Driving Digital Success, Together.
Local Paid Search & Meta Ads
ChowNow has no in-app marketplace search, which means it has no built-in mechanism for a hungry customer three blocks away to stumble across your restaurant the way they might inside DoorDash or Uber Eats. That discovery function has to be manufactured, and for a commission-free platform like ChowNow, that visibility has to come from local paid search and Meta ads instead.
- ChowNow Direct-Ordering Specialists
- Marketplace-to-Direct Conversion Campaigns
- Website, Google & Local Ads That Drive Direct Orders
- Own Your Customer Data, Not the Marketplace
Turn ChowNow Visibility Into Placed Orders
Win the placements customers actually tap.
Structure that converts faster scrolls.
Protect the score that drives ranking.
Consistent execution across every store.
Grow Volume Without Discounting It Away
Know the real cost of every promotion before it runs.
Fill demand gaps without discounting peak hours.
Fix the operational signals that hurt visibility.
Show up in every relevant category.
Marketing That Drives Revenue, Not Just Clicks
Bring customers back without needing off-platform data.
Move platform customers to channels you actually own.
Win first orders efficiently from nearby demand.
Real ChowNow data, not vanity metrics.
One Partner For Every Part Of Growth
We know what actually drives ranking inside ChowNow.
Menus and orders stay accurate automatically.
A team that understands restaurants.
Setup, ads, promotions, reviews, retention.
Turn ChowNow Visibility Into Placed Orders
Win the placements customers actually tap.
Structure that converts faster scrolls.
Protect the score that drives ranking.
Consistent execution across every store.
Grow Volume Without Discounting It Away
Know the real cost of every promotion before it runs.
Fill demand gaps without discounting peak hours.
Fix the operational signals that hurt visibility.
Show up in every relevant category.
Marketing That Drives Revenue, Not Just Clicks
Bring customers back without needing off-platform data.
Move platform customers to channels you actually own.
Win first orders efficiently from nearby demand.
Real ChowNow data, not vanity metrics.
One Partner For Every Part Of Growth
We know what actually drives ranking inside ChowNow.
Menus and orders stay accurate automatically.
A team that understands restaurants.
Setup, ads, promotions, reviews, retention.
- TRUSTED BY RESTAURANT OWNERS
Real Results. Real Relationships.
More than marketing. More than technology. A true restaurant growth partner.
Everything You Need for ChowNow: One Partner, Start to Finish
Clear deliverables. Tailored to what you actually need.
Getting your ChowNow presence set up and structured right from day one.
Get a Quote- Local Google Search campaigns targeting high-intent queries like "[cuisine] delivery near me" within your service radius
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) campaigns targeting your delivery radius by location, interests, and behaviors
Turning ads, promotions, and content strategy into more orders on ChowNow.
Get a Quote- Conversion tracking configured on your ChowNow ordering link so every ad dollar can be tied to actual orders
- Geo-fenced radius targeting matched precisely to your real delivery and pickup range, not a generic city-wide setting
Keeping ranking, ratings, and retention improving month over month.
Get a Quote- Dayparting strategy aligning ad spend with your actual peak order windows (lunch rush, dinner rush, weekend brunch)
- Retargeting campaigns for website visitors and past ChowNow customers who haven't ordered recently
For restaurant groups and franchises with custom goals across locations.
Contact Us- Custom strategy across stores
- Dedicated senior strategist
- Centralized reporting
Every ChowNow Growth Service Under One Roof
One partner handling setup, ads, content, promotions, reviews, and retention for restaurants on ChowNow.
Local Paid Search & Meta Ads
ChowNow has no in-app marketplace search, which means it has no built-in mechanism for a hungry customer three blocks away to stumble across your restaurant the way they might inside DoorDash or Uber Eats. That discovery function has to be manufactured, and for a commission-free direct-ordering setup, the most efficient way to manufacture it is hyper-local paid advertising on Google and Meta, campaigns geo-targeted tightly around your actual delivery and pickup radius, aimed directly at people actively searching for food nearby or already following food-related interests on Instagram and Facebook, with every click landing on your ChowNow ordering page rather than a marketplace listing or app download prompt.
