Marketing on Talabat vs. Deliveroo vs. Careem vs. Noon in the UAE: Food Delivery Apps Compared

The UAE food delivery market is dominated by four aggregator platforms: Talabat, Deliveroo, Careem and Noon.

Most restaurants operating at scale, or trying to get the highest reach (which is the majority of the market), will have a presence on all four apps. However, it's important to note there are many successful, and profitable, food delivery businesses in the UAE who choose to operate on only one app.

Whether you're operating on one, or all four, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each platform is a key part of building a successful growth strategy in what is an extremely competitive market.

All delivery apps have self-serve marketing options for both visibility (CPC ads) and promotions; but the size, audience and specific marketing features vary widely between them. This is exactly what we will explore in this post.

Using years of experience from delivery apps pros I'll break down the strengths, weaknesses, and use cases of each major UAE food delivery platform so you can build a more successful, and profitable, delivery app strategy.

Your Blueprint for Success: How to Think About Comparing Food Delivery Apps

Delivery apps advance at a rapid pace. New features are constantly being released and changes made to the vendor portal.

However, even though features change, using the following framework will always be useful as you build a strategy.

Here's the methodology we use to assess food delivery apps.

In general you want to assess delivery apps using the following criteria:

Ad formats available - Where can your ads show, targeting options for delivery areas, targeting options for new vs returning customers, targeting options for time of day

Discount tools - What types of discount can you run - full menu, item discounts, bundles promotions. Are there joinable app campaigns running? Same targeting rules apply for discounting.

Audience type - Size of audience and how price sensitive they are.

Average ROAS - The key metric in determining success on any given delivery app. ROAS varies by cuisine type, location and menu.

Analytics - What performance metrics are available, how hard is calculating profit, ease of data-driven decision making.

Assessing marketing on delivery apps in these terms will always be a useful set of criteria when building a food delivery marketing strategy.

Let's take a look at each platform in more detail.

Talabat: High Volume, High Competition

Talabat is the largest player in the UAE by GMV and order share. It's estimated that Talabat has between 60%-70% market and order share across the country making it by far the biggest delivery app overall.

In the UAE, Talabat has twenty thousand plus restaurants on the platform.

For most restaurants having a presence on Talabat is a must due to the scale and potential amount of customers you can reach.

In addition to this, Talabat probably has the most advanced set of marketing options and analytics for restaurants amongst all the four apps mentioned in this article.

In general Talabat can be characterized as:

• High visibility and broad audience reach
• More marketing options: CPC + discounting
• Great for volume-based growth and new user acquisition
• Highly competitive during peak hours
• Lower ROAS if campaigns aren't optimized

Competition is fierce on Talabat especially in high volume areas like Business Bay, JLT and Motor City but there is also huge potential. If you are starting out, be prepared to invest heavily in initial visibility and promotion strategies.

Brands with wide appeal think burgers, pizza, Arabic are extremely popular on Talabat with users ordering from these cuisine types on a massive scale. In case you were wondering, McDonald's is the most popular brand on Talabat.

Marketing on Talabat

Talabat has the standard set of marketing features that are comparable across all the delivery apps i.e., CPC visibility campaigns, full menu discounts as well as item level discounts.

Getting started with Talabat marketing is easy. If you need help, follow this guide here.

Unique Features of Talabat Marketing

Talabat has a number of unique marketing features restaurants should be aware of, and capitalize on, depending on the goal.

Target delivery areas with CPC ads - not available in other platforms this gives you the ability to target individual delivery areas. This is a great optimization strategy especially as you spend more. Target the delivery areas where performance is best and don't waste ad budget in areas that aren't performing so well.

The main challenge is knowing which areas to target as Talabat doesn't provide a great way to see the performance of all your delivery areas. This is solved by a tool like Revly which breaks down performance by delivery area so you know which areas to include and which to exclude.

Joinable in-app campaigns - Talabat runs joinable in-app campaigns usually based around heavy discounting. This type of campaign must be used strategically when you're trying to reach certain goals otherwise you risk operating at a loss. Great for driving top line revenue and new user acquisition these campaigns are highly effective but at the expense of profitability. Make sure you are calculating contribution margin in order to understand the profitability and true performance of this type of campaign.

Gems - Gems are a Talabat only feature made for driving new customer acquisition. Again only appropriate for certain marketing goals ie. new customer acquisition, Gems also involve discounting.

Lack of day parting - This one is a big one and probably the biggest drawback of Talabat ads when it comes to marketing. You cannot natively schedule ads to run at certain times, for example breakfast only.

This key concept in delivery app optimization at the moment requires a 100% stop start approach or the use of a delivery app marketing platform.

