owned Señor G’s Fresh & Healthy Mexican Food grew their online sales. The family-run restaurant started with a small menu of 20 items, but now offers over 100 items like juices, agua frescas, breakfast, and other Mexican dishes. They wouldn’t have been able to offer so many options without an easy, fast way to input these orders into their system.
Ben Arreola, the owner, wanted to tap into a larger online market but wasn’t sure how to find new customers. He integrated Online Ordering, an independent online ordering platform that leverages DoorDash's software to facilitate seamless online ordering directly through the restaurants' websites. Ben quickly noticed how Online Ordering was making a positive impact, especially when pairing it with promotions, which brought in more than 500 customers and $29,000 in sales from October 2021-February 2022, and Ben looks forward to the continued relationship between Señor G’s and DoorDash.
I did 2,000 orders with you guys last month. Imagine if we had to input all of that by hand.
In Toronto, Fahim Ahmadi launched DoorDash Online Ordering for his Afghan cuisine restaurant Naan & Kabob. By leveraging DoorDash marketing, 32% of their DoorDash orders come from new customers, helping to grow their customer base. By adding Online Ordering Promotions, they were able to increase their average weekly sales by 214%, achieving a 3.9X return on investment.
"[Online Ordering] is an amazing idea. Having a professional, white-label ordering system adds value to our brand, especially compared to if we tried to build it ourselves."
If you want to learn how to add Online Ordering Promotions, read Marketing 101: How to Use Ads & Promotions.
Other ways to attract new customers
In the US, DoorDash’s Brand Licensing opens up different income avenues by letting restaurants sell other top performing brands from their own kitchen, making it a great way to boost your cash flow. Here are other tips on how to attract potential customers.
In today's restaurant scene, learning how to get new customers is a must. DoorDash marketing tools like Sponsored Listings, Promotions, and brand licensing can help you reach untapped markets and help you find new customers who could decide you’re their new go-to place.
Now that you’ve learned how to attract new customers, here are some tips on how to entice them to increase their order size.
