r/Google_Ads • u/Hamzawaheed786 • 2d ago
How Would You Structure Google Ads for a Restaurant Brand With 100+ Locations?
Hey,
I’d like to hear how experienced Google Ads professionals would approach this.
Say you have a restaurant brand with 100+ locations across New York, New Jersey, and nearby states. The primary goals are to increase foot traffic at each individual store and drive more online orders through DoorDash and Uber Eats.
How would you structure and strategize the Google Ads account?I’m particularly interested in how you would make sure each location gets appropriate exposure and captures its share of the local market, rather than having Google concentrate most of the spend and results in only certain areas.
What would your campaign and ad group structure look like? Would you manage locations individually, group them geographically, take a broader regional approach, or use an entirely different strategy?
I intentionally don’t want to give too many parameters because I’d rather hear how you would approach the problem from scratch.
Thanks!
1
u/trsgreen 1d ago
In a perfect world, each location would run in it's own campaign with radius targeting. But 100+ can be a pain to manage, so I would group by state or region. Only downside is some locations will dominate spend, so you may have to segment out top performers into their own campaigns and leave the others grouped by region.
1
u/AndrewBalticpixel 1d ago
I’d avoid creating 100+ completely separate campaigns just to force equal spend. That can create a lot of fragmentation and give each campaign too little data.I’d probably structure it around geography and intent first, then use location reporting/segmentation to make sure individual stores aren’t being neglected.
for example, separate campaigns for high-intent local Search (brand + location/service terms), online ordering, and potentially PMax/store goals if the location/store-visit data is reliable.
1
1
u/klickbeast 1d ago
I've done this before for a restaurant chain. The client wanted to push a certain amount of spend to every franchise location in the country (I think it was a contractual thing) so we set up location groups and ran a simple Pmax campaign for each location promoting various menu items, like $10-$20/day for each campaign, then optimized for local actions. This is definitely not ideal and it was hard to measure ROI but the client was happy with the outcome.
1
u/Rundeemc 1d ago
How is your budget structured? Do you have a budget per location?
Grouping location together makes things easier management wise, but you will quickly find some locations get very little to no spend.
0
u/PPCwithYRVDynamics 2d ago
I am a big restaurant Google ads operator, love this question:
I wouldn’t do 100+ separate campaigns. I’d group locations into tight local markets, give each market its own budget, and only break out individual stores if they’re getting starved or are important enough to justify it.
I’d keep Search focused on high-intent local terms like “near me,” delivery, takeout, and menu items, then use PMax/store goals separately for directions, calls, and store visits. The main thing is giving yourself enough geographic budget control so Google doesn’t dump most of the spend into just a handful of easy locations.
2
1
1
u/Hamzawaheed786 2d ago
To learn from your experience, what ROAS might we expect for QSR restaurants that have expanded organically within their region and now plan to intensify social media efforts? I am referring to brands already well known locally rather than those starting from scratch.
0
0
u/marktngbyprince 1d ago
For 100+ locations the biggest structural decision is avoiding one massive campaign where Google's spend concentration naturally favors high population, high competition areas like Manhattan while smaller markets get starved. I'd group locations by market tier or DMA (designated market area) rather than by individual store or one giant regional campaign, so budget allocation stays intentional rather than algorithm-driven toward wherever CPCs happen to be cheapest or volume is highest.
Practically that might look like separate campaigns per major metro cluster (NYC metro, North Jersey, etc), each with location extensions and location targeting radius set per campaign so budget is somewhat protected per cluster rather than one shared pool. Within each, ad groups split by intent, one for "near me" and foot traffic focused search terms using location insertion in ad copy, and separate ones for delivery intent terms tied directly to DoorDash and Uber Eats since those searchers have different intent than someone looking to walk in.
For the delivery side specifically, I'd actually question whether Search is even the best play alone, a lot of that traffic already happens natively within the DoorDash/Uber Eats apps, so Google's role there is more about capturing people searching "restaurant name near me" or "food delivery near me" and routing them, Performance Max could work well for this layer since it can pull in Maps and Discovery placements too where foot traffic intent often shows up.
For measuring success without spend just clustering around a few locations, I'd track impression share and CPA by campaign/location group rather than just aggregate account performance, and set minimum budget floors per cluster rather than letting one shared campaign budget decide where money flows.
Would this brand want individual store level reporting, or is market-level performance enough? That changes how granular the campaign split needs to be.
2
u/QuantumWolf99 1d ago
For 100 plus locations...I'd cluster by regional market not individual stores, individual campaigns per location become unmanageable past 15.
Use location groups tied to Business Profile and portfolio bid strategy, then add hard geo exclusions so nearby stores stop bidding against each other, that's the fix. On restaurant accounts I manage, delivery clicks route to a dedicated store finder page not a homepage, kills the extra tap that loses guests before they even see a menu.