Optimizing for meal period can increase ROAS by up to 100% so it's something every restaurant should be looking at on Talabat.

When you create a CPC campaign in Revly on Talabat you have a lot more control over the campaign and how it spends your budget.

You can increase bids for just certain days of the week.

Or you can also increase bids during pre-defined meal periods

Either way you have much more granular control over how your ads run. Highly recommended for those operating on Talabat.

Deliveroo: Premium Audience, Efficient Spend

Deliveroo is the second-largest food delivery app in the UAE but serves a very different segment compared to Talabat.

While it has a smaller user base, Deliveroo has some of the highest AOV (average order value) and one of the most efficient ROAS profiles across all platforms.

It's estimated that Deliveroo holds between 10%–15% market share in the UAE, with strength concentrated in premium locations like Dubai Marina, DIFC, and Downtown Dubai.

For many premium or niche restaurants, Deliveroo isn't just an add-on, it's their best-performing platform.

In general, Deliveroo can be characterized as:

• Smaller but high-value audience
• Lower competition for ad placements
• Higher ROAS for optimized campaigns
• Strong for premium and niche brands
• Less aggressive discounting culture

The customer base on Deliveroo tends to skew more affluent, brand-conscious, and selective. Categories like healthy, premium burgers, sushi, and artisanal pizza tend to do especially well.

If your brand positioning is more quality than quantity, Deliveroo is likely where you'll see the strongest returns on ad spend.

Unique Features of Deliveroo Marketing

Deliveroo's has full set of marketing features, including very easy to use offer campaigns, to help restaurants meet their marketing goals. It's worth noting that whilst Deliveroo has more control over campaigns - of the big two apps, Talabat has slightly better reporting options.

Lots of offer options - As you can see in the image above, Deliveroo has lots of great ways to customize offer campaigns giving you ability to test different approaches and see what works best your brands. These include: free delivery, BOGOF, Free items, Basket discounts and Item discounts. This is the most comprehensive set of offer campaigns for restaurants.

More stable CPC environment – Because Deliveroo has fewer advertisers, CPC rates are often more stable and efficient than on Talabat. This means you can run visibility ads with better consistency—especially during lunch and dinner peaks.

No delivery area targeting – Unlike Talabat, Deliveroo does not allow targeting by delivery zone. This limits campaign precision, especially for multi-branch brands. It's just a fact of life unfortunately.

Joinable in-app campaigns – Deliveroo also runs app-wide discount campaigns such as Tasty Thursday which is 30% off capped at 30 AED. These types of campaign are great for top line revenue goals but as always look out for profitability.

Limited analytics granularity – You won't get visibility into performance by delivery area or time of day. That makes campaign refinement harder without a third-party tool like Revly that connects your sales and ad data. In addition a lot of the reporting is time limited and has to be downloaded in order to view.

Customize CPC ads with boosting – Deliveroo provides some features to target your audience like boosting bids by hour or day and also boosting bids by audience type. These day parting and targeting features can have a huge impact on overall ROAS.

Use a platform like Revly to get even more control:

• Run ads only in high converting times, (not just adjust bids)
• Target multiple time periods at the same time.
• Easily see the performance in a single dashboard.

For brands focused on premium customers and margin, Deliveroo is a smart platform to invest in. If your offering aligns with their premium audience, and you're willing to optimize manually or with the right tools, performance can outpace any other app.

Learn more about Deliveroo optimization here

Careem: Discount-Driven Growth

Careem is a growing player in the UAE food delivery market, known for its aggressive discount-led strategy.

For example they have recently released a feature called Meals:ON which provides meals for one person for 29 aed or less.

While its market share is smaller than Talabat or Deliveroo, Careem is highly competitive amongst price-sensitive residents and is estimated to hold around 5% - 10% of the UAE delivery app market.

For value-focused restaurants, Careem is a strong growth platform, if you understand how to use offers strategically.

In general, Careem can be characterized as:

• Highly price-sensitive audience
• No CPC ads—only discount-based campaigns
• Strong performance for biryani, Indian, Pakistani, shawarma, and combo-based meals
• High visibility during app-wide discount events
• Risk of margin erosion if offers are poorly managed

Careem can drive serious volume, but only if you're deliberate about your discounting strategy.

Marketing on Careem

Careem's entire marketing ecosystem is based on discount campaigns.

You can run:

• Full menu % discounts
• Item-level discounts
• Bundles and set meal promotions

There are no CPC or visibility-based ad formats on Careem. Performance is entirely tied to how attractive your offer appears in the app and to certain extent organic performance.

If you're not running any discount, your store will get less visibility and consequently many restaurants choose to run always on discounting on Careem.