This is the primary new-customer acquisition engine in a ChowNow marketing program, the piece that replaces the discovery marketplaces used to hand you for free (at the cost of commission), rebuilt as a channel you fully own and control the economics of.
- Local Google Search campaigns targeting high-intent queries like "[cuisine] delivery near me" within your service radius
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) campaigns targeting your delivery radius by location, interests, and behaviors
- Conversion tracking configured on your ChowNow ordering link so every ad dollar can be tied to actual orders
- Geo-fenced radius targeting matched precisely to your real delivery and pickup range, not a generic city-wide setting
- Dayparting strategy aligning ad spend with your actual peak order windows (lunch rush, dinner rush, weekend brunch)
- Retargeting campaigns for website visitors and past ChowNow customers who haven't ordered recently
Why Paid Ads Replace the Discovery a Marketplace Used to Provide
Inside DoorDash or Uber Eats, discovery is baked into the platform, customers open the app already intending to order, browse a ranked list, and your restaurant is competing for attention purely within that closed ecosystem. ChowNow doesn't have an equivalent closed ecosystem to compete inside, which is exactly why the commission structure is so different, you're not paying for access to a marketplace audience, because there isn't one to access.
That means the restaurant, or its marketing agency, has to go find that same intending-to-order customer out on the open internet, at the moment they're searching Google or scrolling Instagram, and bring them directly to the ChowNow ordering page instead. Paid local advertising is the most direct, measurable way to do that, because both Google and Meta support precise geographic targeting down to a radius around a single address, a level of local precision most restaurants have never actually used correctly even when they've run ads before.
Local Ad Channels Compared
| Channel | Targeting Method | Best Use Case | Typical Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search (local intent) | Keywords like "[cuisine] near me," radius targeting | Capturing customers actively deciding what to order right now | Direct order conversions |
| Google Business Profile / Maps ads | Location-based, tied to your verified listing | Customers already searching or navigating to you | Click-to-order, click-to-directions |
| Meta Feed (Facebook/Instagram) | Radius + interest/behavior targeting | Building awareness of your direct-ordering option among local audiences | Traffic and order conversions |
| Meta Stories/Reels | Radius targeting, visually-driven creative | Showcasing food and driving impulse orders | Engagement and order conversions |
| Retargeting (Meta + Google) | Past website visitors, past ChowNow customers | Re-engaging people who almost ordered or haven't ordered recently | Recovered orders at lower cost per acquisition |
Radius Targeting, The Detail Most Restaurant Ad Campaigns Get Wrong
A restaurant's ad targeting radius should map to where it can actually fulfill an order, not an arbitrary city-wide or zip-code-wide setting. Spending budget showing ads to someone 40 minutes outside your delivery zone is pure waste, they'll never convert into a completed order regardless of how compelling the ad is.
We set radius targeting based on your actual delivery zone (matched to what ChowNow itself has configured for delivery, if you offer it) plus a slightly wider ring for pickup-only customers who are willing to drive a short distance for food they want. This single adjustment, getting the radius genuinely tight and accurate rather than defaulting to a broad platform suggestion, is one of the fastest ways to improve cost per order on both Google and Meta.
Sending Traffic to the Right Place, Not a Marketplace Listing
It sounds obvious, but it's a mistake we catch constantly during audits: ad campaigns built by well-meaning in-house staff or previous agencies that link out to a marketplace listing instead of the restaurant's own ChowNow ordering page, sometimes because that's simply the first search result the person setting up the campaign found. Every dollar spent driving traffic to a DoorDash or Uber Eats listing instead of your direct ChowNow page is a dollar spent actively generating commission-bearing orders instead of the commission-free ones the whole program exists to create.
Before any campaign goes live, we confirm the landing destination is your working ChowNow ordering page, which depends on the website and Google order integration work being correctly in place, and that conversion tracking is properly attributing orders back to the ad spend that generated them.
