How I Used the GTO Framework to Boost a Restaurant's New Customer Acquisition on Food Delivery App’s by 150%

Food delivery app marketing is one of the biggest growth areas for restaurants right now.

But too many restaurants think that running always-on ads and offering high % flat discounts are the only way to grow.

90%+ of restaurants are approaching marketing on food delivery apps like this.

But this is not the best to approach.

Since knowledge of these advanced advertising techniques is still quite minimal across the industry, this post will look at an example of executing an optimized marketing strategy on delivery apps.

Warning: the content in this post may cause an extreme increase in ROAS on food delivery apps.

If you’re serious about growing your restaurants' customer list and maximizing ROI, you need a systematic approach that goes beyond just throwing money at campaigns.

I’m going to show you the GTO Framework, a proven strategy that ensures every marketing campaign you run is purposeful, measurable, and optimized for maximum impact.

The GTO framework was pioneered by delivery app marketing marketing expert Pierre Mobarak who developed the strategy whilst brand manager at Kitpoi.

Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Keep reading to learn how…

The GTO Technique: Performance Marketing on Food Delivery Apps

In May 2024, I onboarded a mid-size restaurant with five delivery locations in Dubai onto the Revly marketing platform.

The chain has been in the market 5+ years, with an established customer base but struggling to add more incremental new customers and revenue. After executing "The GTO Framework", the number of new customers shot up dramaticaly.

You can do the same thing for your restaurant... even if you don’t have McDonald's marketing budget or hundreds of locations.

The 3-Steps to using “The GTO Framework' to grow on food delivery apps

Step 1: Define Clear Campaign Goals

A clear goal is the foundation of any successful food delivery marketing campaign.

Without defined goals, it’s like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks. You may get some results, but you won’t know what worked and what didn't.

Creating a unique marketing playbook for a brand on food delivery apps is the best way to improve performance over time.

For restaurants, goals are more than just abstract ideas. They define where you want your delivery marketing efforts to go and ensure every campaign is focused on driving real, measurable outcomes.

But what exactly are these goals?

The most common goals in food delivery app marketing are:

Improve Brand Awareness: Get seen on delivery apps by as many people as possible.
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Increase Conversion Rate: Turn more menu views into orders.
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Win Back Lost Customers: Re-activate customers who haven’t ordered from you in a while.
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Activate One-Off Campaigns: Launch limited-time promotions targeting events or seasons.
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Acquire More New Customers: Attract first-time buyers to discover your restaurant.
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Lower Customer Acquisition Costs: Spend less to get new customers to place their first order.
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Increase Top-Line Revenue: Drive gross sales and grow market share without focusing on profitability.
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‍Increase Bottom-Line Profit: Run campaigns that improve your restaurant’s overall profitability.

So, how do you decide which goal to focus on? That depends on your restaurant’s unique situation and growth priorities.

Example: Acquire More New Customers

Let’s look at how I approached working with our Dubai based chain for the goals part of the GTO framework.

The Challenge:
‍The chain was thriving with a stable stream of repeat customers but was struggling to expand. Growth was limited because they weren’t bringing in enough new customers.

The Goal:
‍After reviewing their current situation, they decided on a goal:

Acquire 300 total first-time delivery customers in the next 60 days across all their locations

Why this goal? Because new customer acquisition was the key to expanding their market reach. They didn’t want vague aspirations like “get more orders.” Instead, they chose a specific, measurable target that aligned with their growth objectives.

The thought process behind their goal:

• Specific: "300 first-time customers" provided a clear and focused objective.
• Time-Bound: The 60-day deadline gave them urgency to act quickly.
• Growth-Oriented: By targeting new customers, they aimed to boost their overall delivery sales and introduce their brand to a wider audience.

By defining this goal, the brand set themselves up for a focused and actionable campaign that had a clear direction from the outset.

Now that the goal was set, they were ready to dive into tracking and optimization.

Step 2: Track the right metrics

Once you’ve set a clear goal, the next step is tracking the metrics that matter most. This is where many restaurants stumble. Many will track as many metrics as possible, without realizing that certain metrics should be paired to the right goal.

If you are tracking a metric that doesn't actually measure your goal it will lead to misaligned expectations, and un-optimized campaigns.

A common example of this is tracking revenue as a measure for any / every marketing campaign goal. Try and avoid doing this as much as possible. Another common mistake to aiming to drive profitability and then measuring it with ROAS.

For the brand I was working with, their goal was acquiring 300 new delivery customers in 60 days, so the focus wasn’t just about tracking revenue (because revenue doesn't show you whether you acquired more new customers or not).

Instead, we decided to hone in on metrics that aligned directly with their goal: attracting and converting new customers.

