Social ad CTR rose from 0.01% in February to 2.22% in April, an increase of more than 220x. Cost per click fell 15.2%.
The challenge
COVID-19 forced Dog Haus to change how it reached guests, fast.
The first gap was the old playbook stopped working. Before the pandemic, locations used email to drive Walk-Throughs. Dine-in traffic was no longer the goal.
A second challenge was guests didn't know the new options. Dog Haus had to tell customers about pick-up and delivery to keep doors open.
The remaining issue was ads were spread across operators. Corporate and franchise locations ran social ads separately, with weak results.
The solution
Deliver the campaign: email that kept regulars in the loop. Before COVID-19, several Dog Haus locations used Adentro (formerly Zenreach) Email Marketing. Visit-triggered automations kept guests up to date on each restaurant. Walk-Through Rate™ showed which messages brought guests back.
Pivot: one social program for every location. In mid-March, the founders launched The Absolute Brands. The group added eight delivery-only concepts run from virtual kitchens. All Dog Haus locations, corporate and franchise, then moved social advertising to Adentro.
Message: pick-up and delivery, front and center. Dog Haus and the Adentro team refocused ad messaging on pick-up and delivery awareness. Performance changed right away, even with half the February impressions.
Why the combination mattered
Existing Email Marketing established direct guest communication. The group then centralized paid social through Adentro and refocused creative on the services available during closures. CTR and CPC report advertising engagement, while revenue recovery is client-reported and not supported by a visit-attribution experiment.
The results
- 0.01% to 2.22% social ad CTR, February to April, an increase of more than 220x
- $0.33 to $0.28 cost per click, a 15.2% decrease
- 45.9% increase in engagement on static posts
- Half the impressions in April versus February
- Leadership reports many locations reached, and some exceeded, pre-COVID revenue
Customer perspective
“When COVID-19 struck, we knew we had to pivot, and do it quickly to keep our restaurants open. Working with the Adentro team to refocus our messaging efforts for increasing awareness of our pick-up and delivery options was key to keeping our doors open.”