Decoding UAE
Restaurant Marketing Strategy for December 2022

The UAE has a vibrant fine dining and gourmet culture, and with that comes a lot of competition for the attention of consumers. To Standout from the crowd and attract diners, restaurants are using various marketing strategies to promote their brand.

While some restaurants are using Google AdWords campaigns to promote their special events; others are creating Facebook ads that target specific demographics with relevant content; whereas some still rely on Instagram to get their message out there. But regardless of how they’re promoting themselves online, one thing is certain: Digital marketing war is going to get more intense in 2023

In this article, we will dive deep into the digital paid Ads marketing strategies used by major UAE restaurants in the month of December 2022. We analyzed the following four restaurants:

1. Soho Garden DXB
2. Wagamama UAE
3. Asia Asia (Pier 7) Dubai
4. Zafran Dubai

Disclaimer: This data is gathered from public sources and tools available on the internet.

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Website Traffic Distribution

We did an in-depth analysis of the traffic each restaurant is getting on their website and Soho Garden DXB has received the most traffic in the last three months, with Wagamama and Asia-Asia not far behind.

Below is the monthly distribution of traffic, in other words, how much traffic each individual outlet has been getting. All outlets except Asia-Asia saw their traffic numbers drop in Oct. The drop in traffic was most likely due to a decrease in Ads spent. However, we believe this is a temporary dip; as time goes on, Soho Garden DXB will see its numbers rise again.

Website Traffic Behavior

When we broke down our analysis into the details, it became clear that Wagamama generated less traffic than Soho DXB and Asia-Asia—but their users had a higher engagement with their site.
This may be because the audience coming to Wagamama website is more relevant or interested.

Takeaways from Wagamama Website Audience:

– Average user on the Wagamama website is spending 2.33 minutes on the website
– Each Wagamama website user is visiting at least 3.03 pages on the website
– Bounce rate of Wagamama restaurant is 29.8% which is well above the industry standard.

Google Ads Targeting

Strangely, Soho Garden & Asia-Asia is the only one of these restaurants that’s running Google Ads.

Google Ads are an opportunity no business can afford to pass up—after all, it’s intent-based marketing! So if you intend a sushi dinner tonight, you’re likely going to go looking for places that serve sushi in your area on Google (before ending up at any restaurant).

Soho Garden Dubai Ads

Feedback:
The Soho Garden DXB is only running one ad, which targets the brand keyword “Soho Garden Dubai”. The company is missing out on a lot of relevant traffic by not targeting generic keywords like “restaurants near palm Jumeirah” or “live music restaurants Dubai.”
Below list of generic keywords will give you an idea of missed opportunities:

Soho Garden Google Ad: Soho Garden targetted only one keyword “Soho Garden Dubai”, the estimated cost per click is $0.25, as said before, there’s still a lot of untapped opportunity for Soho and the rest of the outlets in our comp-set

Asia-Asia Google Ads

When it comes to Asia-Asia, they are targeting the brand keywords as well as the Generic keywords like “rooftop Dubai Marina”
Feedback: The traffic share for generic keywords is low (5.59%), but it’s better than nothing, and compared to the rest of our test group at least they are making some effort with these terms.
The brand keywords are doing well, but they could be doing even better.
The most important thing to note is that they have only 14% of the traffic share for these keywords, which means there is still plenty of room for growth.

Social Media Ads

In this section, we will drill-down on the ads run by all 4 outlets in December, 2022. We will share what they’re doing well and how it can be improved.

Zafran Indian Bistro

Zafran Indian Bistro serves up some of the best Indian food around, and it’s a place everybody should try at least once. The food is fresh and flavorful, the service is excellent and the atmosphere is warm.
If you’re looking for a great place to get together with friends or family, you should definitely give Zafran Indian Bistro a try.
Coming back to our analysis:

1. Zafran was running 12 ads on Meta (Facebook & Instagram) in Dec. 2022.
2. Out of the 12 ads, are in Arabic, and the rest are in English.
   3. Placement targets for the ads are – Instagram, Send Message, Facebook, and Audience networkOptimization Ideas:
   1. Zafran is not sending any traffic to its own website, the traffic is going to its food delivery partner (chatfood.io/). In case they want to remarket on the traffic, they are getting from the Ads, it will not be possible to do it, because Zafran restaurant doesn’t hold that data
   2. If Zafran can start an ad campaign that is targeted specifically towards Indians living in the United Arab Emirates, it will probably attract a more powerful and dedicated audience
   3. Zafran restaurant website doesn’t have a booking widget on their website, which is a big miss-out.
      

      Asia Asia (Pier 7 Dubai)

      Asia-Asia, Inspired by the ancient Spice Route, the multi-award-winning Asia Asia restaurant with a spectacular view of the Dubai water canal was running 4 ads over the Meta network (Facebook & Instagram). Optimization Ideas:

      1. All 4 ads are using the same creative and text, it’s best practice to edit each ad as per the platform requirement: for instance, IG stories vs. IG reels
      2. The Landing page of the Ad (The website page when you click on the “Book Now” button) doesn’t have the UTM parameters, without adding UTM parameters, the business will not know how much traffic the ads are getting, how the people coming through this ads are behaving – which page they enter, from where they drop-off, and most importantly how to show them the ads again in case they don’t book this time.
         

         Soho Garden Palm DXB

         oho was running 6 different ads in December, mainly promoting their special DJs for the new year’s Eve event at Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah.
         Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah was another outlet under the Soho Garden domain, which was aggressively doing the ads in December month, they ran in-total 32 Ads, from 6th Dec. onwards
         We analyzed the Ads of both accounts, Soho Garden Palm, and Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah.
         Optimization Ideas:

         1. There’s no dedicated page created for the event, and neither information about it is available on this website. If a person clicks on an Ad, they’re taken to a booking page with no details of what’s happening on that day. Not great!
         2. There are no UTM parameters added to the Ad URL for Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah, without adding UTM parameters, the business will not know how much traffic the ads are getting, which page they enter, or from where they drop-off.
         3. Some of the Ads from Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah were without any text or CTA’s, you will be able to find them in the screenshots below
         4. One of the Ad creatives from Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah, had too much text and was not optimized as per device and platform (Desktop, Mobile)

         

         

         

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         Wagamama UAE

         We found two below ads from Wagamama UAE account, both ads started in mid of December and Instagram as the chosen placement.

         Optimization Ideas:

         1. The Ad text could be better The first Ad, started on 12th Dec, is using the carousel format, the ad creative of the ad could be more engaging
         2. The Ad is running only on the Instagram platform, facebook and its audience network should also be targeted for audience over 30 years of age
            

            Conclusion

            In conclusion, the best approach for a business will depend on its target audience, budget, and marketing goals. By carefully considering these factors and conducting market research, businesses can make informed decisions about the most effective marketing strategies for their needs.

            We hope our analysis helped you! Let us know if you have any specific questions or need more information.

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