Key metrics for new customer acquisition on food delivery apps‍

Number of first time customers (CPC and Discounts)

• Why it matters: This is the clearest measure of success. It tells you exactly how many new customers have placed their first order from your campaigns

Cost Per Acquired Customer (CAC):

• Why it matters: Knowing how much you’re spending to acquire each new customer helps gauge the efficiency of your campaigns. For example, if your promotion budget is $1,000, and you acquire 200 new customers, your CPA is $5.

Click-to-Order Conversion Rate:

• Why it matters: This shows how well your delivery app listing or ads convert interested users into paying customers. If many people click your promotion or ad but don’t order, it’s a sign you need to optimize your offer, menu, or pricing.

How we tracked results

To ensure they stayed on course, I set the brand up on Revly's Intelligence suite to track their metrics on all their delivery apps and for all their campaigns.

The benefits of using Revly instead of the native analytics in delivery apps or spreadsheets:

1. Easily aggregated data - combined data dashboards are easy to understand and removes the need for account switching.
2. Automatically calculated metrics - Revly automatically calculates metrics removing the need for manual work.
3. Compare metrics for offers - Tracking new customer acquisition for offers is very difficult. Revly has an incredibly easy dashboard to understand what campaigns are driving the most new customers
4. Easily find action items - Optimization relies on data. Revly makes it easy to uncover places for optimization.

Key insight: the power of tracking what matters

By focusing on the right metrics, first-time customers, CPA, promo redemptions, and conversion rates - the brand I was working with avoided distractions and stayed focused on their goal.

They didn’t obsess over total revenue because they knew that acquiring new customers often involves upfront investment (and sometimes smaller margins) to build a loyal base.

Learn more about delivery app metrics.

Step 3: Optimize for Maximum Results

Once we had our metrics in place, it was time to optimize.

With the goal of acquiring 300 new delivery customers, we launched a mix of campaigns focused entirely on first-time users:

First-Time User Discounts:

A 20% off full menu promotion exclusively targeting new users to encourage their first order. We used the scheduling tools in Revly to target promo campaigns outside of the highest peak hours to reduce canibalization.

GEMS on Talabat:

Leveraged Talabat’s GEMS feature, a special tool for first-time users, to drive new customer acquisitions.

CPC Campaigns Targeting First-Time Users Only:

Cost-per-click ads designed to reach and convert users who had never ordered from the brand before.

We used Revly's automated ad scheduler to target delivery times for breakfast and lunch delivery times as these we're matched their existing menu.

Initial Results

After 30 days, our campaigns had driven only 120 new customers, meaning we had achieved 40% of our 300-customer target.

Performance by Campaign:

• 20% Off Discount: Delivered the majority of results, accounting for 68 new customers.
• GEMS on Talabat: Attracted 30 new customers, with strong engagement in app-heavy areas but slower conversion in other locations.
• CPC Campaigns: Generated 22 new customers, with uneven performance based on location and targeting.

Location-Specific Insights on Talabat:

• Some locations outperformed others, contributing 20-30 new customers. Other locations, however, lagged behind, contributing just 5 new customers. Find this information take just a few seconds with Revly.

After 30 days we were behind on our new customer acquisition target for our campaigns but by looking closely at the performance we were able to formulate an optimization plan too drive higher performance over the following month.

Especially in terms of delivery area optimization on Talabat.

Without focusing on our key metrics and having the data at hand to understand performance, our next steps would have been mostly guess work.

How we used Revly to optimize

We reviewed the campaign data in detail with Revly's Compare Offers tool and general reporting dashboards and made key adjustments:

Adjusted time slot targeting:

• Shifted ad spend from evenly split between breakfast and lunch to a 80/20 split targeting breakfast as a priority. We could see from the performance data our ads were getting more new users during breakfast compared to lunch. Learn more about day parting here.

Optimized our discounting campaign by location:

• From the data we could see our discount campaign was working well in all but one delivery location where the discount was actually lowering our new user acquisition.
• Armed with this insight we turned off the discount campaign for this location and re-routed the budget into the other locations.

What Changed After Optimization (30-60 Days)

After implementing these changes, the next 30 days showed dramatic improvement. From day 30 to day 60, the optimized campaigns drove 202 new customers, taking our total to 322 new customers, exceeding the original goal of 300.

Campaign Breakdown:

• 20% Off Discount: Continued to lead the way, now accounting for 101 new customers in total.
• GEMS on Talabat: Held steady with 29 new customers in the second month.
• CPC Campaigns: Delivered 72 more new customers, with refined targeting boosting conversions in our already high performing areas.

Now it's your turn

I hope you can see the potential of the GTO Framework for your restaurant and delivery marketing strategy.

Yes, it takes effort to set clear goals, track the right metrics, and optimize your campaigns.

But with this framework, you already know ahead of time that your hard work is targeted, data-driven, and designed to deliver results—no more guessing or hoping something sticks.

Contact us to learn more.