Unique Features of Careem Marketing

Offer-first platform layout – Nearly every user interaction in the Careem app is geared around deals. From homepage banners to category pages, stores with active offers are prioritized.

No CPC campaigns – Unlike Talabat or Deliveroo, Careem does not offer any CPC-based visibility tools. All performance is driven by offers. This makes Careem the only delivery app that does not offer pay-per-click visibility as a feature.

Joinable in-app promotions – Careem frequently launches major discount campaigns—such as "50% Off Week" or "Daily Deals." These campaigns can drive high traffic, but participation requires deep discounting, which may not be profitable without careful margin tracking.

No scheduling or geo targeting – Careem does not support time-based ad scheduling or delivery area targeting. Discounts run all day, every day, unless manually adjusted. This makes it harder to optimize spend by meal period unless you're using an external tool.

Platforms like Revly help Careem restaurants:

• Monitor performance by day and time
• Track contribution margin in real time
• Enable stop/start discount management for better control

Careem is not a set-it-and-forget-it channel. You must treat it like a tactical volume driver—perfect for top-line growth, but only if you're watching your costs.

Restaurants that treat Careem as a margin lever—not just a volume play—tend to win.

Noon Food: Small Platform, Serious Potential

Noon Food is the smallest of the four major delivery platforms in the UAE. Never-the-less the platform has a solid set of marketing features for restaurants.

Restaurants that take Noon seriously often find it a quiet winner, especially when looking to drive cost-effective visibility and test new marketing strategies.

Noon is estimated to hold less than 5% of the delivery market in the UAE, but despite the smaller footprint, Noon offers CPC ads, flexible discounts, and even a retention feature - making it a highly underrated delivery channel.

In general, Noon Food can be characterized as:

• Low volume, low competition
• CPC ads with manual bid control
• Discounting with basic scheduling tools
• Loyalty rewards for retention
• Surprisingly strong marketing stack for its size

For restaurants willing to experiment, Noon can deliver high ROAS with relatively low effort but expect overall volumes to be much lower.

Marketing on Noon Food

Noon provides three core marketing levers:

CPC Ads – You can launch visibility campaigns and set your own bid amount. There's no time scheduling or delivery area targeting, but bids can be adjusted based on performance.

Discounts – Noon allows both item-level and full-menu discounts, as well discounts based on order value. Discounts can be scheduled to run on certain days making it easier to align with your meal times or slower periods. This is a step up from platforms like Talabat and Careem, which don't allow discount scheduling.

Rewards – Noon recently launched a built-in loyalty feature. Customers receive a reward if they place three or more orders from the same restaurant. It's a retention tool built into the app experience, useful for increasing repeat orders without spending more on acquisition.

Unique Features of Noon Food Marketing

Strong toolset for a small platform – Noon punches above its weight when it comes to marketing features. CPC + discounting + loyalty gives you flexibility that even bigger platforms don't always offer.

Manual CPC bidding – While you can't schedule or target Noon ads, you can set bid amounts per campaign. Unfortunately you can't adjust bids by the hour or schedule ads.

Scheduled discounts – Unlike Talabat, Noon allows you to run discounts only during selected days or meal periods. This makes it easier to align promotions with your menu type or known slow hours.

Built-in loyalty rewards – The new rewards feature is a first among UAE food delivery apps. It incentivizes repeat orders directly in the app with no extra cost to the restaurant.

Limited analytics – Noon's reporting is still fairly basic but still surfaces a lot of useful information. You won't get detailed breakdowns or trends by time, location, or audience.

Noon isn't the platform to rely on for scale—but that's not the point.

It's a smart addition to your mix if you're looking to:

• Gain low-cost visibility
• Drive incremental orders
• Build retention without spending extra

With the right approach, Noon can quietly become one of your most efficient platforms.

A Word on Analytics

As performance marketing becomes a larger part of the overall marketing mix for restaurants, access to detailed performance reporting is becoming more vital to the restaurant industry as a whole.

Detailed performance reports unlock optimization strategies that drive success on delivery apps. The four big delivery apps in the UAE provide a range of different metrics all of a similar flavour but also delivered to restaurants in different formats and dashboards.

What restaurants really lack is a way to see their performance over time and also to combine all their performance metrics for each app in a single place. Doing so unlocks a holistic view of marketing spend and allows much, much better decision making.

This is exactly what Revly does for restaurants. It brings all the app data together into a single place so restaurants can make informed decisions based on data about how they spend their marketing budget.

Key Takeaways for UAE Food Delivery Success

Understanding the unique characteristics of each platform is crucial for developing effective strategies. Whether you're looking to rank higher on UAE's food delivery apps or explore restaurant promotion ideas, conducting a marketing-focused competitor analysis will help you identify the best opportunities for your restaurant's growth strategy.

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