Retargeting, Recovering the Customers Who Almost Ordered
Not every visitor to your ChowNow ordering page completes a purchase on the first visit, and a properly configured retargeting campaign recovers a meaningful share of that lost traffic at a lower cost than fresh prospecting ads, since these are people who've already shown clear intent. We build retargeting audiences from website and ordering-page visitors who didn't convert, and separately from past ChowNow customers who haven't ordered in a defined window, the latter working as a paid complement to the win-back email and SMS flows built under our email and SMS marketing service, reaching the same lapsed customers through an additional channel.
How We Launch Your Local Paid Advertising Program
- Audit your actual delivery and pickup service area to define accurate geo-targeting boundaries for every campaign.
- Confirm conversion tracking is correctly installed on your ChowNow ordering link so every order can be attributed to the ad that generated it.
- Build and launch local Google Search campaigns around high-intent, near-me style keywords within your service radius.
- Build and launch Meta campaigns across Feed and Stories/Reels, targeting your radius plus relevant local interests and behaviors.
- Set dayparting rules so budget concentrates around your actual peak ordering windows rather than spreading evenly across all hours.
- Launch retargeting campaigns for website visitors and lapsed past customers to recover near-miss and lapsed orders.
- Review cost per order and return on ad spend weekly for the first month, then monthly thereafter, reallocating budget toward whichever channel and audience is converting most efficiently.
How This Fits Into the Full ChowNow Program
Local paid search and Meta ads are the acquisition engine of a ChowNow marketing program, bringing in customers who've never ordered directly before. Once those customers convert, they feed the same database that powers automated email and SMS marketing, and the messaging in ad creative should echo the same first-order incentive logic used in our marketplace-to-direct conversion collateral, so a customer who saw a bag sticker and one who clicked a Meta ad get a consistent, reinforcing offer regardless of which channel brought them in. For platform-level context on ChowNow's own marketing and ordering tools, see ChowNow's restaurant partner page.
Let's Build Your ChowNow Local Ads Plan
Hyper-targeted local Google and Meta ad campaigns pointed straight to your ChowNow direct-ordering link, replacing the discovery a marketplace app used to provide.
Free Strategy Session
Custom Growth Plan
Competitor Analysis
Revenue-Focused Recommendations
Frequently Asked Questions
Budgets vary widely by market size, competition, and order volume goals, but we typically start with a modest test budget across both channels, monitor cost per order closely over the first 30 days, and reallocate toward whichever platform and campaign type is producing the lowest cost per order before scaling spend further. Starting small and proving the unit economics matters more than the initial dollar amount.
They tend to serve different roles rather than compete directly. Google Search captures people with immediate intent, someone actively searching for food right now, while Meta is generally stronger for building awareness and prompting orders from people who weren't necessarily searching but respond to compelling food imagery in their feed. Most effective programs run both simultaneously rather than picking one over the other.
It should match your real delivery and pickup range, not a generic default. A radius that's too wide wastes budget on people who can't realistically order from you; a radius that's too narrow leaves potential customers untargeted. We set this based on your actual ChowNow delivery zone configuration and adjust based on early performance data rather than guessing.
Yes, pickup-only restaurants generally support a somewhat wider radius than delivery, since customers are often willing to drive a bit further for pickup than they'd expect to wait for delivery. Campaign messaging and targeting are adjusted accordingly, emphasizing convenience and order-ahead speed rather than delivery-specific benefits.
The core metric is the same, cost per order and return on ad spend, but the comparison point is different. Because every order generated through a ChowNow ad is commission-free, the effective return is higher than an equivalent ad spend driving traffic to a marketplace listing where the platform then takes an additional commission cut on top. We report both figures side by side so the full financial picture, not just click and conversion data, is visible.
Meet Jay Mehta
Founder & Growth Partner, Mindshare Consulting Inc.
For more than 20 years, Jay has helped businesses grow through marketing, technology, automation, and customer acquisition. Today he leads Mindshare Consulting's approach to restaurant marketplace marketing, applying that same discipline to how restaurants compete for visibility and orders on ChowNow.
Getting listed on ChowNow isn’t the goal. Getting found, ranked, and reordered from is, and that takes an actual marketing program, not a one-time setup.